Short intro: A businessman and diplomat with a diverse international career has personal experience with all three of the largest Eastern European nations. He is in his early 40s, but already has a rich educational, professional, and life journey behind him. Born in Belarus, he spent part of his childhood there. In Slovenia, he graduated from the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana with degrees in Russian Studies and Sociology of Culture, from the Faculty of Social Sciences in International Relations, earned a master’s degree in International Business Economics from the Maribor School of Business, and completed his doctorate at the Faculty of Social Sciences with a thesis on Russian energy diplomacy. Since Dr. Denis Mancevič (born 1981) has also worked in Ukraine and Russia, he has personal experience with all three major Eastern European nations.
From Belarus, you moved to Maribor when you were…
Ten years old. In the fall of 1991. My father signed an employment contract in the summer and was in Slovenia during the war, sheltered at the Orel Hotel in Maribor. Yugoslavia was disintegrating, and as the Soviet Union was also breaking down, my entire family moved to Slovenia that fall.
What is your nationality?
Belarusian. We have very diverse family roots, like many people from Eastern Europe, including Jewish. Therefore, I also have relatives in the United States, where many of my Jewish family members moved.
After your education in Slovenia, you first worked in business in Ukraine, then at the Slovenian embassy in Moscow. You have direct experience with all three major East Slavic nations, Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians. What are the relations among them?
The relationships are very hybrid, intertwined, and complex. However, they were quite unproblematic until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, when politics began to exploit them. Kyiv is the cradle of modern Russia, being the seat of Kyivan Rus’, where Christianization and Orthodoxy began. Both Tsarist Russia and later the Soviet Union made significant efforts to Russify the territories of today’s Belarus and Ukraine. This involved deliberate and also unplanned resettlement of Russians, neglecting national languages in schools, and promoting Russian. This has left strong marks in Ukraine and Belarus. In both countries, most people are bilingual, with nine out of ten also speaking Russian, perhaps a bit less in Western Ukraine. There are many mixed marriages; between Russia and Ukraine, there are estimated to be between 10 and 15 million mixed marriages.
How realistic is the often-emphasized brotherhood of the Eastern Slavs?
Quite. There is an awareness of common religious, cultural, and linguistic roots. One of the most tragic consequences of the current war is that this brotherhood will be destroyed for a long time, perhaps for centuries. Even those Ukrainians who had nothing against Russians, and they were the majority, will not forget the aggression, the war.
Were you surprised on the morning of February 24th?
Extremely. The Kremlin could have, even given the goals it now speaks of before the invasion and all its consequences, taken at least three more steps. Logically, after Russia’s recognition of the quasi-independence of the separatist republics in Donbas, would come a request to the Kremlin for military help, a gradual deployment of the regular Russian army, not paramilitaries, in this territory, then an attempt to militarily expand the authority of these republics over the entire territory of Donbas, and further escalation of the conflict to obtain better negotiating positions against Kyiv. What is happening now is completely irrational.
However, the buildup of Russian forces around Ukraine indicated that something was being prepared.
U.S. intelligence even accurately predicted the start of the Russian attack a few days in advance. You can also amass troops at your borders to improve your negotiating positions. Russian President Vladimir Putin actually achieved this by amassing troops on the Ukrainian borders. For years, the Americans did not want to talk to him, but in December, we saw a hyperinflation of bilateral talks. At the end of December, Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden also spoke. Scepticism about U.S. intelligence predictions of a Russian invasion shows how trust in their data has diminished in the West. This is due to incorrect information about Iraq and the Middle East in general. Today, of course, we can see that they had accurate information about Russian plans and shared it, but distrust of them was a consequence of the past. Moreover, the highest Russian representatives, such as Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, consistently claimed they did not intend to attack Ukraine. Until now, it has been believed that the publicly spoken words of the president of a permanent member of the UN Security Council meant something. With this, Putin has lost all credibility.
Do you see anything rational in the Russian invasion of Ukraine? What can Russia gain from it? It can only gain some territory, but in my opinion, only in the short or medium term. And that it is no longer possible to talk about any deployment of NATO weapons in Ukraine.
Can we even talk about a Russian invasion or is it just Putin’s personal project?
The answer to this question lies in the structure of Russian authorities and the decision-making process. In the first decade of his rule, Putin relied on a fairly wide circle of people, including the infamous security forces and quite a few liberals. The liberals ensured that Russian policy did not go in too aggressive a direction. The turning point was in 2012 when Putin was preparing to take over the presidency again after a term as prime minister. At that time, massive protests flooded Moscow; that means 200,000 or 300,000 people, for the whole of Ljubljana. It seemed that Putin was ready to listen to calls for softening, for a more liberal direction of governance. However, after about a week, he decided otherwise, and since then, the circle of people around Putin who have influence has been continuously narrowing. Thus, the decision about the invasion is undoubtedly his. However, there is no doubt that Putin still legitimately represents the Russian Federation. I would also note that the Russian state management system is extremely hierarchical. The administration does not know how to manage processes without receiving orders. Belgium can function for a year or more even though it does not have a full-fledged government, and Italy operates in constant political chaos. In Russia, however, there are no mechanisms to ensure operation without firm authority. There certainly weren’t any in the Soviet Union, then they were not deliberately established. The administration does not know how to operate without constantly receiving instructions. If there are no instructions, the system collapses. The Russians call this “manual management.” Everyone is waiting for orders from one man in the Kremlin. In this regard, it is questionable how loyal the military intelligence circle still is to Putin and how much they trust his decisions.
We saw how in the giant Kremlin hall Putin treated his associates like doormats. Why are they willing to accept public humiliation?
A few days before the attack on Ukraine, a rather unique event occurred in modern Russian history. Putin publicly humiliated the head of the counterintelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, one of the five members of his supposedly closest circle. Also, in giving instructions to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, also one of the five members of the innermost circle, the general’s discomfort was evident, as he probably has information about what is happening on the battlefield. Putin probably decided on public humiliation to demonstrate his power to this inner elite. In the past, he has already indulged in this regarding the oligarchs, even the wealthiest and most powerful, such as Oleg Deripaska.
Some believe that Putin, who has been in isolation due to COVID-19 for two years, has simply gone mad. Could his irrationality be a rational reason for the invasion?
Probably yes. When I spoke earlier about what Russia can gain from the war, there is much more on the other side that it can lose.
Did Ukraine pose any military threat to Russia?
No.
Since Putin’s claim that he wants to denazify a country led by a Jew is pure bizarreness, do you think it’s possible that the actual reason for the invasion was to prevent Ukraine’s NATO accession?
No. Even before February 24, Ukraine did not meet the conditions for NATO membership, and NATO has repeatedly stated this. Ukraine did not control its entire territory before February 24, and there were no signals in recent years that its entry was near. This reason for the invasion, as Russia tries to portray it, is fabricated. When I heard Putin talk about the denazification of Ukraine, it sent chills down my spine because this language is very close to the rhetoric of Nazi Germany, just with a different sign. Extreme neo-Nazi right-wing groups exist in Ukraine, are well-documented, but they do not represent the majority government policy, let alone the wider society in Ukraine. Russia is not having everything go according to plan in this war. They might have expected Prague 1968, when Czechs scattered before their tanks, but they certainly did not expect the kind of resistance from Ukrainians that they encountered. They were more likely expecting a repeat of Crimea 2014, but the circumstances were completely different then. Russians had majority support from the residents of Crimea and military infrastructure, the Black Sea Fleet’s naval base at Sevastopol. Crimea was taken almost without a shot being fired. Now it is completely different. Look at the city of Kharkiv, where Russian is mostly spoken, the mayor speaks Russian better than Ukrainian. Yet we see how strongly they are resisting the Russians. Very few residents of Ukraine would accept Russian dominance. And this is intensifying every day. That’s why I don’t understand in whose minds this plan grew. Even if they captured Kyiv, it wouldn’t help them much; they would have to deal with urban guerrilla warfare. In addition, public opinion in Russia is turning against the war. And it will continue to do so, which I predicted on the first day.
Russian military equipment in Ukraine looks like it was brought from Cold War storages. Where is their modern weaponry?
I am not a military expert, but there are several myths about Russia’s military power. The first is that Russia is so economically strong that it can easily afford a war. It’s not. The second myth is that sanctions will not hurt Russia, that it doesn’t need the West because it will replace everything with China. It won’t. The third myth is about the military. Its power is mainly in nuclear warheads and long-range missiles, and it pretty much ends there. Unlike the USA and other Western countries, Russia has not established a system where innovation and development would flow between the military and civilian spheres. The military developed technology in isolation, even in closed cities. God forbid anything spilled into the civilian sphere. As long as the Soviet Union existed, people were forced into it, how it is now, few know. Certainly, Russia no longer has such scientific-technological potential. Russia does not have an industrial, pharmaceutical, high-tech multinational company, except perhaps the antivirus software developer Kaspersky. The Russian military is mostly made up of conscripts who are not motivated to fight. They don’t want to die, and if they lose, they just go back home. On the other side stand highly motivated Ukrainians who have nowhere else to go. In addition, Ukraine is not Chechnya or Georgia, it is huge and has 45 million inhabitants.
Is it even possible for the Russian army to occupy it, let alone control it for a long time?
No. Not all of Ukraine. Based on what is happening on the battlefield, Russia probably cannot even occupy part of the territory east of the Dnipro. This would be possible if the residents were favourable towards them. Since Ukrainians see Russians as aggressors, they are certainly not favourable.
There is an assumption that Russia is saving modern weaponry for Poland, and the Baltic states realistic?
I don’t think so. Both NATO and Russia emphasize that a conflict between them would mean World War III, which everyone wants to avoid. In such a war, no one can win, although military superiority is clearly on the side of NATO. Nowhere in the North Atlantic Treaty, not even in the infamous Article 5, does it say that NATO would automatically militarily attack the aggressor in the event of a military attack on one of its members. That is true, Article 5 is very general. However, I am convinced that in the event of an attack on one of the members, it would not be politically acceptable for the other members not to respond militarily. For Ukraine, they can still say that this is not their war, but in the event of an attack on one of the members, this would not be possible.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump claims that Russia would definitely not have attacked Ukraine if he had remained in the White House. A prominent representative of the Slovenian ruling Democrats also said this in a show. What do you think?
I’m afraid the opposite would be true. If he had stayed in the White House, we would probably already be on the brink of World War III. Trump would have only made things worse. Missiles are now falling almost on the EU border.
Is the EU responding appropriately?
Quite. I was surprised by the unity, speed, and extent of the response. Even on February 25, the responses were so lukewarm that they reminded me of Crimea in 2014. Obviously, something happened very quickly, especially in Germany and France as the strongest members. The response was very extensive and, in my opinion, correct. Many people scream that sanctions have never achieved their goal, but one has to ask what the goal is. If the goal is regime change, that is true. But they have led to the other side starting to behave differently and accept compromises. The best example is Iran. Before the current sanctions against Russia, the sanctions against Iran were the most extensive, and now everyone agrees that they influenced Iran to start negotiating its nuclear program until Trump withdrew from the agreement. Economic sanctions are the EU’s most powerful weapon, and now they are using it well.
Is the majority of EU members, including Slovenia, too dependent on Russian energy, especially gas, to simply disconnect?
The question is whether it is necessary at this moment. I don’t think it is. And that’s because the sanctions after 2014 were much milder than the current ones. They caused lower economic growth in Russia, and problems for individuals, but did not have a big impact. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate them as two, the current ones as eight. An embargo on energy would certainly hurt the Union more in the short term than Russia, so the advisability of this step is questionable. However, we have not ruled out this step. The current sanctions are extremely extensive, have consequences, and will have consequences, especially for Russia. It will have problems repaying its external debt, which amounts to about 500 billion dollars. Regarding energy, it should be known that oil is much more important to Russia than gas. Therefore, I think Russia could reduce gas supplies in response to sanctions.
Almost ten years ago, your book Russian Energy Diplomacy in the 21st Century was published, which was a revision of your doctoral dissertation. What was the basic idea?
That the West views the Russian energy industry quite monolithically, as if the players in this sector were exclusively state-owned and therefore an extended arm of foreign policy or authority. However, it is not that simple.
So, does Russia use energy as a weapon?
Much less than it seems at first glance. First, it is vitally dependent on this sector. Any disturbances, let alone interruptions, harm Russia much more than others. So it has to be extremely careful. Second, the energy sector is not unified. It was completely state-owned at first, then it liberalized quite a bit, there was a lot of private ownership, including foreign multinationals. They still have significant stakes and dictate different interests from strictly state ones. The third aspect is that Russia is about 90% dependent on foreign technology for exploration, extraction, processing. Russia has challenging deposits and lacks the technology to exploit them. It never had it. Putin can’t just turn production on and off.
Do Russian oligarchs have enough power that, if they realized they would be buried by sanctions, could they remove Putin and his clique of security forces from power?
The influence of today’s oligarchs is much smaller than that of those twenty years ago. In the second half of the 90s, when the Russian oligarchy was being established, it had an enormous influence on politics, basically determining it. When Putin came to power, he quickly changed the rules of the game. The most typical example is Mikhail Khodorkovsky [the once richest Russian, Putin imprisoned him in 2003, pardoned him after ten years in prison, and he now lives in London]. A break occurred, oligarchs no longer determined policy, but policy determined oligarchs. Putin established a new circle of oligarchs. The old and new today cohabit, but both are dependent on the authorities and have no leverage to influence them. The idea that they could change the government is an illusion.
The Slovenian Prime Minister is one of the loudest advocates of the European Union’s hard hand towards Russia. U.S. authorities have been noticeably cold towards Slovenia because of his past statements. What impact will his current engagement have on relations with Russia?
Interestingly, in the months before the war, the Slovenian Prime Minister was much less favourable to China – for example, with the now-forgotten statement regarding Taiwan – than to Russia. Now his rhetoric and moves are strongly influenced by the pre-election period. Every move he and the government make regarding the war in Ukraine must be assessed from the perspective of the electoral battle. His trip to Kyiv is also a typical pre-election move. The Prime Minister’s positions will not have a special influence on relations with Russia. All European Union countries will have to establish new mechanisms of cooperation with it and the rules of the game in the security, energy, and other areas. I think that the current plans to phase out Russian energy sources will not be a one-day wonder.
The Russian army is also attacking Ukraine from your homeland. What is the role of Belarus in this war?
The Russian army provides a platform for attacks on Ukraine. Therefore, it can be said that it is a participant in this war and that sanctions against it are completely justified. With this war, Belarus has become only de jure an independent state, de facto a protectorate of the Russian Federation. Extremely sad. All this is a consequence of the fact that President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, due to massive protests after rigged elections in the last two years, needed Putin’s support more than ever before. He had to pay a price for this.
And he paid it with the independence of his country?
Yes. Previously, Lukashenko was always an uncomfortable partner.
Can he stay in power without Putin?
He cannot. Lukashenko is completely without legitimacy. Now, due to participation in the Ukrainian war, he is losing the support of those who supported him during the protests, namely the army and police or security structures.