Putin looks back to the future

What future does Vladimir Putin imagine for Russia? That’s been a crucial question for those in Europe and the United States who want to know what he might want in exchange for peace with Ukraine. A leaked Russian government report offers a few possible answers.

According to theFinancial Times, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin presented a report last April to several dozen senior government officials and the heads of some of Russia’s largest state-owned companies that suggests the Kremlin hopes to create a “macro region” with Moscow as its center. This bloc would become a financial, trade, and transport network and political sphere of influence that includes much of the territory of the former Soviet Union.

Russian leadership of this bloc would allow the Kremlin to promote a common worldview among members and to set rules, standards, and sanction policies of its own. The establishment of this new bloc, which would be financed largely through trade in raw materials with the global south, would allow Russia to act as a global power on par with the United States, China, and the EU.

The report acknowledges that Western sanctions have limited Russia’s ability to realize this vision and that Moscow must look beyond the war in Ukraine to play a “long game.” It does not consider the possibility that the unwillingness of Russia’s neighbors to return to their former roles as Russian satellites might prove a greater obstacle to Russia’s renewal than Western sanctions have. Nor does it make clear how Russia intends to establish itself as an international peer to countries with far larger and more dynamic economies.