Europe finds itself at war.
For the last three years Russia has tried to extinguish Ukrainian statehood.
This article will not attempt to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the last three years of brutal fighting, in minute detail. Rather, as the voices calling for a peace-agreement between Russia and Ukraine grow ever louder, this article will attempt to discuss what may come after.
In what particular situation does Europe find itself vis a vis Russia, and based on the history and culture of Russia, what is to be expected from her?
Winston Churchill remarked in 1939 that Russian action is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Yet, he went on, perhaps the key to the conduct was the Russian national interest.
Today, we find ourselves again trying to analyse Russian conduct, asking ourselves what comes next. To what should we ascribe its conduct? The idea of the national interest does not seem to be applicable, as it is arguably Russia, not Ukraine, who has suffered the more strategically egregious consequences of the invasion.
Russia is largely isolated, relying on Iranian drones and North Korean artillery ammunition. China talks of eternal brotherhood yet delivers little.
Economically Vladimir Putin is turning Russia into an economic basket case, with Europe having turned away from Russian energy faster than anyone could reasonably have expected. The European Union has now seventeen separate sanction packages on various Russian entities. The re-election of Donald Trump in America has delivered most likely less than Russia would have hoped.
Ukraine on the other hand, still stands. The expectation that Ukraine would simply capitulate and Russia would subjugate Ukraine within a few days has proven a folly beyond comprehension. Ukraine now finds itself closer to the European Union than ever before, and more integrated into NATO weapon systems than arguably any other non-NATO member on the planet.
Yet, Russia continues to fight on Ukrainian soil, and Ukrainian women and children die daily due to Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure. Russia still occupies almost twenty percent of Ukrainian soil.
If Europe and Ukraine wants a lasting peace, what is to be done? And what of our relationship with Russia afterwards?
The root causes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Russian officials have repeatedly cited the “elimination of the root causes” of the war as a perquisite for negotiations with Ukraine.[1]
But what are they?
What Russia is demanding is the de facto subjugation of Ukraine to Russia. Robert Person, Russia expert and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, has claimed that “It’s really about turning Ukraine into a subservient vassal state with a puppet government that does his bidding.”[2]
Yet, the conflict goes beyond Ukraine. Ukraine is merely where the current fault lines are drawn. The conflict is with the wider western world, and Europe in particular.
In December 2021, before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia demanded that the United States and its European allies, in other words, NATO, cease all military activity in central and eastern Europe. All NATO military infrastructure put in place after 1997 was to be dismantled, and that NATO would not offer membership to Ukraine.[3]
The demand would have seen a return to a “Cold War-like security arrangement.”[4]
Stephen Hall, assistant professor of Russian and post-soviet politics at the University of Bath points out that Russia showed limited resistance to Polish, and Baltic countries joining NATO in 1999 and 2004, respectively. NATO, he argues, is relevant insofar that it highlights how Ukraine is slipping away from Russia.[5]
On the evening of the 21st February 2022, the day before the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin claimed that Ukraine is an “inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.”[6] The Russian President claimed that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.”[7]
The speech highlighted that Putin is clearly anti-communist. His disdain for Lenin seems clear. Putin does not seek to recreate the CCCP. Rather, he is attempting to revive the Russian empire.
Criticising the communist party and its creation of the CCCP he claimed that the Soviet Union was “established in the place of the former Russian Empire in 1922. But practice showed immediately that it was impossible to preserve or govern such a vast and complex territory on the amorphous principles that amounted to confederation. They were far removed from reality and the historical tradition.”[8]
For Putin, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the collapse of the historical Russia.
A brief overview of the Russian narrative regarding Ukraine
The Russian obsession with Ukraine, “historical Russia”, and the history of the Russian empire, is the root cause of the invasion. Ukraine, by simply existing as an independent, fully functioning state, is a stark repudiation of all that Putin spoke of.
Georgiy Kasianov, professor at the University of Lublin, argues that the Russian war on Ukraine, is a war “very much about the past.”[9]
Historically Russia is the “other” to Ukraine, and in its imperial and soviet guises “looms over Ukrainian history as a colonial force of exploitation, assimilation, repression, and humiliation.”[10]
The Soviet narrative insisted that although there were ethnographic and cultural differences, the people were unified and shared historical destiny. Following the implosion and breakup of the Soviet Union, “Russian elites and state-backed historians sought to trace a chronology that would reinforce the nation that Russians and Ukrainians were one people.”[11]
In 2008 the-then Russian president Dmitriy Medvedev refused to attend the opening ceremony of the memorial to victims of the Holodomor, the genocide of Ukrainians directed from Moscow by Stalin in the 1930’s, claiming it was a shared Soviet tragedy. In Russian media, Ukraine was portrayed as a zoo filled with “rabid nationalists.”[12] Prior to the full-scale invasion in February 2022, similar themes were repeatedly invoked. The illegal annexation of Crimea and subsequent invasion of Donbas were justified as they were supposedly illegally passed to Ukraine by the CCCP during the 1920s and 1950s.[13]
In summary, Kasianov concludes that “Putin and his allies use history to claim that Ukraine is not a legitimate country; denying Ukrainians their sovereign history was the first and decisive step in rejecting the right of Ukraine to exist.”
Anna Reid, a former journalist for the Economist, makes a similar argument. Writing in Foreign Affairs in June 2022, she argued that Russia and Putin are waging a “war on history”.[14]
When Putin claims that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia”, and that Ukraine has always been one with Russia, it is important to realise that these views are “a defining part of his worldview.”[15]
The pro-western, pro-European outlook, today shared by the majority of Ukrainians, is simply the latest attempt to divide Russia – in Putins’ mind, Ukraine is not merely a part of Russia – it simply does not exist as a separate entity at all.
Reid posits that the heart of Russia’s Ukraine problem is a “war over history” spanning from the tenth century until today. A telling example of the divergence is the Muscovy annexation of Kyiv in 1686. Described by Ukrainians as swapping one empire (Polish) for another (Muscovy), in the Russian storytelling it was, to quote Putin, “gathering of the Russian world.”[16]
In the Soviet Union Ukraine was simultaneously “extra repressed and extra privileged” compared to other non-Russian nationalities, with Ukraine serving a form of “little brother” to its Russian counterpart – a relationship Putin may believe Ukraine would be prepared to return to, had it not been for western interference.[17]
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has gradually turned west. That Russia would not accept this was clear early on following the breakup. Already in December 1991 President Yeltsin’s press secretary suggested the “frontier between the two republics was yet to be resolved”. In the spring of 1992, the chairman of the Russian foreign affairs committee suggested Russia should question Ukrainian patrimony over Crimea, as it would “quell growing clamor from the Russian nationalist right, while pressuring Ukraine to abandon its claim on the fleet.”[18]
In the summer of 1992 Adrian Karatnycky writing in Foreign Affairs, noted that “Ukrainian leaders view ill-considered or provocative remarks by Russian officials as part of a pattern of Russian conduct that has plagued Ukraine for centuries.”[19]
Yeltsin himself never questioned Ukrainian sovereignty, and the 1997 “Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation” included the inviolability of existing borders.
It is however noteworthy that Karatnycky could point to Putins mentor, St Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, as opposing Yeltsin’s policy, whom instead favoured the restoration of a federated union based on the CIS. According to Karatnycky, “much of the current Russian political establishment” favoured anti-western sentiments and the revival of “great power” Russian nationalism.
Almost prophetically, Karatnycky concludes his article with an eerie observation, worth quoting in full:
A pro-Western Russian democracy may well triumph, but democracy and a pro-Western orientation are significantly more likely to endure in Ukraine. In time a stable and democratic Ukraine, linked to democratic Europe, could act as a conduit for democratic ideas to the east; a Western-oriented Ukraine, with its large Russian population, could engage Russia in the west. If Russia were to fall prey to a revival of obscurantism and imperialism, Ukraine would also become a welcome buffer for the new democracies of east-central Europe. Above all a free and pro-Western Ukraine would deprive a newly aggressive Russia of its capacity to reassert superpower control over its former satellites. Bolstering a strong pro-Western Ukrainian democracy and assisting a stable Ukrainian state, materially and technically, would not only benefit Ukrainians but the entire democratic West.[20]
Considering the historical narrative from Russia vis a vis Ukraine, it is no surprise to note that Putin claimed at the end of June. that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people”, and that “in that sense, all of Ukraine is ours.”[21]
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), concluded on June 21st that “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long-term demands for full Ukrainian capitulation remain unchanged.”[22]
A glimpse into the Russian future
Let us here postulate that there was to be some form of peace tomorrow between Russia and Ukraine, what of Russia and its relationship to Europe, including Ukraine?
Though the future is notoriously hard to predict, the past may offer us a window into what Russian behaviour may look like.
Serhii Plokhy, professor of Ukrainian and Eastern European history at Harvard described Putin’s ideas as a “pre-revolutionary idea of what the Russian nation, including Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians” are, and in which that last two groups “don’t have a right to exist as separate nations. We are almost back to the mid-nineteenth century with imperial officers trying to hinder the development of Ukrainian culture and ideas.”[23]
This matters, as a majority of Russians do support the invasion of Ukraine. A survey taken during 2023 found that almost two thirds of Russians supported Putin’s handling of foreign policy (sixty-seven percent), and almost as many say they support the actions in Ukraine (sixty-three percent). A whopping ninety-four percent of those polled said they at least moderate felt pride in their country and sixty-two percent believe Russia is unjustly treated on the world stage.[24]
This matters, because it shows that Vladimir Putin is not the central issue facing Ukraine and Europe. Russia is.
The Tsarist and Soviet legacy still shape Russia today. The Soviet implosion did not dissolve the institutions of repressions. Rather, the remnants of the Soviet KGB grew from twenty thousand to more than one hundred thousand by the early 1990’s. It testified, writes Stephen Kotkin, “to the undertow exerted by the institutional legacies, and to the sheer number of Soviet state personnel that Russia inherited.”[25]
The new Russian state that emerged from the Soviet Union attempted to create new institutions, but “the new executive institutions bore the unmistakable stamp of the soviet epoch, and even of the tsarist period… Russia’s institutional traditions condemned Russia’s people to fall well short of their aspirations for prosperity.”[26]
George Kennan, famed author of the long-telegram (more below), wrote in December 1990, one year before the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, that what was required in the new Russia was the “the immensely complex and dangerous process of political and institutional decentralization of the traditional Russian state will have to be in some way managed.”[27]
The immense tragedy is that this never happened. The 1990’s in Russia was in the long history of the Soviet, Russian and Muscovy history, an anomaly. As Kennan noted, the Russian people were “poorly prepared” to meet the challenges, and their own history had “pathetically little to tell them.”[28]
Alas, it was not to be. Russia did not undergo “sustained liberal reform; it was simply not possible, given the social and institutional landscape inherited by from the Soviet period…”[29]
Already by the mid 1990’s the then Russian Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, stated that Russia is Russia was and remains a great power… The international situation itself requires that Russia be not merely a historically great power, but a great power right now”, and that foreign Russian foreign policy was by no means on the basis of current circumstances but on the basis of [Russia’s] colossal potential.”[30]
As such, the conclusion we may draw from the historical record is that Russian policy, vis a vis Europe and Ukraine, regardless of an eventual peace (of some sort or another), will not fundamentally alter the general outlook of the Russian state.
We may note that the two large revolutions in Russia, those of 1917 and 1989 – 1991, were created largely from the top. The failures of Russian tsardom and the communist party ruling the Soviet Union were many, but the collapse of both regimes were largely self-made. In the case of Tsar Nicholas, the unwillingness to reform; in the case of the communist party and Gorbachev in particular, the willingness to force through reforms.[31]
Yet despite the revolutions, the institutions reverted in many ways back to type after a few tumultuous years.
So, what should Europe do?
Firstly, the closer integration of Ukraine in the European Union. Ukraine today has the strongest and most capable army in Europe but needs economic support. Membership in the EU is an obvious goal which should benefit all involved. The gradual integration of the Ukrainian armed forces within EU and NATO structures is vital for a credible defence posture.
Secondly, the sanctions regime on Russia, its industries, shadow fleet and leaders must stay in place after any peace-agreement has been reached. Conditions based on reconstruction of Ukraine, war-crime tribunals and the return of Ukrainian lands must be iron-clad. The weakest point in Russia is their crumbling economy, and Europe has leverage – if it decides to use it.
Thirdly, Europe must continue to rearm. With the United States turning towards the Pacific, there can be no doubt that European issues require European solutions. Europe has by magnitudes a larger economy than Russia, and more than three times the population. This will have to be a collective effort. The EU Commission ReArm initiative is one step in the right direction.
Forth, NATO as it exists will have to continue to evolve to meet future threats. NATO’s future depends on its members and the collective credibility. Deeper integration in all domains is a necessity, and the five percent goal (3,5 + 1,5) ought to be the baseline beyond the foreseeable future.
Lastly, we must recognise Russia as it is. Russia will not become a western democratic nation simply because we can sell German cars or Swedish furniture in Moscow or St Petersburg. Russia is an antagonistic party towards European countries and the United States and will continue to be so until the current system gripping Russia radically changes.
When Kennan wrote in 1946 that “at bottom of Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity…”[32] we find ourselves today recognising the premise.
When he writes that “Soviet power, unlike that of Hitlerite Germany, is neither schematic nor adventunstic. It does not work by fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to logic of force.”, we simply have to look at the world today to see similar patterns.
This recognition, that the Russian political power (in whatever guise it may take), will require handling. As Kennan himself wrote: “Our first step must be to apprehend, and recognize for what it is, the nature of the movement with which we are dealing. We must study it with same courage, detachment, objectivity, and same determination not to be emotionally provoked or unseated by it, with which doctor studies unruly and unreasonable individual.”
Failure to do so will cost us, and not just Ukraine, dearly.