Yesterday Vladimir Putin met the Vice-Chancellor, the Minister of Economy and Energy of Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, in Novo-Ogaryovo. Russian President recalled in the context of the migration crisis in Europe that Germany actively opposed the military operation in Iraq in the past. “After the operation, after the destabilization of other countries in the region, a threat emerged; and later the threat turned into a real problem of refugees,” Putin said. According to him, to overcome the problem it is necessary “to encourage strengthening of statehood in the countries where it has been preserved, to contribute to the process of resolving all aspects of the issue, including the Syrian crisis.”
“Today the most important thing is the struggle against the common evil, terrorism. Only defeating terrorism, or at least seriously damaging it, will enable us to speak about progress on the political track,” Putin thinks.
“Of course I realize that in a discussion of such problems as Ukraine and Syria, your main partner is the U.S.; on the other hand, I think Germany and the EU are able to be important partners,” Sigmar Gabriel replied.
It is no accident that Putin associates the current events with Iraq, considering the statement by US Defense Minister Ashton Carter about their readiness to start “a direct ground operation” in Iraq and Syria against armed groups of Islamic State. Carter also mentioned a change of US approach toward the struggle against ISIS and the need to focus on Rakka – the unofficial capital of the group, the city has been under control of Islamists since 2013, as well as the city of Ramadi in the west of Iraq.
“The ISIS project has been gaining strength constantly since 2003,” Alexander Krylov, Senior Researcher of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, President of the Scientific Society of Caucasus Studies, says. “Recently [the ex-Premier of the UK] Tony Blair admitted that ISIS was born after Iraq was defeated by the Western powers, and after that the ascent of ISIS to its current heights began. The process of expanding and moving in all directions was constant, and it seemed impossible to stop it. In North Africa they have strengthened their positions and gone to the south, gone to Nigeria. It was a tendency that they would continue to conquer the African states in a southerly direction. To the north they have successfully moved toward the post-Soviet borders.”
According to the expert, if all this was going on in the same direction, it was inevitable that soon the South Caucasus would become a zone of activity of the ISIS militants: “There was an impression that it is an absolute evil, which has demonstrated itself in all forms and with a certain artistry, with the involvement of the latest information technologies, this evil seemed to be invincible. And it had lasted before Russia entered this situation and began its military operation in Syria. Before that, none of the world powers, including the United States, seriously struggled against ISIS. No one has bombed their oil deposits, no one has bombed their military warehouses. They have bombed weddings, bombed funerals, schools, hospitals. By some strange coincidence. Nobody has seriously worked over ISIS’s military force, the Russian pilots have begun to work. The situation changed after that. Of course, it is too early to talk about a radical change, but that situation has changed radically.”
