On Wednesday I went to a lecture hosted by the Lund Association of Foreign Affairs featuring the Russian ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev. The event was described as such:
“With tensions between Europe and Russia at its highest since the Cold War, dialogue between the parties is essential. The Russian and European narratives are often quite different, and this is your chance to hear the Russian side of the tale.
Viktor Ivanovitj Tatarintsev, who is Russia’s Ambassador to Sweden, has a background in the Ukraine and has been working with diplomacy for 37 years. Hear his perspective on relations and agreements in the past, present, and future. “
Over the course of an hour and a half the ambassador, among other things:
- Rejected the notion that Russia had interfered in the US Presidential election,
- Justified the invasion and annexation of Crimea by alluding to its historical significance to the Russian motherland,
- Characterized international sanctions on the Russian economy as ineffective, saying, and I quote, “We don’t give a SHIT about your sanction politics. Anything you do to Mother Russia makes us stronger.”
- Implied that Sweden joining NATO would result in Russian military countermeasures that would destabilize the Baltic region, cryptically adding “Sometimes the best option is the status quo… I’ll let you interpret that as you will”,
- Accused Swedes of being incapable of critically analyzing their public media for brainwashing stories meant to promote “Russia-phobia”,
It was pretty surreal being in the same room as a bona fide Russian diplomat who was parroting the words of Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. I could tell the 300 or so Swedes in the room were deeply skeptical of what the ambassador had to say, but in true Swedish fashion they were quiet and listened politely, even as the ambassador attacked their ability to think critically and understand what really was going on in the world.
Russian ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, speaking at Lund University on October 18th, 2017
My biggest takeaway from the evening was that the ambassador genuinely believed the things he was saying. He honestly considered Russia to be the victim of a Western destabilization campaign intended to destroy the reputation of his homeland, and he was the virtuous messenger crying fowl. He categorically refused to consider that Russia may indeed be guilty of the hacks and political sabotage that it has been accused of (see here, here, and here). To me, this was the ultimate irony of the evening: the man who was calling out students for being unwilling or incapable of seeing what was really going on in the world was himself incapable of viewing the facts of the matter and recognizing what his own government was doing.
In the end, an event which promised to lay out “the Russian side of the tale” ended up being a dogmatic diatribe against the US, NATO, and Swedish neutrality. The opportunity to hear it firsthand and reflect on it, however, made it well worth the while.
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Aaron Danowski 