By Vladimir Frolov
The Moscow Times
Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government-relations and PR company.
Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets in Moldova and Georgia last week to demand the ouster of the sitting president, and the Ukrainian presidential election will be held on Oct. 25. Against this backdrop, the Kremlin is facing the first real test of its institutional capacity to affect political outcomes in its backyard.
So far it is passing the test.
Contrary to some reports, the Kremlin's strategy in Moldova is working to achieve its strategic objective of securing Moldova's non-NATO status and to become the ultimate arbiter and enforcer of the final settlement to the decade-long Transdnestr conflict.
Moscow in the past three years has applied a masterful array of economic and political measures in Moldova — as well as its rout of Georgia in the five-day war — that made Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and separatist Transdnestr leader Igor Smirnov accept Moscow's leadership role in Moldova.
As a result, Russia's show of strength has proven effective in securing Voronin's geopolitical turnaround and his pledge not to seek NATO membership. The recent opposition street riots in Chisinau, shrouded in Romanian flags, help draw Voronin much closer into the Russian orbit and serve to further marginalize pro-Western opposition groups as "enemies of Moldovan independent statehood." The Kremlin quickly recognized the importance of Voronin's regime to Russia's interests and worked hard to deny support to those who might challenge him from the West. It was successful.
In Georgia, Moscow is providing nonintrusive, soft-power support such as extensive media coverage to the array of opposition groups that seek to dethrone Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. The Kremlin is fully aware that Georgian opposition is hardly pro-Russian, but it is working with what there is to work with on the assumption that virtually any new Georgian leader would be a major improvement for Russia. Moscow is also detecting hopeful signs of Saakashvili fatigue in Washington.
With the Ukraine presidential election scheduled to occur in six months, Moscow has no preferred candidate among the two most likely to reach the second round — Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych. It will not repeat the mistakes of its 2004 embrace of Yanukovych. The message from the Kremlin is: "We support pro-Russian positions, not candidates, and we will judge by deeds, not campaign promises." This is another smart policy.
13 April 2009 — Return to cover.
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