Increasingly, the same also holds true for another key node of power in post-Soviet Russia: the Orthodox Church.
AN “ORTHODOX IRAN”
In February 2013, Russian president Vladimir Putin took to the airwaves to make an unprecedented public declaration of faith. Standing alongside Kirill II, the patriarch of Russia’s Orthodox Church, at a press conference in Moscow, he told the assembled reporters that the “Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religions should get every opportunity to fully serve in such important fields as the support of family and motherhood, the upbringing and education of children, youth, social development, and to strengthen the patriotic spirit of the armed forces.” 24
Putin’s statement was a monumental reversal. For most of the Soviet past, the Russian Orthodox Church had been relegated to the margins of the USSR’s formally atheist politics (although it did play a role in shoring up the legitimacy of the Soviet Communist Party among the country’s population). Today’s relationship between church and state in Russia is much deeper, more overt, and more visceral. Simply put, the Kremlin has come to view the Church as an ally, and a tool with which it can tighten its hold on power and the people.
The Russian Church, for its part, has become increasingly comfortable with this new relationship. And, even as Putin’s government has given the Church more space to influence Russian society, it has wasted no time doing so. Over the past two years, Russia’s patriarchate has weighed in on everything from education to morality. 25It has also pressed the faithful to embrace Putin’s political agenda—and to reject those of others.
The Church’s politicking has netted results. In the spring of 2012, for example, a group called the Public Committee on Human Rights issued a blacklist identifying fifty-five “anti-Christian xenophobes” active in Russian political life. Among those identified as being guilty of “blasphemy” were former chess champion (and staunch regime opponent) Garry Kasparov, human rights crusader Lev Ponomaryov, and internet activist and blogger Alexei Navalny. 26The message was clear: being an opponent of the Russian government increasingly is synonymous with being an apostate.
This support, in turn, has informed the Russian government’s draconian treatment of Pussy Riot, a punk rock group that in March 2012 performed an inflammatory anti-Putin concert at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. Three of the band’s members were arrested after the show, and two of them were sentenced to two years’ incarceration in a prison camp for hooliganism aimed at inciting religious hatred. 27
The Russian government’s infusion of power into the Orthodox Church has been so dramatic that opposition figures like Boris Nemtsov have taken to warning publicly about the dangers of Russia turning into an “orthodox Iran”—a country where clerical fiat stifles political and cultural life. 28
Indeed, the trend line is ominous. In the early 1990s, Russia formally recognized thirty-one religious denominations. But most were largely legislated out of existence in the years that followed. Today, in a throwback to Soviet practice, only four religions—Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism—are formally recognized by the Russian government. And with the Kremlin’s help, the Orthodox Church is rising in power and prominence.
Not surprisingly, this has exacerbated already-tense relations between the Russian state and its growing Muslim minority. In line with American philosopher Eric Hoffer’s famous dictum that ideologies are inherently competitive, 29the Russian Church—imbued with Kremlin’s support—is beginning to crowd out other forms of religious identification in Russia. And it is doing so at precisely the time when the bonds holding the country’s various ethnicities together have become more tenuous than ever.
ENERGY DOMINANCE . . . FOR NOW
In March 2002, Russia officially became the world’s top energy producer, for a time eclipsing Saudi Arabia in oil production. The event was the culmination of a goal that had animated the Kremlin since the collapse of the USSR: to reemerge as a global energy superpower.
It would be hard to overstate the importance of energy on Moscow’s strategic agenda. “Energy is Moscow’s primary tool of foreign policy influence and attempted dominance,” notes Janusz Bugajski of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “[A]nd the Kremlin has systematically undertaken to become the leading energy superpower in Eurasia.” 30It has done so “either by controlling pipelines from Eurasia to Russia and then Europe or by maximizing its control of gas supplies from Russia (including those Central Asian supplies) to Europe.” 31
Energy represents far more than an economic instrument for the Russian government; it is also a geopolitical weapon and a tool of strategic dominance. To that end, Russia has pursued a variety of energy maneuvers throughout Eurasia over the past decade. It has opposed some projects (such as the Baku-Tbilisi Caspian oil route during the 1990s), undermined others (such as the ill-fated Nabucco natural gas pipeline to Eastern Europe), and derailed still others (including the Odessa-Brody pipeline connecting Ukraine to Poland). It has also successfully nurtured an unhealthy dependency on its energy exports among European countries. As of 2010, nearly half of Europe’s natural gas imports came from the Russian Federation, making some countries on the continent deeply vulnerable to any manipulation of supply that might take place in Moscow. 32
Russia has been able to do all this in large part because of its status as a bona fide energy superpower. Russia, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates, “holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second-largest coal reserves, and the ninth-largest crude oil reserves.” 33Russia is therefore in a league of its own in the production and exportation of both natural gas and oil. 34
But despite its resource wealth, Russia risks being left behind by the global energy scene. The problem is practical: experts estimate that, at its current rate of production, Russia has thirty years of proven oil reserves and sixty years worth of proven natural gas reserves. 35This energy wealth has made Moscow resistant to the idea of energy diversification, and the Kremlin has neglected to explore and harness alternative and renewable sources of energy. (In the United States, by contrast, something resembling a “revolution” in shale gas is now taking shape, with momentous consequences for U.S. energy independence and its position vis-à-vis foreign oil suppliers.) 36
Russia has also failed to make substantial investments in the infrastructure it needs to remain a global energy power. Its 2002 foray into the role of the planet’s top energy producer was short-lived; by the following year, Russia’s energy output had receded, in part due to a crackdown on high-profile figures and firms by the Kremlin (chief among them energy conglomerate Yukos and its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky). The Kremlin’s heavy-handedness toward its energy sector had a chilling effect on foreign direct investment into Russia. 37But shoddy infrastructure—and a lack of serious investment in the same by the Russian government—likewise had constrained the country’s energy horizons. In a 2004 interview with Interfax, then Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref admitted as much when he told the state news agency that the country’s oil production had plateaued and was expected to rise by less than 5 percent annually for the foreseeable future. 38
Nearly a decade later, not much has changed. The Russian government recently pledged a whopping $1 trillion in funds to develop the country’s infrastructure. But, observers in Moscow say, these funds are intended overwhelmingly for the rehabilitation of basic infrastructure (such as roads and bridges across the Russian Federation’s sprawling expanse). Upgrades to Russia’s energy facilities and pipeline grid are not likely to be forthcoming. 39And because they are not, Moscow has been forced to look further and further afield for new energy-rich arenas to preserve its global position.