Australia and the World Past and Present

Why did Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine? Well, he told us his reasons in a televised speech on February 21, 2022. Let’s take a look at what he laid out in that address.

Putin stated that Ukraine is “an inalienable part of our own history, culture and a spiritual space.”

In Putin’s view, what is now Ukraine was part of Russia before the 17th century.

He states “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.”

He has no regard for Krushchev who oversaw Crimea’s move to Ukraine in 1954.

Putin references Stalin’s ‘autonomization’ of the USSR in 1922 asking “why was it necessary to appease the nationalists?” ‘Nationalists’ for Putin are those who seek to promote a nationalism different to that of Russian nationalism. He doesn’t mention Russian nationalism. It seems that Putin equates ‘nationalism’ with separatism.

One of the interesting aspects of Putin’s address is that he clearly doesn’t have much admiration for Russia’s ex-leaders.

He criticises Lenin. He calls Stalin a dictator and he attacks communism.

Putin goes into some detail of the Sepetember 1989 plenary session of the Soviet Central Committee (CPSU) and the approved ‘ethnic policy’. Some of the provisions include:

“The Republics of the USSR shall possess all the rights appropriate to their status as sovereign socialist states.”

“The supreme representative bodies of power of the USSR can challenge and suspend the operation of the USSR Government’s resolutions and directives in their territory.”

“Each republic of the USSR shall have citizenship of its own, which shall apply to all of its residents.”

Putin blames Russia’s previous leaders for the disintegration of the USSR.

By the early 1990s the USSR owed money to other counties and international institutions. The money had been racked up while the the Soviet Union was still in existence. By 1991 the USSR had broken down into the independent states that we see today. But Putin says that it was Russia alone that paid this money back (ending in 2017) without the help of countries like Ukraine. Putin argues that these states benefited, but did not contribute to that benefit.

Indeed, Putin claims that Kiev “replaced partnership with a parasitic attitude.”

One of the most baffling aspects of Putin’s address are his references to neo-nazism within Ukraine. One might speculate that using the memory of Nazi-Germany’s attempt to invade Russia during the Second World War might play well politically to his domestic audience.

Many of Putin’s descriptions of Ukraine sound almost identical to critical descriptions of Russia. He alleges that an oligarchy rules Ukraine and he asserts that the state has been privatised.

“There are more and more acts enabling the Ukrainian military and law enforcement agencies to crack down the freedom of speech, dissent and going after the opposition.”

Putin says that Ukraine is pursuing a nuclear program. There is a certain irony in this. Russia, of course, is a nuclear state. To any extent that Ukraine does pursue a nuclear program, the groundwork for such capability was laid while Ukraine was part of the USSR.

Russia’s President believes that Ukraine is more of a puppet for the West (in particular the US and NATO) than it is an independent state.

Putin clearly sees Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO as direct security threat to Russia.

Putin goes into some detail on the issue of NATO expansion.

He begins with the April 2008 Bucharest Summit in which NATO said that Ukraine and Georgia would become members

He goes back in history to the 1990s and to German unification talks. Russia was concerned that a unified Germany could lead to the increasing influence of NATO and the diminishing of Russia power in Eastern Europe. He says that Russia was assured by the US that NATO would not move “one inch to the East.”

For Putin, the 5 waves of NATO expansion are key. They are:

1999 – Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary join.

2004 – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia join.

2009 – Albania and Croatia join.

2017 – Montenegro joins.

2020 – North Macedonia joins.

From Putin’s point of view, this represents a steady wave of military expansion towards Russia. Most of these countries are ones that Russia regards as being located within its historical sphere of influence.

Ukraine borders Russia itself. Russia’s President mentions that a ballistic missile fired from the Kharkov region of Ukraine could reach Moscow within 7-8 minutes and a hypersonic missile could do so within 4-5 minutes.

At the end of his address, Putin references the Donbas region. He alleges that the Russian-speaking people of this area have endured a “genocide…to which almost 4 million people have been subjected.”

Putin says that people have the right to determine their own future. However, he does not accept Ukraine seeking to join NATO. For whatever reason, the experience of NATO countries is more attractive to Ukraine than that of Russia. The Eastern European states have turned away from the east and towards the west. In part, this represents a failure of Russia to present practices and institutions that can compete with Western European models.

The majority Russian-speaking areas of the region do represent a challenge for Russia, Ukraine and the international community. These include the regions of Crimea, Donbas and Luhansk. But the international community, by and large, doesn’t accept as valid unilateral referenda and unilateral annexation. While Putin has acted unilaterally, attempting to ‘create facts on the ground’, the majority of the international community views Russia’s invasion as illegal.

Putin has spelled out his reasons for going to war with Ukraine. Whether those reasons are legitimate or not are another matter. It is clear from Putin’s speech that he believes that the devolution of power within Russia simply plants the seeds of future seperatism. But what comes through more than anything are Putin’s security concerns and the role of NATO over time