Don't be blinded by Syria – Putin's recent foreign policy moves show he's more interested in peace than war

As seen from abroad over recent weeks, Russian foreign policy appears a hodgepodge of different elements that rarely slot together. From Syria to China, and back to Western Europe via Ukraine, it is hard to discern any consistent theme.

To which you could respond that this is how most countries’ foreign policies look close-up. “Events” have a habit of derailing even the best-laid plans. But the point is that we – in what we still call the West – tend to view Russia’s actions as the product of a usually malevolent grand plan and a single – Vladimir Putin’s – mind.

The reality is perhaps more complicated, and it certainly seems so from the perspective of Russia’s “heartland”. Forty years on from the 10 months I spent as a British exchange student, I was back at Voronezh State University for its centenary. And while the contrasts are stark, none is more so than the access to information. In what was then Brezhnev’s Russia, Voronezh was part of a very closed world.

This past week, Voronezh watched most of what the rest of the world did – with a Russian spin. There was Moscow’s embarrassment at the shooting down of one of its reconnaissance planes off Syria. This “friendly fire” tragedy in which 15 Russians died was a particular blow, coming hard on the heels as it did from what might be seen – if it works – as a major Russian diplomatic coup: the agreement with Turkey to establish a buffer zone in Syria’s Idlib province, and thereby fend off what the West was warning would be a “bloodbath” as the war for power in Syria nears its end.

Initially squeezing Syria out of the Russian news, however, were the joint Russia-China military manoeuvres (Vostok 2018) – the first such elaborate joint exercise – and, at a micro-level, the Skripal case, with the interview of the two suspects by RT, Russia’s state broadcaster for abroad, being re-broadcast in full for domestic consumption. Surprisingly, perhaps, Ukraine – at just 150 miles away, so near to Voronezh on the Russian scale – seemed conceptually very far away. State television, Russians’ main source of news, showed the funeral of Alexander Zakharchenko, the self-styled president of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic, who had been killed by a car bomb. The other Ukraine-related subject was the blessing given by the head of the Orthodox Church in Istanbul (Constantinople) to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s split from the Patriarchate in Moscow.

What pattern, if any, can possibly be discerned from all this? What shape can realistically be imposed? More, perhaps, than might be imagined – but the pattern that emerges would not necessarily be the one, shot through with aggressive malevolence, that is commonly supposed.

Take Ukraine. In the now-distant 1970s, Ukraine seemed essentially just down the road and railway line from Voronezh. People travelled there regularly; they had family there. As part of the Soviet Union, it was not regarded as a foreign country. And while we, as foreigners, were forbidden from venturing more than a few miles out of the city, natives could and did visit Ukraine.

Not now. Voronezh has many student exchanges with other countries; not with Ukraine. Direct flights ceased three years ago. Other transport links are being progressively cut. There was, it seemed, almost a blank spot on the mental map where Ukraine would otherwise be. The change is perhaps too recent, too painful, for Ukraine to be fully accepted – at grassroots, let alone state, level as another country.

Let’s skip from there to the Russian Far East. State TV dwelt at length on the joint Russia-China military exercises, with journalists “embedded” for a grandstand view; cheerful scenes of presidents Putin and Xi preparing pancakes, and then surveying the military scene through binoculars, to evident satisfaction. There was live coverage of Putin and Xi Jinping inspecting the troops, with the Russian and Chinese flags flying side by side on the lead vehicles – hardly a consoling sight for the West. The news day was rounded off with 10 minutes of choice “highlights”, akin to a rousing film score.

But the quality of the whole broadcast was less of menace and more a show, or so it seemed to me, with two audiences in mind. The first was the Russian audience, which could see their national forces appear disciplined and well equipped, and the equal of the rising power next door. The other was the Western audience, which was being warned in the most graphic terms that Russia had another flank – and other options than what might be on offer from the West.

Russian television’s interview with the Skripal suspects was a far bigger talking point among those I met – and not necessarily in the way you might expect. Instead of resentment (at the British, for naming them or for keeping the Skripals incommunicado), the response was very similar to what it was in Britain: bemusement and a measure of hilarity, especially on the flourishing social media.

A different Russian demographic – older, more insulated – might have reacted more defensively, insisting for instance on the innocence of the two men or justifying the deed. But younger Russians especially seemed to take in their stride the keystone cops image of those who would once have been considered the nation’s finest. Not that this bizarre interview cleared up anything about the Skripal saga, but it was somehow reassuring to discover that the interview carried no more credibility for many Russians than it did for us.

As for Syria, Russia’s new engagement in the Middle East might have put it at odds with much of the West, but it also raised fears among Russians of a certain age of a possible repeat of the costly Soviet-era Afghan debacle. The shift to diplomacy seemed to be as widely welcomed in the Russian heartland as it was abroad. And for at least some younger Russians, one interpretation might be that national pride does not have to derive from military strength, or military strength alone; successful diplomacy can be a source of pride, too. Younger Russians take no pleasure in their country being treated as a pariah.

This is just a snapshot, from a few days in and around a university in the Russian heartland. But it might offer a few tentative conclusions. Russian foreign policy, like the post-Soviet Russian state, is still finding its way in the world. It craves respect, and seeks to demonstrate that it can hold its own alongside the biggest and the best, and that includes in the military sphere. But it includes an ambition to be known less for the blunt exercise of military force than for bringing peace through diplomacy. The word “peace” once again carries much the same sanctity as it did in Soviet times.

And Russians have almost, but not quite, become reconciled to their post-Soviet borders. Effectively blanking out Ukraine might perhaps be seen as a necessary stage in the transition from empire that others, including the UK, have found painful. The Western world has found post-Soviet Russia frustrating and unpredictable to deal with – and the feeling is certainly mutual. Hard though it might be to believe, given current tensions, it might just be that a corner is being turned. Change is afoot in the heartland and a more positive, less paranoid Russia may be less than a generation away.