Atlantic Community:Open Think Tank Article "Russia's Western Border is a Sensitive Issue"

Russia's Western Border is a Sensitive Issue

Heinrich Bonnenberg: To Russia, its current western border is a border that stands for loss and dishonor. This border is an open, bleeding wound on the Russian body. The security pact that the Russian president recently presented in Berlin could be helpful in overcoming historical grievances and bringing Western Europe and Russia closer together.

Russia's western border of today is almost identical to the western border of the muscovite Empire, at the beginning of the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, known as "the gentlest", and the father of Peter the Great, in 1645. From 1645 to 1949, the Tsars and Stalin acquired great areas of land as provinces, autonomous republics and satellites for Russia. This took place over 300 years. The catastrophe for Moscow is that all the territories that were gained in the West were lost within only three years, from 1989 to 1991, together with all the other non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union. It is a geopolitical loss, and with the diminishment of nearly all non-military industry, also an economic one. This is the reason why the western border is perceived as a symbol of historical loss.

Additionally, today's western Russian border is nearly identical to the border that the German Empire forced as victor upon Russia with the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty on March 3, 1918, a border that Lenin, however, likewise accepted for the implementation of his revolution. Russia's current western border is therefore, for several reasons, also a dishonouring border.

It is very difficult for the Russian spirit, and for the self-esteem of Russians, to further experience this border of loss and dishonour through the fact that the US-led NATO is increasingly trying to make it into its border.

Why do Western, and especially American, politicians have no understanding for Russia's bleeding wound? Why is Russia being offended once again and without due consideration? What is the intention? Should Russia be further weakened?

I advocate showing a little more political, or indeed historical, empathy when dealing with Russia. Russia belongs to Europe and whoever forces Russia into the arms of another is acting against Europe.

The suggestion the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitri Medvedev, made during his latest visit to Berlin, to negotiate a security treaty on equal terms, especially between the European nations, should be taken up. This would also represent a historical parenthesis relating back to the Briand-Kellog Pact of 1928, a historical fundament for peaceful development of the world, the long-term efficacy of which was compromised by Hitler's Germany-a German wound. According to the Russian president, the proposal could also be useful for the development of a European civilisation on the basis of occidental values and under consideration of national particularities.

Let's thank President Dmitri Medvedev for making his proposal precisely in Berlin! The proposal heals the wounds of Russia and Germany, and helps Europe, and therefore the world.

Dr. Heinrich Bonnenberg was advisor of the Administration of the President of Ukraine by order of the German Minister of Finance from 1997 to 2003.

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