The main recipe is to make the “example of a successful Ukraine” a model of Russia’s transformation
A group of deputies has been formed in the European Parliament that aims to “return Russia to the rails of democratic European development”. Lithuanian conservative Andrius Kubilius is considered to be the leader of this group. He himself says that “there is an alliance of like-minded people in which the first violins are objectively played by the envoys of Lithuania and Poland as representatives of geopolitically active states, who understand the most slightest manoeuvres of the President of Russia better than the European Union and NATO.”
Poland will preside over the EU in 2025, Lithuania in 2027, and Latvia in 2028. By this time, according to Warsaw’s representative to the EU legislature, Anna Fotyga, a Brussels ally of Kubilius, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will leave the political arena, and French President Emmanuel Macron will strengthen in the chair of the continental leader. As a result, Fotyga assures, Warsaw will finally become the No. 5 capital in the European Union. A window of opportunities for making important strategic decisions will appear. In order to use it with maximum efficiency, there is a need for “a long-term strategy of the West towards the Russian Federation, the appearance of which is very feared in the Kremlin, where they are satisfied with short-term initiatives – dialogue and ideas of bilateral partnership”. However, such a policy of Moscow helps it to breakthrough the solidarity of Western isolation, which Russia managed to do in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where the delegation of Russia triumphantly returned.
What exactly does Kubilius’ group propose? The plan of these Euro-parliamentarians includes three steps: deterrence, containment, transformation. We will touch on the first two steps in passing, but we will talk in more detail about the last one.
The first stage involves the detection of military threats from Russia by NATO forces or US Army military facilities located on the continent. The European Union would do well to follow the United States and, just as the United States did in 2017, to identify “Russia and China as the biggest security challenges”. Then “deterrence” will be the goal of the European Union’s policy for Europeans.
At the second stage, resistance to hybrid threats from the Kremlin should be organized, preventing the “occupation of minds and hearts”. It is intended to exclude interference in elections and manipulation of political party programs, including for money. In order to deter “aggressive international black accounting”, former member of the European Parliament Mrs Fotyga proposes to use NATO’s capabilities again.
Finally, the third step: it is necessary not only to defend against “aggressive Russia”, but also to think about how to help it become a European-type state. “Such a transformation is the only opportunity to avoid threats”, writes Kubilius. “Two points should help Russians: the example of a successful Ukraine and a clear signal from the West about what relations between Russia and Europe may look like over time, what configuration to acquire, and how warming ties will prove useful to Russia.”
After broadcasting such statements, the member of the European Parliament from Lithuania starts to repeat himself. He expresses dissatisfaction that the leaders of the European Union are silent when it comes to the deep integration of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. Kubilius criticises the Berlin government, which seeks to expand the European Union at the expense of the Balkans by developing the 2014 Berlin Process program. Germans are supported by the French, Italians, Austrians, and Slovenes, who are skeptical of the chances of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine becoming EU members. For example, they categorically say about Ukraine: “Either Bandera or the European Union”. It is impossible to offer such a dilemma, said the Euro-deputy from Lithuania, when it comes to allied countries supporting Brussels against Moscow and resisting its imperial ambitions.
“A Berlin Process 2.0 is necessary, it would become attractive for our friends in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. The deputies of the European Parliament from Lithuania and Poland should concentrate on achieving this goal,” says Kubilius, regret that Vilnius and Warsaw, themselves without a long-term geopolitical strategy, “cannot fully use the potential of geopolitical leaders”.
Who is he, this Andrius Kubilius, who was always called the “Kubik” behind his back, and his numerous political projects – kubilisms?
In Lithuania Kubilius is known as a signatory of the Act of Independence from March 11th 1990, one of the founders of the right-conservative party “The Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats”, permanent (since 1990) deputy of the Seimas, and two-time Prime Minister (1999-2000 and 2008-2012). At the turn of the century his cabinet pursued a course of liberal reforms that led to the impoverishment of the population and Kubilius fleeing abroad. In 2008 he was again called into the chair of the Head of Government as an “anti-crisis manager”.
11 years later, the citizens of Lithuania remember the “nighttime economic reform” of Kubilius, as a result of which wages were frozen, pensions were cut, and prices for food, goods of mass demand and housing services increased. By the way, pensions and salaries of certain categories of civil servants in Lithuania have not yet been returned to the pre-crisis level. Dalia Grybauskaitė back then rightly noted: “The government of Kubilius transferred responsibility for overcoming the crisis to the shoulders of the poor and pensioners”. However, Kubilius doesn’t care about criticism, because he gained the reputation of a “crisis specialist”. In 2015 Poroshenko invited him to Kiev to work in a team of foreign advisers to “help implement reforms”.
After that, the political loser failed to become the first in the party, parliament, or the government of Lithuania. The European Union quietly went silent about the “New Marshall Plan” of Kubilius for Ukraine, and he received no support.
In May 2019 Andrius Kubilius left for the European Parliament. He is afraid of the prospect of a revival of Russia within the borders of the USSR and, in order to ward off this mirage from the nightmares of the limitrophes, Kubilius recommends to colleagues in the European Parliament another kubilism – to make the “example of a successful Ukraine” a model for the transformation of Russia. I.e., to work on the dismemberment and collapse of Russia. This is what our “Kubik” calls “Russia’s return to democratic European development”.
Anatoly Ivanov, FONDSK
Copyright © 2022. All Rights Reserved.