Opinion from Baku: 'Situation in Ukraine is going according to plan … but not Putin's’

Political scientist Shahin Jafarli comments on new geopolitical realities

At a meeting of the leaders of the CSTO member states, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed giving the CIS observer status in this military bloc. Azerbaijan, although not a member of the CSTO, is part of the CIS. Political scientist Shahin Jafarli believes that Russia does not hide the desire to include Azerbaijan in the “renewed USSR”. In his opinion, in the geopolitical sense, perhaps everything is going according to plan, but Putin is not the author of this plan.

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Commenting on the results of the summit of the leaders of the member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the creation of this military bloc, Azerbaijani political scientist Shahin Jafarli said that it makes no sense to talk about the current state of this organization:

“Lukashenka’s statement alone is enough to assess the situation within the military bloc. The leader of Belarus said that if we don’t unite, we will be torn apart”.

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Jafarli clarifies that the words of Alexander Lukashenka, for the most part, refer only to Russia and Belarus, because. other members of the organization remain neutral in relation to Russia’s war of occupation, do not take part in hostilities and recognize the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

“Even Belarus has not yet recognized Crimea as a territory of Russia. This already shows how difficult it is for Russia to get support not only on a global scale, but even within the framework of a local military bloc headed by itself.

The statement following the summit also did not voice support for Russian aggression in Ukraine.

The CSTO did not have the power of attraction before. The war in Ukraine, its primary results – the total isolation of Russia, heavy economic sanctions, another wave of NATO expansion wear out the military-strategic power of Russia. New realities further reduce interest in integrative institutions under the auspices of Moscow. And vice versa, there is a high probability of disintegration processes within the CSTO and the EAEU.

It is no secret that Russia intends to draw Azerbaijan into the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union. Perhaps if it were possible to create a union state with the participation of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, we and other former Soviet republics could be attracted there, in fact restoring the USSR.

Even the fact that a few hours before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia signed an allied cooperation agreement with Azerbaijan, showed what kind of political and psychological atmosphere reigns in the region, and how confident Putin was that he would be able to break Kyiv’s resistance in a short time. This was the result of a self-preservation instinct fueled by the Russian leader’s self-confidence.

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But the persistent resistance of Ukraine and the debunking of the myth of unprecedented power as the main instrument of Russia’s imperialist policy has created a new geopolitical reality in post-Soviet geography and throughout Europe. The war is still ongoing, but it is already clear that Russia will not be able to achieve the goals announced before the invasion.

If at the beginning of the war there was talk about the possibility of Ukrainian capitulation, today Russian ambassador to the United States, Antonov, feels the need to declare that Russia will never capitulate and Macron says Putin needs to save face.

Three months ago, Putin considered NATO expansion a casus belli (cause for war) and demanded in an ultimatum that the alliance be returned to its 1997 borders. Today, Putin declares that the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO is not a threat to Russia.

Although Finland’s membership in NATO doubles the length of Russia’s borders with the alliance, and Sweden’s membership turns the Baltic Sea, over which Russia has waged wars for centuries, into a “NATO lake”.

Perhaps everything is going according to plan, but apparently, Putin is not the author of this plan”, said Shahin Jafarli.