On 28 July, 2015 former Australian diplomat Cavan Hogue addressed a full house at Glover Cottages about Russia. He took us through the highly emotional times of Boxing Day 1991, when, as Australia’s Ambassador in Moscow, he was called in to the Foreign Ministry with other ambassadors from Asian countries to be told the Soviet Union was no more. On New Year’s Day in 1992, the former Soviet flag came down. Freedom and prosperity were anticipated by the people, but they were rapidly disillusioned. As weeks stretched into months and years, food and housing remained poor, regular holidays and free medical treatment disappeared. Scientists, academics, doctors, and other professionals could barely survive on fixed incomes amid rampant inflation. At the same time, crime was privatised, corporate corruption increased along with a small number of immensely rich robber barons who had taken advantage of the privatisation of industry. Between 1991 and 1996, Boris Yeltsin did little to alleviate the situation. Has Vladimir Putin done any better since? He is seen by some Western observers as a combination of Stalin, Ivan the Terrible and Fu Manchu, the anti-Christ. But inside Russia, he is commonly seen as the re-incarnation of Mother Russia. Quite liberal and flexible when first elected, Putin employed his own economists and made an effort to get on with Bush, Blair and NATO. But he was riled over a spy scandal initiated by Bush, provoked when Bush tried to re-ignite Star Wars, and further provoked when Bush visited Poland before coming to Moscow and invaded Iraq. Putin now sees NATO as a provocative Cold War prop. What does he really want for Russia? Not exactly his own Monroe Doctrine, but countries on Russia’s borders not antagonistic to it. Meanwhile, Ukraine, heartland of the Slavs, carries its own historic baggage. Russians don’t think Ukrainians are very different from themselves. Some Ukrainians agree but many do not. Conscious of Ukraine’s complex history, many see their linkages with Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Austria, Hungary and others as more important than Russia’s. And ever since Vladimir adopted a version of Greek Orthodoxy in the tenth century, different religions and sects have complicated the situation. With Kiev pushing for integration with Europe, civil war beyond the present limited hostilities in the Ukraine is a possibility. As for the Crimea, Putin and the Russians firmly regard this territory as part of Russia, and are not about to give it up.

Summary by Richard Broinowski