Igor Lukeš: I’ve never believed in military cooperation between NATO and Russia0

• Bezpečnost
• 2. 6. 2012

With a Czech-born professor of history and international relations from Boston University about Russian latest elections, a mammoth internal debt to its citizen, Nordstream and Russian radar station in Kaliningrad.

What is your view of what is going on in Russia after the Parliamentary Elections?
There was a time when the Soviet Union was mysterious, or even impossible to understand; Kremlinologists were occasionally reduced to educated guessing. There is little mystery left in today’s Russia. What you see is what you get. Deprived of its Communist utopian fanaticism, the present ruling elite has no political formula to put forward, except for its own addiction to power and wealth. It is driven by a sense of entitlement and motivated by self-enrichment. Some may feel nostalgic for the former Soviet empire, but most have grown accustomed to their luxurious residences in London (aka Londongrad), clothes from Milano, and luxury cars from Germany. The recent elections were obviously fixed to maintain the Putin regime in power in perpetuity. It isn’t surprising that the likes of Putin wish to stay at the top. It’s shocking that so many regional officials have chosen – twenty years after the demise of the Soviet Union – to become co-conspirators in the scheme.