Andrey Melnichenko was a little-known Russian oligarch till The Economist unexpectedly ran a three-part feature on him in early July after he gave them nearly 60 hours’ worth of interviews. Here’s their report about him, here’s the executive summary, and here’s his exclusive article for them. While Valdai Club’s Research Director Fyodor Lukyanov made some important points about The Economist’s motives in promoting Melnichenko, that Russian oligarch also made a few good points in his own article too.
Titled “Why a broken Russia is bad for the world”, Melnichenko argues that the West’s interests are best served by a sovereign and predictable Russia, not the vassalized state (whether to the West or to China), “Balkanized” mess, or North Korean-like “hermit kingdom” that the West wants to turn it into. The “war of attrition” that they’re now waging against Russia through Ukraine to these ends is a recipe for perpetual war, which risks spiraling out of control, ergo the need to change tact and prioritize diplomacy.
No matter how much many Western policymakers might disagree, Russia now conceptualizes its proxy war with them in Ukraine as a struggle to retain its hard-earned sovereignty, after which it still expects to play a leading role in reforming the European security architecture. Melnichenko advises the West to accept this reality for the greater good, or cynically as the proverbial lesser evil, since the alternative of protracted unpredictability from Russia is inordinately worse for everyone.
In his words, “A sovereign Russia will not make every country comfortable. But it will be more advantageous in the long run than the alternatives. The choice for external players is not between a friendly Russia and a hostile one. It is between a Russia whose behaviour is predictable and one whose trajectory is unknown. In the world taking shape now, predictability is more important than sympathy.” He also envisages big businesses bringing together society and the state in the new Russia.
This resembles the task that former top Russian spy Andrey Bezrukov referenced earlier this summer as regards the need to merge the culture of the army with the culture of society to strengthen each other. Big businesses such as Melnichenko’s could be the glue that fastens them together. Reflecting on what he shared with The Economist, it’s most certainly not what the Western elites want to hear, but it’s definitely what they need to hear and should accept sooner than later before it’s too late.
Melnichenko is the most economically influential figure to share his views about Russia’s future, which followed Bezrukov being the most influential spook-expert who shared his own views after Russian experts Dmitri Trenin, Ivan Timofeev, and Vasily Kashin, whose works have all been hyperlinked to. All of this precedes late September’s next Duma elections, the outcome of which some observers expect could serve as the catalyst for various reforms, which the aforesaid five figures so far might hope to influence.
Returning to the intro, Lukyanov is right that The Economist hoped to spin Melnichenko’s views as false “evidence of a split in the Russian ruling class, or as a sign of rebellious sentiment among big business”, but that doesn’t detract from the points that he made. As an oligarch who repatriated to Russia and praised Putin for being right about how the West couldn’t be trusted, he should be assumed to have good intentions unless proven otherwise, and he deserves respect for his article at The Economist.
