TEHRAN (Iran News) –Sometimes I think to myself how Russia after the collapse of USSR once again could remain a superpower.
When a big crack happened in the body of the Soviet Union which led to the dissolution of the then second superpower of the world, nobody thought that this country once again could find the role of a superpower. Perhaps we can analyze it this way that when on September 8, 1991 and in a secret meeting between President of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Boris Yeltsin, President of Republic of Belarus of Soviet Union Stanislav Shovsekovic and President of Republic of Ukraine of Soviet Union Leonid Kravchuk which took place in the very luxurious residence of Belarus which had been built for high-ranking officials meeting, they signed a treaty that accordingly aligned independent countries in line with a united political ideology emerged. It may be related to this fact that in the late 1980s, Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev undermined the importance of Socialist Federative Republic of Russia of Soviet Union which was considered as the second powerful pillar of the rival for the Soviet Union. Some strong Russian nationalist reactions were raised by some Russians with stating this claim that Russia for long time by giving subsidies of crude oil to the republics of the Soviet Union had been making them poorer. For example, since the demands for domestic institutes of Russia were increasing, in fact quality of Republic of Russia and the Soviet Union were leading to the decrease in development.
Concurrent with the flare of extremist nationalism in the late decade of 1980, the tension between those who keep integrated the union under the authority of Russia and the groups who wanted to create a powerful Russia had been intensified and day in day this tension was showing itself in the power struggle between Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
Yeltsin with the exit of Gorbachev from the policies of the Soviet Union in 1987as a political party leader without any background or opposite relations needed a political party policy for confronting Gorbachev. He proved it through his presence both as a nationalist Russian and as a committed democrat and during the election was elected as the new head of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in May 1990 and he actually became the first elected President of Russia.
And in the next month he was given authority to enact laws before the early laws of Russia and to deduct two-thirds of the budget, and since Yeltsin has taken an illegal step in direction of dissolving the parliament, Russia was, more than ever since the 1917 Revolution, close to internal conflict. This condition caused the ground to be paved for Yeltsin and Yeltsin found this freedom to impose his laws on the country with his presidential authorities. This decision through a referendum was approved in December 1993 and it was crystal clear that with this decision the disintegrated republics for their survival think to other things and ways than stretching their hands towards Yeltsin for begging.
After the 1998 financial crisis, Yeltsin actually reached the end of its political leadership and exactly hours after the beginning of 2000 and during in a huge global hysteria regarding the change of century and concern about automatic function of nuclear bombs, Yeltsin surprisingly announced his resignation and passed his government to a relatively less known Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who was a former officer and former successor of the head of intelligence service KGB after the collapse of Soviet Union.
On March 26, 2000, the novice president could easily defeat his rivals in the presidential election and he won the majority in the first round of the election. He won 71% of the votes in 2004 and his allies won the majority in the parliament election but international (the Westerners) and domestic observers questioned the legitimacy of the election. The Western observers warned even more regarding the actions of Russia in the late of 2004 which consolidated more supervision and command of the president on parliament, military community and regional officials.
Putin lasted and today after almost two decades, he has remained undisputed leader of Socialist Russia until now, and recent mutiny of Wagner Group which disrupted a little bit Putin’s rein on power and the mercenary and contractor military group of Wagner rebelled against Defense Ministry of Russia which led to the controversy of shaking Putin’s power.
I should stipulate this point that many media outlets’ reports introduce Wagner Group as a private military contractor and the way it performs challenges this define and description for the group.
Private military company with having weapons and skillful and trained soldiers are used in the military operations instead of official army. This issue is also common in the West. For example there are many reports of signing contracts, the U.S. Administration used soldiers of the private military companies instead of army soldiers in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to what have been disclosed by the media, a secret competition between Russian Defense Minister and Chief of Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin who was, in the past, considered as the special chef and loyal of Putin has provided the ground for this mutiny which ended well with mediation of Russian President Alexandr Lukashenko and Putin was forced to change his defense minister. Of course this issue ended in favor of Putin and in other words Putin’s life jacket was inflated.
