Two-faced Russia

The Russian eagle has two heads: one looks to the left, the other to the right. It's an age-old motif that many countries share, but only the Russian double-headed eagle mirrors the crisis diplomacy of its country. The Russian eagle looks West and East - it represents a country between two geopolitical poles.

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke to the lower house of the Russian parliament, the Duma, about the international politics, Russia's positions, and the Ukraine crisis. He achieved the diplomatic feat of looking both East and West - he praised relations between Moscow and Beijing, while at the same time describing relations with the European Union as "without alternative." But Lavrov knows only too well how severely these relations have been tested in the past few months. Lavrov alleged that the West was to blame for the crisis in Ukraine.

Combining lies and innocence

Once again, Russia's leadership is washing its hands of any sin and turning the causal chain round. President Vladimir Putin recently said the "freedom fighters" of Donbass would "find" their tanks and artillery guns. This mixture of outright lies and an attitude of innocence and paranoia is currently driving Russia's negotiating partners mad.

The constant denial of the obvious - the massive support of the separatists in eastern Ukraine by the Russian military - recalls the political style of the Soviet Union. Moscow's current abrasive style can be explained by a glance into the past - it's like a mixture of czarist expansionism and Soviet ambition.

Discomfort and fear of Moscow

Even Russia-friendly countries, such as Kazakhstan, are starting to get uncomfortable. There is concern that the Eurasian Economic Union, orchestrated by Putin, could just be a vehicle to create political vassals and maintain economic dominance. In many countries that once belonged to the empire - either the czarist or the Soviet - a diffuse fear of Moscow is spreading, whether it's in the Baltic, the Caucasus region, and in Central Asia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently named Russia's obvious aims. Three days later, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Moscow to try and pick up new diplomatic threads. This double strategy seems to have been agreed upon by the two German leaders. In the Kremlin, the center of power under the double-headed eagle, Steinmeier warned of a new division of Europe.

Russia is trying to position itself as a third power between East and West. But the West is growing weary of this two-faced strategy and Moscow's naked power politics. In Russia, there are already voices saying that the country is being driven out of Europe and cut off by the West. Sometimes the myths are created before the events themselves actually happen.