The decline of Russia’s influence in the Post-Soviet region and the reasons behind it.

Аннотация

 This article attempts to highlight the key economic, political, and social factors that have adverse effects on current relationship dynamics between the Russian Federation and the CIS countries and are thus responsible for the gradual decline in Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet area. Based on extensive analytical findings, the authors come to the conclusion that the CIS countries’ lack of dedication to following the pro-Russian line is contingent, on the one hand, on their objective need to diversify their own political, trade and economic relations, and on the other hand, on a number of subjective, socio-cultural and psycho-political factors. The article argues that Russian political leaders’ perception of various post-soviet countries as “pro-Russian” is biased in its conceptual core and based on a number of subjective factors that have no actual relation to the decision-making process in these countries. In reality, the foreign policy of CIS countries is based mostly on pragmatic economic interests capable of providing steady development, which makes implementation of such subjective terms as “pro-Russian” and “pro-Western” highly misleading and unproductive, especially in the current conditions of confrontation between Russia and the West. The authors take an attempt to reveal the very mechanism of such subjective terms entering the political and economic sphere and to demonstrate their profound negative influence in formation and conceptualization of a propper and unbiased political course.