RUSSIA'S DESIRED SPHERES OF INFLUENCE

1st Sphere

• Russia
• Belarus
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
• Uzbekistan
• Ukraine

2nd Sphere

• Georgia
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• Moldova

3rd. Sphere

• Estonia (NATO member)
• Latvia (NATO member)
• Lithuania (NATO member)

4th Sphere

• Bulgaria (NATO member)
• Czech Republic (NATO member)
• Slovakia (NATO member)
• Hungary (NATO member)
• Poland (NATO member)
• Romania (NATO member)

5th Sphere

• Albania (NATO member)
• Bosnia & Herzegovina
• Kosovo
• North Macedonia (NATO member)
• Montenegro (NATO member)
• Slovenia (NATO member)
• Serbia

Over the years, Moscow has established several regional and international organizations designed to promote closer cooperation and enhance Russia’s economic, foreign, and security objectives. Designed in some respects to mirror Western international institutions, the regional organizations the Kremlin has created have largely fallen short of expectations.

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

The CIS was established immediately upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The original members included 12 of the former republics of the Soviet Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan (associate member), Ukraine (associate member),and Uzbekistan. The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania declined the invitation to join. Georgia resigned after its 2008 war with Russia, and Ukraine quit the organization in 2014 after Russia seized Crimea and invaded Ukraine’s Donbas region. CIS headquarters was established in Minsk, Belarus. The CIS was charged with promoting cooperation on political, economic, military, and environmental policy and law enforcement. Attempts by Moscow to reintegrate the former Soviet republics have had only limited success. With the loss of Georgia, and particularly of Ukraine- the strongest economic and military power after Russia- the CIS has turned into a mechanism for post-imperial dissolution… Although the CIS has fallen short of Moscow’s expectations of maintaining a dominant role in the post-Soviet space, Russia has not abandoned its aspirations to pursue aggressive integration plans.

Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)

The Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union was signed by Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan on May 29, 2014, and entered into force on January 1, 2015. The EEU has since expanded to include Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. It has one observer-member (Moldova) and several free-trade partners (China, Iran, and Vietnam). Mongolia, Syria, and Tajikistan are being considered as prospective members.

The EEU grew out of a Customs Union among Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan that aimed to eliminate tariffs and non-tariff barriers and establish a common external tariff policy. The EEU was later developed in part as a response to the growing economic and political influence of the European Union (EU) and to prevent encroachment of the latter, as well as of China, into a market dominated by Russia.

The EEU has had some success in promoting Eurasian economic integration among the members, and the organization does enjoy broad support in all EEU countries. The organization, however, has gone through frequent trade disputes, not all of which have been settled in Moscow’s favor despite the Kremlin’s frequent heavy-handed attempts to dominate the proceedings of the EEU’s Commission and its court.

But for all its usefulness, the EEU has not become the center of power in Eurasia that Moscow had hoped would emerge. As China expands its role in the economic development of many of the member states of the EEU, Russia, as the leading power in the Union, finds it increasingly difficult to compete with its powerful neighbor to the east. Consequently, the EEU remains an unhappy union of coerced members and frequent trade spats.

Over the years there has been considerable discussion about establishing relations between the EU and the EEU, but they have failed to materialize. The attitude toward the EEU in the West is still based on the perception that this is an attempt to recreate the USSR. As a result, the EU refuses to start substantive negotiations with the EEU. Brussels considers it to be a Russian project that threatens the sovereignty of other countries. Despite its shortcomings, the EEU remains an effective tool for Russia to maintain its influence, particularly economic, in the other member states—and they, in all fairness, benefit as well. In some respects, the EEU can be compared to some former Soviet organizations in which Moscow dominated, but the periphery often benefited more than the center did.

Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so did the Warsaw Pact—the military and security alliance the Soviet Union established as a counter to NATO. Now the member states of that alliance, except for Russia, are members of NATO. Russia has lost its military allies (although many were reluctant allies at best) and is facing a strong and expanding military alliance to its west.

To create a collective defense system to support Russia and some of the newly independent states and to address new threats that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin created a new security alliance. On May 15, 1992, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan signed the Collective Security Treaty. Ten years later, on October 7, 2002, they institutionalized this arrangement by establishing the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The main tasks of the CSTO were the collective defense of the member states against internal and external threats, particularly international terrorism and extremism, illicit trafficking of drugs, weapons, organized transnational crime, illegal migration, and other threats that the member states identified. In 2005, the CSTO added “color revolutions” and hybrid war as new threats to the region.

Membership in the CSTO has fluctuated over time. Currently, its members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan, with Afghanistan and Serbia as non-member observers. Uzbekistan was a founding member of the CSTO but later quit as Tashkent became increasingly concerned over Moscow’s dominance of the organization. Azerbaijan and Georgia joined the CSTO after it was founded but subsequently left the organization. Ukraine—the most important state of the former Soviet Union from Russia’s perspective—refused to join the CSTO. This left a significant void in Russia’s effort to have an effective security pact that could serve its interests vis-à-vis the West and NATO.

The CSTO is frequently criticized in the West as being nothing more than a security instrument Russia wields to impose its hegemony over the post-Soviet space and to recreate, at least partially, the defense and security structure that existed during the Soviet Union. This is not a fully accurate assessment. Although it would be naive not to consider the CSTO as an important tool in Russia’s geopolitical machinations, particularly within its neighborhood, and that the other member states of the CSTO do not defer to Russia and see it as the dominant force managing the defense and security of the region, the “correlation of forces,” to use an old Soviet term, is not moving in Russia’s favor. Without a doubt, the CSTO has become an important multilateral defense and security structure under the Kremlin’s leadership and has strengthened Russia’s authority and capabilities with the other member states. Nevertheless, there are both internal and external challenges to the organization and especially serious divisions among its members that, despite Russian domination, restrict its effectiveness.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is worth mentioning because it is an important multilateral security organization, but it should not be characterized as a tool that Russia principally uses to manipulate its neighborhood and enhance its sphere of influence. Certainly, Russia is a major player in the SCO, but unlike the CSTO, Russia must compete with its principal partner, China, for authority and influence. In addition, both India and Pakistan are permanent members, together with the Central Asia states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, thereby making the SCO a more diverse organization. Furthermore, the SCO has four observer members: Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia, and six dialogue partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. This diversity inevitably precludes a strong, unified organization.

The SCO was established in Shanghai in 2001 and has both a security and an economic agenda. In the security realm, the goal is to promote military and counter-terrorism cooperation and intelligence sharing. In the economic arena, the CSTO focuses on trade and regional economic cooperation initiatives, such as supporting China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. The SCO supports cooperation on culture, education, energy, and transportation. The SCO has been plagued by chronic underfunding and has limited power to operate independently, often focusing on the agendas of the twin-engine driving forces of the organization—Russia and China—though they have different visions of the SCO.

Both Russia and China have hosted military “antiterrorism” exercises that have involved other members of the SCO. In 2019, Russia invited member states from both the SCO and the CSTO to participate in the Russian Armed Forces’ annual strategic operational exercise called Tsentr (Center) 2019, which was held on September 16–21, 2019, and included forces from China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.