Essential CIS Politics: March 2022
• Russia invaded Ukraine, and this has proved a tougher fight for Russia than everyone anticipated.
On February 24 Russian forces crossed the border into what even Russia recognizes as Ukrainian territory. Conflict has been raging across much of the country since then – and seen the outright destruction of several cities and regions.
• Fighting concentrated on Eastern regions, with Mariupol a particular site of intense destruction.
There has been fierce resistance to the Russian action – particularly from battalions stationed inside the Donetsk region, with the city of Mariupol seeing near-total destruction. Kharkiv has seen major fighting and devastation.
• The EU and US have imposed extreme sanctions on Russia, and the EU is phasing out purchases of Russian fossil fuels over the next 7 years.
Following the initially very limited sanctions packages launched by western countries when Russia recognized the LNR and DNR as independent states on February 22, successive waves of sanctions packages have been launched at Russia over recent weeks. On March 24 the United States and its allies announced new sanctions. These target scores of Russian defense companies and hundreds of Russian politicians as well as the chief executive of the country's main bank. There is already a brain-drain from Russia. The US believes this will accelerate and doom Russia as a great power in the medium term.
• Russia’s economy has taken a nosedive, with the stock exchange closed, the RUB down, and inflation rising despite interest rates at 20%.
The government is introducing price controls for food. This will mean profits are low to non-existent. Russia could return to an era of empty shelves. Some of the measures are helpful in the short term but harmful in the long term. Business complains that the government has no coherent plan. Clearly the Kremlin thought the West was bluffing about tough sanctions. There will be tax breaks and credit holidays, but that will make state and bank finances even worse. State support for major businesses is being mooted. As usual, SMEs are neglected.
• Turkmenistan has elected a new president who is the son of the current president.
On March 15 the result of the election was declared. Serdar Berdymukhammedov won 73% of the vote and the turnout was 97%. Public sector workers had been told to vote on pain of dismissal. There were 8 other candidates, all of whom were pro-regime and standing solely for optical purposes. The election was not considered free or fair by election monitors.
• Armenia has elected a new president.
On March 3 the Armenian Parliament elected Vahgan Khachatrian as president. Until recently he served as Minister for High Tech. His predecessor, Sarkisian, resigned in January 2022 and the interim president was the Chairman of the Senate, as provided for by the constitution. Kachatarian won despite opposition politicians’ boycotting the vote. He does not belong to a political party but Prime Minister Pashinyan's party voted for him.
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