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Russia needs to stop clinging to the idea of reviving the Soviet Union, Ukraine ambassador says
"Russia needs to reinvent itself as a modern state," Vsevolod Chentsov, the Ukrainian ambassador to the EU, told CNBC Tuesday.
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BRUSSELS — Russia needs to move forward in the world and stop dreaming about reconstructing the Soviet Union, a prominent Ukrainian diplomat has told CNBC as tensions with Moscow escalate.
“Russia needs to reinvent itself as a modern state and stop clinching to the, let’s say, idea of the reconstruction of the Soviet Union,” Vsevolod Chentsov, the Ukrainian ambassador to the EU, told CNBC Tuesday.
“It’s already gone,” he said regarding the Soviet bloc which collapsed in 1991.
Relations between the Kremlin and its European counterparts hit a low in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. And it has supported a pro-Russian uprising in the east of the country where low-level fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian troops has continued ever since.
Now, U.S. officials are warning that Russia could be weighing a potential invasion of the former Soviet republic Ukraine, with the Kremlin moving 100,000 troops close to the border. Geopolitical analysts suggest that Moscow’s actions, and any incursion, would be an attempt to boost Russian influence in other parts of the region.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney told NBC on Sunday that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to reestablish a “type of Soviet Union” and “that can’t be allowed to happen.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made no bones about the fact that he thinks the breakup of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe for Russia, once describing it as the “greatest geopolitical tragedy” of the 20th century.
Evolution of the EU position
Other experts suggest that the Kremlin is instead trying to destabilize the European Union, the 27-member bloc that it shares several borders with. Chentsov, who works closely with Brussels, said that if this is Putin’s plan, then it is not working.
“There is more unity among the member states and more understanding of Russian actions,” he told CNBC.