Russia and its neighbourhood: Russia's empty empire | The Economist

SO MUCH for Russia’s “zone of privileged interests” and the West’s worries about it. The phrase was coined by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, in the aftermath of the 2008 war with Georgia, when Russian rhetoric reached shrill levels. The events of the past two weeks in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan have provided a humble reality check and exposed the hollowness of Russia’s neo-imperialist ambitions among the states that once made up the Soviet Union.

Russia has long wished to keep the West away from its backyard. Now that America and the EU are tied up with their own problems, Russia has had its wish partly granted. Left to its own devices, however, it has shown little leadership, vision or sense of imperial responsibility in its vaunted “zone”.

Russia and its neighbourhood: Russia's empty empire | The Economist