Andrei Vladimirovich Kozyrev (russian: Андре́й Влади́мирович Ко́зырев; born 27 March 1951) is a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
politician who served as the former and the first
Minister of Foreign Affairs
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between co ...
of the Russian Federation under President
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
, in office for the
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
from October 1990 and, after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, from 1992 until January 1996 for
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
. In his position, he was credited with developing Russia's foreign policy immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, although many in Russia have criticized him for being weak and not assertive enough in defending Russian interests in the face of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
in places such as
Bosnia and
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
.
He was the Russian representative during the signing of the
Oslo I Accord, for which he received criticism from Russian nationalist politicians and parties. His anti-imperialist and pro-western positions, however, were positively viewed. Kozyrev had graduated from the
(MGIMO) with a Ph.D. in history before joining the Soviet
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1974, holding various positions in it before being appointed foreign minister.
[
]
Early life and education
Kozyrev was born in Brussels in 1951, the son of a Soviet engineer temporarily working there. He was educated at the , a school for diplomats operated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before beginning his studies there in 1969, he spent a year as a fitter in the Kommunar machine-building factory in Moscow.
Career
Diplomat in Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Kozyrev completed his studies in 1974. He then entered the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a speech writer and researcher in the Department of International Organizations, which was responsible for issues concerning the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
and arms control, including biological and chemical warfare issues. Over the next three years, he earned a post-graduate degree in historical science and published several books on the arms trade and the United Nations.
Kozyrev's career in the Foreign Ministry marked him as a promising young Soviet diplomat. He became an attaché in the Department of International Organizations in 1979 and third secretary the next year. Promotions came regularly: he became second secretary in 1982; first secretary in 1984; counselor in 1986. Following the reorganization of the ministry by Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Comm ...
's foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze
Eduard Ambrosis dze Shevardnadze ( ka, ედუარდ ამბროსის ძე შევარდნაძე}, romanized: ; 25 January 1928 – 7 July 2014) was a Soviet and Georgian politician and diplomat who governed Georgia fo ...
, he became deputy chief of the renamed Administration of International Organizations in 1988. The next year Kozyrev became chief of the administration, replacing a man 20 years his senior.
Kozyrev was promoted to the diplomatic rank of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary — the highest diplomatic rank in the Soviet Union — by the Decree of the President of the Soviet Union
The president of the Soviet Union (russian: Президент Советского Союза, Prezident Sovetskogo Soyuza), officially the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (), abbreviated as president of the USSR (), was ...
Mikhail Gorbachev of 12 December 1990 No. UP-1177.
Career as Minister of Foreign Affairs
Seizing the opportunity opened by Gorbachev's glasnost in summer 1989, Kozyrev wrote an article repudiating the Leninist concept of the "international class struggle," the very essence of Leninism. Firstly published in the Soviet press, the article was reproduced in the ''Washington Post'' and other major news sources all over the world, making him known as a political figure.
In October 1990, a rebellious parliament of the Russian Federation voted to appoint Kozyrev the foreign minister. After the failed Soviet coup attempt of 1991, he found himself in president Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
's team of young reformers, which included Yegor Gaidar
Yegor Timurovich Gaidar (russian: link=no, Его́р Тиму́рович Гайда́р; ; 19 March 1956 – 16 December 2009) was a Soviet and Russian economist, politician, and author, and was the Acting Prime Minister of Russia from 15 Ju ...
and Anatoly Chubais
Anatoly Borisovich Chubais (russian: Анатолий Борисович Чубайс; born 16 June 1955) is a Russian politician and economist who was responsible for privatization in Russia as an influential member of Boris Yeltsin's administ ...
, and shared their Western liberal-democratic ideals. He became Russian foreign minister at the age of 39 and gained and kept the confidence of Boris Yeltsin as Russia became an independent state and, in many ways, the successor to the Soviet Union. Kozyrev tried to make Russia a partner with the West in the formation of the post-Cold War world. He emphasized cooperation over conflict with the United States while insisting that Russia be treated as a great power in international politics rather than as a fallen superpower. He favored major arms control agreements with the United States and the nonproliferation of nuclear arms. He was also viewed by many as one of the most important voices for liberalism and democracy in post-communist Russia.
Kozyrev was one of the drafters of the Belovezh Accords. He wrote in his 2019 memoir: “The signed document establishing the commonwealth (of independent states) was in effect a death sentence for the Soviet Union, the largest country on earth and our fatherland. It was an emotional moment for us. Yet we knew it was inevitable, and we had done our best to avoid a much more disastrous outcome."
In 1992 Kozyrev together with nine other Ministers of Foreign Affairs from the Baltic Sea area, and an EU commissioner, founded the Council of the Baltic Sea States
The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) is a regional intergovernmental organisation working on three priority areas: Regional Identity, Safe & Secure Region and Sustainable & Prosperous Region. These three priority areas aim to address ...
(CBSS) and the EuroFaculty
EuroFaculty was an educational institution in the Baltic states in reforming higher education in Economics, Law, Public Administration and Business Administration.
History
At the founding meeting of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) ...
.
On 15 December 1992, Kozyrev underlined his opposition to conservative, nationalistic forces in Russia with a dramatic and unprecedented diplomatic maneuver. He stunned the foreign ministers of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was a key element of the détente process during the Cold War. Although it did not have the force of a treaty, it recognized the boundaries of postwar Europe and established a mechanism f ...
(CSCE) and the Russian delegation alike with a speech that echoed many of the positions of the nationalist opposition in Russia, and seemed to threaten a return to anti-Western policies. But an hour after giving the speech he retracted it, warning that the views he had earlier espoused reflected "the demands of the most extreme elements of the opposition in Russia". He had reason to worry, for one month earlier ''Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' had reported that he was "splitting into pieces the former socialist camp … Kozyrev in effect is paving the way for the expansion of a new American empire." Others accused the "young reformers" in the Gaidar government of breaking "historical" ties with Warsaw Pact partners and Kozyrev of abandoning the "traditional" zone of Russian interests thanks to his obsession with a pro-Western foreign policy. The CSCE speech occurred a scant five days after the defenestration of Gaidar.[
Kozyrev painted ]Yevgeny Primakov
Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov (29 October 1929 – 26 June 2015) was a Russian politician and diplomat who served as Prime Minister of Russia from 1998 to 1999. During his long career, he also served as Foreign Minister, Speaker of the Supreme ...
, his contemporary at the newly-formed SVR, as a reactionary who entertained "the usual prejudices against NATO."[
At the ]UN General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Cur ...
Kozyrev declared in 1993, by the time of the Sukhumi massacre of the War in Abkhazia (1992–93) War in Abkhazia may refer to:
* War in Abkhazia (1992–1993)
* War in Abkhazia (1998)
{{disambig ...
: "Russia realizes that no international organization
An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states a ...
or group of states can replace our peacekeeping efforts in this specific post-Soviet space."
Kozyrev tried to promote the idea of dual nationality in the former Soviet empire but was unsuccessful.
There is still some question as to his role in the confusion of Yeltsin over the German re-unification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
and Helsinki Final Act and ensuing Partnership for Peace
The Partnership for Peace (PfP; french: Partenariat pour la paix) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe, including post-Soviet state ...
push for NATO expansion
NATO is a military alliance of Member states of NATO, twenty-eight European and two North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic ...
double-cross conceived by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher
Warren Minor Christopher (October 27, 1925March 18, 2011) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician. During Bill Clinton's first term as president, he served as the 63rd United States Secretary of State.
Born in Scranton, North Dakota, ...
. The window of opportunity to bring Russia into NATO closed by the end of Yeltsin's first term of office because the only way to avoid an explosion of fear in Russia was to bring Russia out of the cold first before the other Warsaw Pact countries; in the event, the opposite was done.
US Secretaries of State that were his opposite number during his tenure were: Jim Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger
Lawrence Sidney Eagleburger (August 1, 1930 – June 4, 2011) was an American statesman and career diplomat, who served briefly as the Secretary of State under President George H. W. Bush from December 1992 to January 1993, one of the shortest t ...
and Warren Christopher
Warren Minor Christopher (October 27, 1925March 18, 2011) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician. During Bill Clinton's first term as president, he served as the 63rd United States Secretary of State.
Born in Scranton, North Dakota, ...
.
NNPT and conflict with Ukraine over Crimea
In October 1991 Vice President Alexander Rutskoi went to Kiev in order to negotiate the price of Russian natural gas exports to Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, and through Ukrainian territory to Europe. On that visit he also claimed Russian control and ownership of the Black Sea fleet, based in Sevastopol
Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...
, and, indirectly, Russian sovereignty over the whole Crimean Peninsula
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
. Rutskoi publicly warned Kiev against conflict with Moscow, which both had nuclear weapons and had the ability to claim sovereignty over Crimea.
In April
April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. It is the first of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the second of five months to have a length of less than 31 days.
April is commonly associated with ...
1992 and March 1993 two similar resolutions that claimed Crimea were passed by the Russian Federation parliament. The Ukrainians naturally turned for help to the United States, but it sought to aggregate Soviet nuclear weapons in the hands of Moscow and to occupy ex-Soviet scientists with the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction
As the collapse of the Soviet Union appeared imminent, the United States and their NATO allies grew concerned of the risk of nuclear weapons held in the Soviet republics falling into enemy hands. The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program was ...
programme. The Budapest Memorandum
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises three substantially identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the ...
, which was co-written by Kozyrev, provided security assurances to the three minor ex-Soviet countries in exchange for their accession to the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation ...
and security guarantees from Russia, the US and Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...
. By the end of 1996 all nuclear weapons were removed to Russian territory, and 18 years later Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
reneged on the deal.[
]
State Duma
In the December 1993 elections, Kozyrev ran for a seat in the lower house, the State Duma, as a candidate on the list of the liberal Russia's Choice bloc in the Murmansk
Murmansk (Russian: ''Мурманск'' lit. "Norwegian coast"; Finnish: ''Murmansk'', sometimes ''Muurmanski'', previously ''Muurmanni''; Norwegian: ''Norskekysten;'' Northern Sámi: ''Murmánska;'' Kildin Sámi: ''Мурман ланнҍ'') ...
region. He took a seat as a representative from Murmansk when the State Duma met in January 1994, having won 60 percent of the vote in a field of 10.
He had been blamed for the international controversy over the conflict in Chechnya. He had also been targeted as a scapegoat for failing to stop North Atlantic Treaty Organization
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
(NATO) bombing of the Bosnian Serbs and of NATO plans to expand into Eastern Europe.
Kozyrev was criticized by the Russian State Duma for capitulating to the West, which led to Russia's loss of " superpower" status, as well as for the alleged failure to support the Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian War.
After being elected a second time to the State Duma in Murmansk in January 1996, Kozyrev left the ministry as from now on it was prohibited to occupy both positions. He was succeeded as head of the MFA by Yevgeny Primakov
Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov (29 October 1929 – 26 June 2015) was a Russian politician and diplomat who served as Prime Minister of Russia from 1998 to 1999. During his long career, he also served as Foreign Minister, Speaker of the Supreme ...
. It was a political choice both by him and president. When asked if he had been "sacrificed by Yeltsin ... to pacify anti-reform forces?", Kozyrev told the ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', "of course, there has been some backtracking. Let's face it, there is stagnation. ... It was a genuine political conflict. I lost. I was overruled. I believe that my time will come again, that my policies will be brought back, sooner or later." Since the conclusion of the second Duma term Kozyrev left the government for private business.
Kozyrev was a member of the Duma until the year 2000 elections.
Later life, memoirs and punditry
Kozyrev, who is convinced that the "authoritarian, anti-Western system Mr. Putin has re-imposed will not prevail", moved to the US in 2010,[ and has lived at least since 2015 in ]Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
,[ from where he published in 2019 a memoir of his time at the centre of Yelstinian intrigue:]
* ''The Firebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy'' (Foreword by Michael McFaul. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019)
Kozyrev warned a 2014 audience of diplomats that "Empty promises are even worse than empty threats."[
In his memoir Kozyrev "complains that the U.S. aggressively pushed Russia out of its own traditional markets, (i.e. the ]Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...
countries) leaving Moscow to nurse its wounds and sell weapons and technology to rogue regimes. Overall, he feels that the West lacked “a figure of Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
’s caliber” in the 1990s who would have helped Russia make the perilous transition to democracy."[
In an audience at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy in ]2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
Kozyrev said Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
's response to the 2014 Crimean status referendum
The Crimean status referendum of 2014 was a disputed referendum on March 16, 2014, concerning the status of Crimea, in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the local government of Sevastopol (both subdivisions of Ukraine) after Russian force ...
and subsequent Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation was "feeble".
Kozyrev feels that some of the problems in Chechnya stem from the particular brand of Wahhabi Islam
Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...
supplied to the natives by Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
.
Kozyrev wrote somewhat presciently in 2016 of his time in government that "In the worst case, there could be a replay of the Yugoslavia catastrophe. The region was at a tipping point, and unfortunately, despite initial success, the democratizing forces inside the Russian government did not succeed."[
Kozyrev was a distinguished fellow at the ]Wilson Center
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Wash ...
’s Kennan Institute in 2016.[
]
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Kozyrev has been an outspoken critic of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. ...
, and of Russian President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
's attitude towards the west, stating, “All of these guys, mostly from the KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
, never agreed that the Soviet Union lost the Cold War to the Russian people together with the democratic world outside. They don’t buy it. They want to stop it. And now they think this nvasion of Ukraineis their last decisive battle.” Kozyrev said he anticipated that Kremlin officials may oust Putin following failures in the invasion.
In an early interview Kozyrev proposed the supply of armaments by NATO partners rather than a direct confrontation with Russia.He stressed that Putin will not stop his westward conquest with Ukraine if he is not stopped there, and lamented the fact that the Ukrainians had been improperly armed until after the invasion began. Kozyrev, who strongly endorses the sanctions regime, was one of the first to call Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, ; russian: Владимир Александрович Зеленский, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Zelenskyy, (born 25 January 1978; also transliterated as Zelensky or Zelenskiy) is a Ukrainian politicia ...
a hero. Putin cannot be provoked, laughs Kozyrev, as he is already in a heightened state of aggression and will perceive any weakness as an invitation to further aggression. Kozyrev, who wrote the Budapest Memorandum
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises three substantially identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the ...
, calls the invasion "a flagrant violation" of its terms and finds the conduct of Putin in this regard shameful. Kozyrev is disappointed in the evolution of Sergey Lavrov
Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004.
Lavrov served as the Permanent Represe ...
. Kozyrev observes that Putin was fearful of COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
and hence he surmises that Putin is so very attached to this life that he will not risk nuclear war; he finds Putin to be the anti-Russian epitome.[
In another interview Kozyrev, who tweeted on 1 March for Russian diplomats to resign, said Putin "acts out of desperation. That is clear."][
In one interview broadcast when the Russian failure to capture the capital was become evident, he called Putin a "lunatic.. detached from reality.. delusional". Kozyrev opined that Putin thought the West weak and decadent. Kozyrev thought this war a disaster.]
Kozyrev wrote in May 2022 an essay for the ''Journal of Democracy
The ''Journal of Democracy'' is a quarterly academic journal established in 1990 and an official publication of the National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for Democratic Studies. It covers the study of democracy, democratic regim ...
'' entitled "Why Putin Must Be Defeated" that he and Andrey Vladimirovich Kolesnikov
Andrey Vladimirovich Kolesnikov (russian: Андрей Владимирович Колесников) is a Russian journalist, an author of a series of books about Anatoly Chubais.
He worked in ''Izvestia'', and since 1988 he had been a deputy ed ...
remark the parallels between the post-1933 Gleichschaltung that Nazified German society and the several laws passed by the Russians and executive orders signed Putin "basically ocriminaliz all forms of dissent" and to dismiss the remnants of independent Russian media. He observes sadly that Anton Troianovski wrote that "The history of mass execution and political imprisonment in the Soviet era, and the denunciation of fellow citizens encouraged by the state . . . now looms over Russia’s deepening . . . repression," and finds the two 20th-century system to have one thread in common: totalitarianism.
Academic criticisms
Australian academic Russologist Graeme Gill
Graham and Graeme may refer to:
People
* Graham (given name), an English-language given name
* Graham (surname), an English-language surname
* Graeme (surname), an English-language surname
* Graham (musician) (born 1979), Burmese singer
* Clan ...
finds Kozyrev's tenure at the Russian MFA "rather supine".
Sergey Radchenko finds Kozyrev’s 2019 memoir to offer "fascinating insights into Moscow’s foreign policy at a time when everything seemed possible, including, perhaps, a prosperous, democratic Russia that was anchored in the West. Kozyrev chased that goal like that firebird of the Russian fairy tale, after which the book is titled, though unlike the hero of the Russian fairy tale, he never managed to catch it. Didn’t even come close."[
]
References
Bibliography
* George Fujii. "H-Diplo Review Essay 292 on Kozyrev. The Firebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy" (2020
online
* Tsygankov, Andrei P. ''Russia's foreign policy: change and continuity in national identity'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kozyrev, Andrey Vladimirovich
1951 births
Foreign ministers of Russia
Living people
Politicians from Brussels
Soviet diplomats
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Soviet Union)
Moscow State Institute of International Relations alumni
Russian expatriates in the United States
First convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation)
Second convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation)
Russian activists against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine