Explained – Putin’s
Russia’s attacks on several Ukraine targets creates a new chapter in the tangled history of their Eastern European neighbour writes
To review, in the aftermath of the collapse of the old Soviet Union and its political system, Ukraine declared its independence, just as 13 other constituent republics did, leaving only Russia as the remaining core of the earlier Soviet Union and inheritor of much — but not all — of the USSR’s military assets. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine is something of an illegitimate state that instead should be following its destiny as part of greater Russia.
Historically, Ukraine was the origin point for Russia around a millennium ago, beginning with the Varangian (Viking) entrepôt fort on the site of what is now Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. For many
Russians, the two nations largely have a common culture and close linguistic affiliations, have a shared history, and more. Indicative of Putin’s thinking has been his often-quoted view that the breakup of the Soviet Union (and most especially this split between Russia and Ukraine) was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.
In real-life examples of this intermingling, the great Russian novelist, Nikolai Gogol, was actually of Ukrainian ethnicity and one of his most famous works, Taras Bulba, had portrayed the sweeping saga of a Ukrainian Cossack tribe. And the late Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, was of partially Ukrainian heritage.
Importantly, what is the current Ukrainian nation exists in a landscape that has few real natural borders. For centuries, the western part of the country was held by Poland-Lithuania, then Habsburg, Austria, and eventually by a reborn Poland. Only the post-World War 2 territorial settlements brought much of those territories into the Soviet Union. Much of Ukraine’s more easterly parts were once controlled by Tartar and Mongol khanates and then the Ottoman Empire, and only eventually came under Czarist Russian control at the end of the 18th century. From this history, the Ukrainian nation has come to include Ukrainian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and ethnic Russians, amongst others.
Prior to the break-up of the old Soviet Union, Ukraine had had a brief episode of independence in the aftermath of the collapse of Czarist Russia, and then a period of German rule during much of World War 2.
Ironically, at the founding of the UN, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin had insisted Ukraine was as independent as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were from Britain. As a result, the territory had attained an eerie, quasi-independent international status — at least at the UN — until declaring independence with the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Coming out of all this history, however, Ukraine is now a sovereign nation, even if Russia’s leader cannot quite embrace that truth. And he has, throughout his time in office, repeatedly argued that Ukraine should again be joined with Russia for the rebirth of a great nation — politically, militarily, economically, and even spiritually.
Following the end of the Cold War, formerly Soviet-dominated Eastern European nations such as Poland and the Czech Republic eagerly lobbied to be allowed into Nato and the EU, along with the newly independent Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
For some Russian international relations strategists, this marked a new, subtle (or not so subtle) encirclement strategy. By contrast, Western policymakers and commentators saw this geopolitical moment as a near-inevitable expansion of the democratic family of nations to countries previously dominated by a failed economic and political model.
As Putin gained power and restored Russia’s military capacity and political stability, his international policies responded to that new European security architecture with little enthusiasm. This became increasingly pronounced after the Ukrainian people publicly rejected the corrupt leadership of Viktor Yanukovych that had maintained a fawning respect for Russia. Instead, they elected as president the more Ukrainian nationalist figure of Petro Poroshenko in 2014. Subsequently, in 2019, they selected Volodymyr Zelensky — a former television satirist who promised a more open political life and articulated the dream of becoming more closely linked to Western European values, economics and political circumstances.