As Russia’s invasion attempt grinds on, Vladimir Putin’s blustering attempts to intimidate those of us who support Ukraine reminds me of visiting Russia’s Baltic Fleet more than 30 years ago. Things are not always as they appear to be in Russia, then as now.
It was August 1994. I was part of a Canadian delegation in Moscow for consultations on preventing incidents at sea between our navies. As was the custom in these reciprocal meetings, the host arranged cultural and social events and, more importantly, professional visits intended to build mutual understanding and trust. This was particularly relevant after almost 50 years of Cold War and the recent precarious dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In Moscow we visited the historic Ismailovo district, had a tour and dinner at the Youth Maritime League and explored the Military Uniform Museum. When the Heads of Delegations and other VIPs went off to explore special places like Kremlin churches and the oldest monastery in Moscow, the rest of us got on with the usual business of lowly staff officers, followed by boozy bonding with our opposite numbers.
Russia’s Baltic Fleet
It was a heady time of growing goodwill between the navies – a Russian squadron had visited Halifax the year before – so the professional highlight of the week was flying in one of the navy’s VIP aircraft for a visit to the Baltic Fleet in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, isolated from the rest of the country and wedged awkwardly between Lithuania and Poland. The flight itself was a bit of a professional eye-opener. No cabin attendant, the mirrored doors between the VIP and staff areas swinging unsecured during takeoff and no seat-belt discipline – one Russian even sat on the arm of a seat chatting away while the flight took off.
In his headquarters at the naval base of Baltysk, the Admiral commanding the Baltic Fleet promised the most open and unrestricted tour of a Russian warship ever given to a NATO delegation. That was significant considering that just four years earlier we had officially been enemies. The Russians were gracious hosts, taking us into spaces in the new Sovremenny-class destroyer, Bespokoynyy, which would have been highly classified a few years before. They trained the weapons around, and opened and closed the missile tube doors (quickly before our attaché could take a picture) . All in all, a polished performance and a nice looking vessel.
Look more carefully though, and it was less than impressive. Stems of valves that should have been operable were painted over. Asking one sailor how many days they had spent at sea in the past year revealed it had been only a matter of days – for an equivalent fully operational NATO vessel that would have been measured in months. When we visited, Bespokoynyy was clearly the showcase ship, spotlessly clean, freshly painted and a contrast to the other scruffy vessels in the port. But she scarcely rated as a menacing fighting ship, certainly not by NATO standards.
We didn’t know it then, but just six months after entering service two years earlier, Bespokoynyy had a fire in its sauna (yes, you read that right) killing one person and burning out part of a vital electronics system and some living quarters. The next day one of the crew committed suicide. A year after our visit a cartridge in a gun barrel exploded. Ten years later the ship would lose power at sea and had to be towed home. The main engines were transferred to another ship so that it could make a scheduled “show the flag” voyage around Europe. Today Bespokoynyy is a museum, but the ignominy had continued even after decommissioning. A former commanding officer was one of the plotters who stole her bronze propellers for sale on the black market and replaced them with cheap fakes.
Potemkin Policy
It is perhaps ironic that Russia’s first annexation of Crimea, in 1783, gave us the term “Potemkin Village“, which is rather like those movie sets which look like a town but are only facades with nothing but props behind. Anyone worried about standing up to today’s nuclear sabre-rattling need only look at Russia’s dismal performance in Ukraine, from the loss of its Black Sea flagship at the beginning of the war, to three years of accomplishing little on land other than squandering waves of young men as cannon-fodder to gain a few metres of ground; using mercenaries, convicts and North Korean conscripts to hide the true toll from the home audience.
Bluff and bluster from people like Putin is a sign of weakness, not strength. Sending waves of drones against civilian targets is a sign of desperation at military failure on the battlefield. The European Union’s Gross Domestic Product is ten times that that of Russia. Add Canada, the other democracies (and perhaps even the United States, depending on the whims of its President) and there is no excuse to fear supporting Ukraine which is, after all, fighting our self-declared enemy for us.
Remembrance Day is this month. Let’s not forget that in the 1930s democracies allowed themselves to be intimidated by Hitler’s bluff and bluster, appeasing him when he was still weak enough to be forced to back down. To understand how well that worked, just ask surviving veterans and civilians who lived through the Second World War.
“Virtuous motives, trammelled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.”
(Winston Churchill)
