Peter the Great and Putin the Mediocre
In a recent speech to young entrepreneurs in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin compared himself to Czar Peter the Great. In the speech, celebrating the 350th anniversary of his birth, he justified the military invasion of Ukraine as Russia’s right to seize lands that had previously been conquered by the 18th Century czar. Putin has repeatedly stated that Ukraine is not a real nation, that it has been historically Russian, and that its identity is solely Russian.
“What was (Peter) doing?” Putin asked in the June 9 speech. “Taking back and reinforcing. That’s what he did. And it looks like it fell on us to take back and reinforce as well.”
One wonders whether the timing of the invasion of Ukraine was taken with this special 350th anniversary in mind. Putin might have believed that by this date he would not only control Ukraine, but also Belarus and Moldova to recreate the Russian Empire. The previous Russian rationales for the military intervention — preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, ridding Kiev of its “Nazi” regime — have been superseded by the real geopolitical reason: the recreation of an imperial empire by Czar Putin.
The concept of creating, re-creating or defending the Russian empire has been used by Soviet and Russian leaders over the past century. Vladimir Lenin justified the suppression of opposition and dissent in the newly formed Soviet Union by claiming he was protecting the “proletarian gains” of the Bolshevik revolution. Joseph Stalin created and dominated a bloc of socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II, and squelched any nationalist or democratic movements in the name of “socialist unity.” Nikita Khrushchev prevented any ideological departures from the newly branded “socialist commonwealth” by using military force to overturn a reformist government in Hungary 1956. Under Leonard Brezhnev, the Warsaw Pact countries invaded their fellow ally Czechoslovakia in 1968 to prevent that government’s adoption of the policy of “socialism with a human face.” The belief was that countries under Soviet domination had “limited sovereignty” and that the loss of one country or a republic could undermine the entire “socialist community.”
After the Soviet Union imploded, Putin adopted a similar strategy with his military invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Both countries were tilting further toward the West and democratic norms, with interests in joining NATO or the European Union. Putin justified his military actions by claiming Russian-speakers in these former Soviet republics were being persecuted by their new governments. He punished them by seizing territory, creating “frozen conflicts” or puppet regimes in those areas. In 2022, Putin’s goal toward Ukraine has gone beyond limiting the sovereignty of that country, but to actually eliminating its sovereignty.
Putin’s comments in St. Petersburg, therefore, reveal his basic reason for invading Ukraine: as a step toward the ultimate recreation of the Russian Empire. Given that reasoning, he is not interested in an “off ramp” from the conflict nor is he worried about national “humiliation” which French President Emmanuel Macron has been proclaiming. The diplomatic solution that the “realist” Henry Kissinger suggested at Davos — that both countries accept the boundaries that existed prior to Feb. 24 — is no longer realistic. Nor does Putin need to worry about domestic opposition to his “special military operation.” His total control over the media and public information, his violent suppression of protests, the muzzling or imprisonment of the opposition, gives him the ability to say whatever he wants, to use whatever propaganda needed to justify his actions. Given those tools, Putin does not have to defend why the current government in Kiev is still in power, the poor performance of the Russian military, the limited territorial gains in Ukraine, the large number of killed and wounded soldiers, or the fierce resistance by the Ukrainians. We now know what the Russian leader’s goals are and the United States, NATO, and other allies must ensure that Ukraine receives the military, financial, and intelligencesharing assistance that it needs to defend itself and prevent Putin from continuing his imperial dreams.
Peter the Great admired the West, where he had traveled extensively to learn first-hand about reforms which he believed could transform Russia into a great power. He wanted to open up Russia to Europe and he built St. Petersburg to be the window of his country to the West. Who knew that 350 years later, a native of that same city —Vladimir Putin — would attempt to recreate the Russian Empire? But this time what Putin the Mediocre is recreating is not the empire of Peter the Great, but the Soviet Union 2.0 — ideologically further away from the West, militarily challenged, economically weakened, domestically stifled, and diplomatically isolated.