A former chief adviser to the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says relations between Russia and the US are at their worst point since the Cuban missile crisis, which in 1962 brought the nuclear-armed superpowers to the brink of war.
Igor Yurgens, a liberal economist who now heads a think-tank in Moscow, told SBS News “it’s a very serious situation, worse in some ways than the Cold War.”
“We’re in a situation which reminds me of the Caribbean crisis of the 1960s when [Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita] Khrushchev and [US President John F] Kennedy were on the brink of nuclear conflict,” he said.
Video above: Russia-US relations 'worst since Cuban missile crisis'
Mr Yurgens, who was in Sydney to give an address at the Lowy Institute on Tuesday, said much of what happens next between the two nations would depend on the domestic policy direction taken by President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Putin was last month re-elected for a fourth six-year term despite weakening support from younger generations of Russians.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2017. Source: AFP/Getty Images
“It will depend largely on how he tackles this problem: either mobilisation for another Cold War - hopefully not a hot one - or modernisation and reform, and the recipes and strategies for this are being worked out by some people close to him,” Mr Yurgens said.
Today's tensions
Mr Yurgens’ comments came as Russia vetoed a US-drafted to investigate chemical weapons use in Syria following an alleged attack in rebel-held Douma on Saturday, with the US accusing Russia of having “the blood of Syrian children” on its hands. The US and Russian envoys traded threats of “repercussions”.
Tensions between the former Cold War enemies have steadily increased over a string of events including Russia’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine, the ensuing Western sanctions against Russian interests, and Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential elections.
Last month the US, UK, and more than 20 other countries including Australia, expelled Russian diplomats over the alleged chemical weapon poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in England.
In his Sydney address, Mr Yurgens, who was an adviser to Mr Medvedev while he was Russian President from 2008 to 2012, said the Skripal poisoning and the 2015 assassination of former opposition leader Boris Nemtsov were “tragic ... very, very serious blows to democratic development of the Russian Federation.”
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found collapsed on a bench in Salisbury, UK. Source: AAP
But he believed it was unlikely Mr Putin was responsible because it had caused global embarrassment for the Russian leader ahead of the World Cup. Instead, Mr Yurgens blamed what he called “deep state groups” within the government that strongly resist reform programs and any detente with the West.
Video below: 'Putin not behind Skripal poisoning'
Russia 'misunderstood' by some in West
Mr Yurgens was among a group of Mr Medvedev's advisers who publicly opposed Mr Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. But he said the narrative of Mr Putin leading Russian aggression that plays out in Western media is reversed in Russia.
“Russians view it 100 per cent the opposite,” he said. “They think it all started with the advance of NATO toward Russian borders, which was promised never to happen.”
Mr Yurgens said Mr Putin was a friend to the west early in his presidency, providing military support to the US, including access to Russian bases in Central Asia, following the September 11 attacks and the ensuing war on Afghanistan.
Igor Yurgens speaks to SBS News journalist Kelsey Munro. Source: SBS News
“But all of a sudden things went sour because one by one the new countries joining NATO and the EU announced they want bases and those bases were installed,” including in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic.
“So he felt deceived, he felt betrayed,” Mr Yurgens said.
The Russians also view the Ukrainian conflict quite differently, and blame the CIA for instigating the people’s revolution that led to the downfall of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych during the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, he said.
“So the perception is totally different, like in the First World War, Second World War. Who’s to blame? Both sides are to blame. So we have to stop here, start talking.”
Contextual differences
Other political commentators say there are important differences between the events of the past and today.
Dr Alexey Muraviev, a Russian strategic affairs expert from Western Australia's Curtin University, told SBS News there were several important differences between the current situation and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
The Cuban missile crisis involved a tense 13-day nuclear standoff after the Soviets installed nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba, about 150km from the US coast.
Dr Muraviev said the Russians did so in response to the US installation of nuclear missiles in Turkey, Italy and the UK.
“Overall, what marked the situation in 1962 was the sense of globality,” Dr Muraviev said, “confrontation was taking place simultaneously in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact around Berlin; in the Caribbean around Cuba; around Turkey and even as far as Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia which began implementing contingencies in Irian Jaya, and the Soviets were involved in that.
“So obviously now we don’t have the same sense of globality in terms of Russia confronting the United States.”
Modern fears
Dr Muraviev said there are heightened strategic tensions around the Baltic and Black Seas, and especially in Syria, where US and Russian forces are at the highest risk of open conflict.
The Cuban missile crisis was resolved when Soviet leader Mr Khrushchev offered to remove the missiles in exchange for a US promise not to invade Cuba, and US President Mr Kennedy secretly agreed to remove missiles from Turkey.
“Where I fear the problem lies right now, contrary to 1962, is the political elites we have right now have no sense of what war, especially nuclear war, is all about,” Dr Muraviev said.
“In 1962 those elites who ruled the US and ruled Russia remembered firsthand the horrors of World War Two. That in itself imposed a degree of restraint on their decision-making.”
