A strategic continuation, a tactical change. Russia’s European security policy
1989 marked the beginning of a short but intense period of thorough geopolitical changes in the eastern part of Europe. The simultaneous weakening and liberalisation of the communist regime in the USSR led by Mikhail Gorbachev, the gradual limitation of Moscow’s economic and political support but also its shrinking control over the countries in the Soviet bloc and domestic political crises inside these countries led to a rapid downfall of the communist governments in Central-Eastern Europe. The military, economic and political structures of the Soviet bloc were dissolved within a timeframe of just two years, and the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist in December 1991, to be replaced with fifteen new independent states. The Russian Federation became the main successor to the USSR as it, albeit seriously weakened, inherited a large section of the Soviet empire’s resources and had to redefine its interests in the new post-Cold War European and global order that was being formed.
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