With Finland’s leaders announcing they want the country to join Nato, and all the signs pointing to Sweden doing the same, it is becoming clearer than ever that Vladimir Putin’s attempt to fundamentally restructure the European security order has worked. But it hasn’t worked the way the Russian president envisaged when it comes to Nato-Russia or Russia-US relations.
Neutrality as a status in international law and a foreign policy stance are no longer seen as viable ways for smaller countries to navigate the danger zones of great power rivalries. A longstanding constitutional imperative to be neutral has not protected Moldova from Russian threats that it might be next on the list of territories that the Kremlin wants to conquer in its attempts to restore a Soviet-style Russian sphere of influence.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine – and the way in which Putin has justified it again in his Victory Day speech on Red Square – offers no confidence that fundamental principles of the established European security order matter to Moscow. This has been the case at least since the Russia-Georgia war in 2008 and should have been patently obvious with the Russian annexation of Crimea and occupation of Donbas in 2014.
