Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a long and important
speech on February 21 as tensions with the United States over Ukraine reached
new heights. While the media focused on certain aspects of the speech, particularly Russia recognizing two separatist areas in Ukraine as
sovereign independent states, there is much more there to unpack.
Let’s begin at the end. “I consider it necessary to make a
long-overdue decision to immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty
of the Donetsk People's Republic [DPR] and the Luhansk People's Republic
[LPR],” he said. These are two areas in eastern Ukraine that declared
independence in April of 2014. Their decision was clearly motivated by a sense
they had Moscow’s backing. They are in one of several small areas similar to
this that have sought to become their own states with Russian backing.
Moscow usually does this as a way to keep its hands on the
scales inside a former Soviet country. In Georgia, there is South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, which sought independence in the 1990s – and there are other areas,
such as Transnistria near Moldova.
Putin’s decision was made after years of trying to manage a
conflict in Ukraine. He claims the necessity of recognition now, apparently to
do away with the pretense that these are just separatist areas. Russia cares
about international laws and norms; even if it exploits them for its own needs,
it cares to have an appearance of doing things by the book.
That is why Russia’s Tass reported, “Putin later ordered the
Russian Foreign Ministry to establish diplomatic relations with the DPR and LPR
and the Defense Ministry to maintain peace in the republics. According to one
of the presidential decrees, the Defense Ministry was ordered to make sure that
the Russian Armed Forces maintain peace in the Donetsk People’s Republic until
a treaty on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance is concluded. The
Russian Defense Ministry received similar instructions in a decree recognizing
the LPR.”
The point here is that Russia is exploiting the situation
that it helped create in 2014 by now creating a legal fiction for sending
troops into these areas. This will lead to the peacekeeping troops being on the
line of potential contact with a Ukrainian army that Moscow says has sent
120,000 troops to the borders of these breakaway regions. Ukraine has called
the operations against the separatists an anti-terror campaign.
Let us look at how Putin has presented this to understand
why it might matter far beyond Ukraine.
He began his 8,000-word speech by saying “the topic of my
speech is the events in Ukraine and why it is so important for us, for Russia.
Of course, my appeal is also addressed to our compatriots in Ukraine.” He said
that the situation in the Donbas, where the breakaway areas are, has reached a
critical stage.
For Russia, the area of Ukraine is what was once called the
near abroad, a kind of buffer between Russia and the West. “Let me emphasize once
again that Ukraine for us is not just a neighboring country. It is an integral
part of our own history, culture, spiritual space. These are our comrades,
relatives, among whom are not only colleagues, friends, former colleagues, but
also relatives, people connected with us by blood, family ties,” the Russian
president said.
Putin looked to history to justify this. He said, “Inhabitants
of the southwestern historical Old Russian lands called themselves Russian and
Orthodox. So it was until the 17th century, when part of these territories was
reunited with the Russian state, and after.”
He noted, “The 18th century, the lands of the Black Sea
region, annexed to Russia as a result of wars with the Ottoman Empire, were
called Novorossiya. Now they are trying to obliviate these milestones of
history, as well as the names of state military figures of the Russian Empire,
without whose work modern Ukraine would not have many large cities and even the
very exit to the Black Sea.”
Putin claimed, “Modern Ukraine was entirely and completely
created by Russia: more precisely, Bolshevik, communist Russia.” He accuses the
Soviets of actually reducing Russia’s control of Ukraine by separating parts of
this area and creating the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic. Indeed, Crimea
was eventually given to Ukraine under this process. At the same time, Ukraine
was brutally treated by Stalin, and millions starved. Later, after the Second
World War and the Holocaust, Ukrainian resistance against the Soviets continued
for years.
Ukraine did indeed change during this period. Areas that
were once more Polish and more Jewish, such as Lvov, became more Ukrainian.
Other areas are Russian-speaking. That is the nature of history and of war and
tragedy: countries and places change.
Putin puts out this history by saying “Stalin already
annexed to the USSR and transferred to Ukraine some lands that previously
belonged to Poland, Romania and Hungary. At the same time, as a kind of
compensation, Stalin endowed Poland with part of the original German
territories, and in 1954 Khrushchev for some reason took away Crimea from
Russia and also presented it to Ukraine.”
The president wants to redress some of this history. In his
analysis, he is correct in noting that much of the world’s borders today
resemble things done in 1945 or in the period up to 1960s. That was an era when
European powers redrew the world’s borders. After doing so, many of them have
said international law prevents any borders from being changed. This is largely
a colonial-era illusion.
The same colonial era has created conflicts all over Africa
and Asia and is responsible for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It was the
British who created partition and it was the UN that created the impossible
borders presented to Israel in 1948. It is a colonial-era design that placed
the Golan in Syria and conjured up an international Jerusalem, which has led countries
not to move their embassies to the Israeli capital.
Be that as it may, Putin’s argument about Ukraine is that
Russia is reaching back to what was done in 1917 and 1922 for its rights to do
things there. He mentions Stalin, “People's Commissar for Nationalities,
proposed building the country on the principles of autonomization that is
giving the republics – future administrative-territorial units – broad powers
when they join a single state.”
What he is presenting is a blueprint for breakaway or
autonomous regions to do as they please. “Why was it necessary to satisfy any,
unlimitedly growing nationalist ambitions on the outskirts of the former
empire?” he asks, noting attempts regarding arbitrarily formed areas and
administrative units, “Huge territories that often had nothing to do with them
at all…to convey them together with the population of historical Russia to Ukraine.”
He’s arguing that what was done arbitrarily in the 1920s, can now be undone.
Of course, this opens up a big question about why other
things that were done in the 1920s cannot be undone. Why should the Golan be
part of Syria, a decision made at that time, which put the Golan under French
and thus Syrian control? Why is Mosul part of Iraq and not Turkey? Why isn’t
there an independent Kurdish state? Why is Hatay province part of Turkey and
not Syria? We could go on and on and see how many areas in the Middle East were
arbitrarily given to one country and not the other by colonial administrators,
much as was done in Russia in the 1920s.
What Putin argues is that the Soviets made a mistake in the
1920s. “At first glance, this is generally incomprehensible; some kind of
madness. But this is only at first glance. There is an explanation,” he argues.
He points out that the Soviets sought to remain in power by giving in to
demands of various nationalities within the Soviet empire: Give them something
for the great Soviet Union. Putin argues that the early Soviet decision was a
mistake and this became obvious after 1991 with the wars and breakup of the
USSR.
Russian President suggests we speak about the events of the
past with honesty. “This is a historical fact. Actually, as I have already
said, as a result of the Bolshevik policy, Soviet Ukraine arose.” He accuses
Ukraine of being an entity created by Lenin. “This is fully confirmed by
archival documents, including Lenin's harsh directives on the Donbas, which was
literally squeezed into Ukraine.”
He says it is ironic that modern-day Ukraine has taken down
Lenin’s statue, hinting with typical Putin humor that they might have kept
Lenin since in his view he created modern Ukraine. “We are ready to show you
what real decommunization means for Ukraine.”
Putin next takes listeners through a tour of Soviet history
and discusses how the Soviet Republics had no real power. “In practice, a
strictly centralized, absolutely unitary state was created... under the
conditions of a totalitarian regime, everything worked anyway, and outwardly it
looked beautiful, attractive and even super-democratic.”
Now Putin claims that the “bacillus of nationalist ambitions
has not disappeared.” This term, bacillus, is likely borrowed on purpose from
Winston Churchill, who said that regarding the sealed train that took Lenin and
his Bolsheviks back to Russia from Switzerland in 1917 was sent like a “plague
bacillus.” Putin’s point apparently is that Lenin helped appease this
nationalism, creating the problems Russia now faces in Ukraine.
Nationalism became like a mine waiting to explode, he
claims. “In the mid-1980s, against the backdrop of growing socio-economic
problems, the obvious crisis of the planned economy, the national question –
the essence of which was not some expectations and unfulfilled aspirations of
the peoples of the Union, but primarily the growing appetites of local elites –
became more and more aggravated.” This led to 1989 and the decision by the
party elites that "the Union Republics have all the rights corresponding
to their status as sovereign socialist states."
Let’s recall where Putin was in 1989. He was in East Germany
in Dresden, watching Communism collapse. A KGP officer, he spoke German, and
tried to defuse tensions. He says that while the Soviets had harmed Russia and
its people through “robbery” of lands provided to other states, “the people
recognized the new geopolitical realities that arose after the collapse of the
USSR; recognized the new independent states… our country provided such support
with respect for the dignity and sovereignty of Ukraine.”
Putin argues that Ukraine did not deal fairly with Russia in
the 1990s and began to move towards the West. “I will add that Kyiv tried to
use the dialogue with Russia as a pretext for bargaining with the West,
blackmailed it with rapprochement with Moscow, knocking out preferences for
itself: saying that otherwise, Russian influence on Ukraine will grow.”
He claims “Ukrainian society faced the rise of extreme
nationalism, which quickly took the form of aggressive Russophobia and
neo-Nazism. Hence the participation of Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis in
terrorist gangs in the North Caucasus, and the increasingly louder territorial
claims against Russia.” This is important because Putin came to power after
Russia suffered failure in the Balkans when NATO bombed Serbia and after
Russian setbacks in Chechnya.
From Putin’s point of view, Ukraine then became a tool in
the hand of the West. In this complex history he argues that the West works
with “oligarchs” in Ukraine. Putin meanwhile was busy in the early 2000s
imprisoning or driving into exile the oligarchs who arose in 1990s Russia. “A
stable statehood in Ukraine has not developed, and political, electoral
procedures serve only as a cover, a screen for the redistribution of power and
property between various oligarchic clans,” he says.
He then presents a picture of Ukraine as akin to the French
revolution, swept over by “radicals” and Ukraine cities becoming victims of
“pogroms of violence.” He says “it is impossible without a shudder to remember
the terrible tragedy in Odessa, where participants in a peaceful protest were
brutally murdered.”
Pro-Russia Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych was driven
from power in a 2014 coup, he said, which is in fact the Maidan protests. Putin
then gives a laundry list of failures in Ukraine, arguing that the country has
not supported its people. “Tens and hundreds of thousands of jobs have been
lost.”
Russia's president also delves into an issue that US
President Joe Biden is likely familiar with from the Obama years. “There is
simply no independent court in Ukraine. At the request of the West, the Kyiv
authorities gave representatives of international organizations the pre-emptive
right to select members of the highest judicial bodies - the Council of Justice
and the Qualification Commission of Judges.” Biden was deeply involved in
Ukraine policy under Obama and assured Ukraine that the US would back it
despite initial attempts to “reset” relations with Russia.
Putin mentions the US Embassy’s efforts against corruption.
“All this is done under a plausible pretext to increase the effectiveness of
the fight against corruption. Okay, but where are the results? Corruption has
blossomed as luxuriantly, and blossoms [now] more than ever.”
He then accuses Ukraine’s current government, which he sees
as a government that was the result of a coup in 2014, as perpetuating
corruption and being anti-Russian. He accuses it of persecuting the Russian
language and Orthodox Church. He argues that Russia’s decision to annex Crimea
from Ukraine was done to support the inhabitants of the peninsula. Then he
accuses Ukraine of enacting a new military strategy against Russia. “The
strategy proposes the organization in the Russian Crimea and on the territory of
Donbas, in fact, of a terrorist underground.”
The real story of Russia’s claims are now laid out as Putin
goes through a long list of weapons he is concerned will be used by Ukraine. He
discusses Tochka-U operational-tactical missiles which have a range of 100 km,
NATO presence in Ukraine, that “regular joint exercises have a clear
anti-Russian focus,” airfields, and that “the airspace of Ukraine is open for
flights by US strategic and reconnaissance aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles
that are used to monitor the territory of Russia, and the possibility of
missiles and hypersonic missiles being deployed in Ukraine."
Russia also objects to Kyiv joining NATO. He claims that
while Moscow was open to working with the treaty organization, it has rapidly
expanded. “The authorities of some Eastern European countries, trading in
Russophobia, brought their complexes and stereotypes about the Russian threat
to the Alliance, and insisted on building up collective defense potentials,
which should be deployed primarily against Russia. Moreover, this happened in
the 1990s and early 2000s, when, thanks to openness and our goodwill, relations
between Russia and the West were at a high level.”
Putin even claims he spoke to former President Bill Clinton
about Russia joining NATO. “I won’t reveal all the details of that
conversation, but the reaction to my question looked, let’s say, very
restrained, and how the Americans really reacted to this opportunity can
actually be seen in their practical steps towards our country.”
Russia doesn’t want the NATO expansion trend to continue.
Putin says there were already five waves of NATO expansion, most recently with
Albania and Croatia; in 2017 Montenegro; in 2020 North Macedonia…. As a result,
the Alliance and its military infrastructure came directly to the borders of
Russia. This became one of the key causes of the European security crisis.”
So for Russia, this is apparently an existential crisis.
“Many Ukrainian airfields are located close to our borders. NATO tactical
aircraft stationed here, including carriers of high-precision weapons, will be
able to hit our territory to the depth of the Volgograd-Kazan-Samara-Astrakhan
line. The deployment of radar reconnaissance assets on the territory of Ukraine
will allow NATO to tightly control the airspace of Russia right up to the
Urals.”
Putin understands US national security strategy and defense
documents warn of “near-peer” rivalry with Russia and he knows that Washington
sought to pivot from counter-terrorism to challenging Moscow. Once the US left
Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, it was no surprise that a Ukraine crisis
followed.
For Putin this all adds up to assertions that the West has
ignored his proposals and demands. “There is only one goal of the West – to
restrain the development of Russia. And they will do it, as they did before,
even without any formal pretext at all…. Russia has every right to take
retaliatory measures to ensure its own security: That is exactly what we will
do.”
Putin says, “International documents expressly state the
principle of equal and indivisible security, which, as is well known, includes
obligations not to strengthen one's security at the expense of the security of
other states.” Now he wants to test this and recognize parts of Ukraine as
independent states in order to move forces into these new buffer states.
The end goal will be to see if the US will match this move
with its own chess-like deployment. This could provide a casus belli for actual
conflict. Putin clearly thinks he must move now to prevent whatever might come
in the years to come.
