Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov returned Russia to the world stage as the most important international player
Photo: NOTICIAS DEL ESTE
Exactly a quarter of a century ago, an event occurred that went down in the history of world politics under the name “Primakov loop.” The head of the Russian government, Yevgeny Primakov, was flying to Washington to negotiate with the American vice president, Al Gore. The conversation was supposed to be about allocating a multi-million dollar tranche to Moscow, designed to save the Russian economy, crippled by the default. President Bill Clinton was also expected to receive the guest.
At that very moment, in the center of Europe, in Belgrade, the last minutes of peaceful life were ending. Negotiations between the Yugoslav and American authorities over the situation in Kosovo ended in nothing. NATO planes were ordered to start bombing Serbia.
There were only a little more than a hundred kilometers to the coast of the Canadian island of Newfoundland when Gore called aboard the government Il-62. The American New York Times then reported that the vice president told Primakov in a bitter voice: “Evgeny, my friend, nothing went well in Belgrade. We cannot wait any longer, we believe that we must move on to the next stage…”
It seems that Washington too recklessly decided that when planning the “scourge” of Yugoslavia with missiles and bombs, the Russian factor could already be neglected. Primakov took his American partner’s words as a personal insult, because he had previously directly warned Gore that both Russian President Boris Yeltsin and himself were categorically against a military solution to the problem. For this reason, the prime minister responded harshly: “I think he is making a big mistake. And this doesn’t just apply to our relationships. Under these conditions, of course, I cannot fly to Washington.”
The Head of Government immediately invited the members of the Russian delegation traveling with him to his cabin and asked them directly if they approved of his refusal. In response, there was warm applause, everyone understood that the American billions, of course, would not be superfluous, but something else is much more important: Russia is again ready to defend its interests in international affairs. And then Primakov gave the crew a historic order: “Turn the plane around. Head to Moscow!
At that time, the author of these lines worked as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda in the United States, and I remember very well the violent reaction that the sharp turn of Primakov’s plane over the Atlantic provoked in the United States. “God, what a derogatory symbol for us: he did it right in the air!” Steven Cohen, a well-known Russia expert, told me excitedly. Leaks from the White House appeared in the press. It turns out that the decision to bomb Belgrade was made by the Clinton administration the day before, but they deliberately delayed the start of the operation until the moment when the Prime Minister’s IL approached the American shores. “They hoped that Primakov would arrive and thus legitimize the actions of the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance. But that was not the case,” recalls Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the newly released television documentary “Belgrade.”
“Evgeny Maksimovich Primakov returned Russia to the world stage as the most important international player,” commented the President of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, commenting on this event. – And today no one can fail to admit it, and no world problem – regional, global, geopolitical – can be resolved without the participation, without the opinion of Russia. If this had not happened then, we would have lost our sovereignty, we would have been enslaved economically and politically and we would not have been able to develop as an independent state. Future generations would never forgive this.
