Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The Kremlin is working to put up barriers to restrict the entry of citizens of “hostile states”, raising the threat of a new iron curtain in eastern Europe.
“A presidential decree will introduce a number of restrictions on entry into the territory of Russia,” said Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, in a speech broadcast by the state television channel Rossiya-24 on Monday.
For Michel Fortmann, honorary professor in the department of political science at the University of Montreal and researcher at the Center for International Studies and Research (CERIUM), the gap between Russia and the Western world risks widening further, a phenomenon whose we do not yet measure the magnitude or the long-term consequences.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MICHEL FORTMANN
Michel Fortmann, honorary professor in the political science department of the University of Montreal and researcher at the Center for International Studies and Research (CERIUM)
“The Western world now sees Russia as a pariah state,” he says.
It’s worse than during the Cold War, because even then, there was dialogue in several areas, there were strategic negotiations, we signed treaties… Now, we don’t talk anymore, we insult each other.
Michel Fortmann, researcher at the Center for International Studies and Research at the University of Montreal
Both politically and in the media, Russia and the West live in two impermeable bubbles, he illustrates. “These are two visions of things that are completely incompatible. It is a cold war “more” which is announced. There is no indication of a softening of the Russian stance at this time. »
A reality that adds to geopolitical tensions between China and the West, and which could be difficult to manage for the United States, wrote Monday in Foreign Policy Mathew Burrows, Director of the Scowcroft Strategic Initiative at the Atlantic Council Expert Group.
“A new two-pronged Cold War would result in much higher military spending, great uncertainty weighing on the global economy, and a diversion from the Biden administration’s fundamental goal of rebuilding the United States,” he said. he wrote.
A Russia “closed in on itself”
Moscow’s declarations are also reacting in neighboring countries. On Monday, a senior government official in Kazakhstan expressed concern over the Kremlin’s latest guidance.
The German newspaper Die Welt quoted Roman Vassilenko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, who said that his country did not want to be on the wrong side of a new “iron curtain”, an expression which referred to the demarcation between Eastern Europe Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War, symbolized in particular by the Berlin Wall, which divided the German capital for nearly 35 years.
Luca Sollaï, lecturer in the history department of the University of Montreal, believes that a return to some form of separation between Russia and neighboring countries is inevitable.
It may not be a precise line like in the Cold War era, but there are going to be states that are going to have to be neutral, or that are going to have to adopt the policy of the Kremlin. We will see Russia closing in on itself.
Luca Sollaï, lecturer in the history department of the University of Montreal
As a direct result of the invasion, NATO has already announced its intention to strengthen its military presence by sending additional ships, planes and troops to eastern and southeastern Europe. “The military presence will be increased, that’s clear. We have just entered a new era. »
Russia’s last independent newspaper suspends operations
Novaya Gazeta, seen as Russia’s last independent media outlet, and whose editor-in-chief won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, announced Monday it was suspending publication until Moscow’s military action ends in Ukraine. “It’s a terrible and difficult decision,” said editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov, according to Agence France-Presse. The newspaper said it made the choice after receiving two warnings from the government organization that regulates the media industry in Russia, and which has the power to revoke a newspaper’s operating license or a television station. Novaya Gazeta had recently published uncensored reports on the war in Ukraine and decried the “avalanche of propaganda” in Russian state media. Since 2000, six of the journalists and collaborators of Novaya Gazeta have been killed in Russia in the course of their work, including investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of Vladimir Putin. “The last independent media established in Russia have gone silent,” Steve Rosenberg, Russia editor at BBC News, said on Twitter on Monday.