Does Russia Want to Be Communist Again
WASHINGTON —
Why is Russian President Vladimir Putin so obsessed with Ukraine?
That'south the question on many minds as Russia's invasion of the one-time Soviet republic continues.
The answer involves a mix of history, geography, and Putin's desire to return his country to the glory days of Soviet Matrimony superpower.
Putin mourns the Soviet Spousal relationship
A former KGB operative, Putin has said the plummet of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest disasters of modern history. He says he does not regard the former Soviet republic of Ukraine as a real country, nor Ukrainians as split up people.
In what historians took as an extreme attack on history, Putin said in a rambling spoken communication Monday: "Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia."
The Ukrainian people voted overwhelmingly in 1991, in a democratic referendum, to leave the Soviet Union and go independent.
Much of the West, probably unwittingly, bought into part of the narrative by referring to Ukraine as "the Ukraine," the way Putin and Russian nationalists do. Information technology's like to how Americans refer to "the S" or "the Midwest," parts of the U.S., not separate countries.
No Russian empire without Ukraine
There'due south a Russian aphorism that you can't have a Russian empire without Ukraine, owing to its long cultural and economic history as the beating heart of the defunct Soviet Spousal relationship. And Putin is hell-aptitude on re-creating a new empire to restore his declining land to superpower condition.
To understand how Putin views Ukraine, and why it's and so entangled in his national mythology, showtime look at a map.
Former Soviet republics
Belarus, Ukraine and Georgia — in that order, due north to south — are former Soviet Marriage republics that broke away into ostensibly independent nations afterwards the communist power collapsed in 1991. They sit similar a massive land bulwark between Russian federation and Europe to the west.
Simply Ukraine is by far the largest, a minerals-rich vast country of fertile fields.
Tiny Georgia was invaded by Russia in 2008, and the two fought a brief state of war. And so, as now, Moscow accused Georgia of attacking pro-Russia breakaway enclaves like Due south Ossetia. France negotiated a cease-fire that ended almost fighting, but Georgia did not regain the disputed territory.
Thousands of demonstrators march in Odessa, Ukraine, to mark the anniversary of the 2014 Maidan revolution.
(Emilio Morenatti / Associated Printing)
Ukraine's motility toward the Due west
Republic of belarus, forth with several other one-time Soviet republics, have, or had, Kremlin-friendly leaders. But Ukraine bankrupt from the pattern in a 2014 revolution that seated democratically elected officials and moved the country solidly toward the West. The and then-pro-Russian federation president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled to Moscow in what became known as the Maidan revolution.
Only equally Ukraine sought to pace out of Russia's sphere of influence, Putin increasingly sought to draw it back. Following the Maidan revolution, he began eating away at eastern Ukraine, declaring swaths like the Donbas to exist Russian because many people at that place speak Russian and have Russian passports.
Information technology's also about the money
Ukraine had also served every bit a lucrative source for Putin's coffers. A Russian gas pipeline crosses Ukraine en route to Europe, ginning big profits for Moscow — money that Putin used to co-opt friendly Ukrainian politicians likewise as to buy off his oligarch cronies, according to Russia experts and one-time diplomats.
A new Russian-backed pipeline, chosen Nord Stream two, would circumvent Ukraine and take gas directly to Germany. This is the pipeline, not yet up and running, at present targeted by U.South. sanctions.
Honor guards open up Kremlin doors for Russian President Vladimir Putin equally he and Crimean leaders sign a treaty in 2014 to annex the peninsula from Ukraine.
(Sergei Ilnitsky / Associated Press)
Putin versus 'rule of law'
Franklin Foer, a author at the Atlantic magazine who traces family unit roots to what is today Ukraine, argues that Putin is less concerned virtually Ukraine joining NATO than he is about Ukraine becoming part of Europe "with its insistence on rule of police."
Ukraine signed an "association" understanding with the European Wedlock, on March 21, 2014, a calendar month afterwards the Maidan revolution and the same month Putin took control of Crimea.
Rule of police force and a campaign against rampant abuse, both of which the U.S. and Europe have been urging on Kyiv with some success, further robs Putin of a tool to control or manipulate the country and its potential quislings, analysts say.
A protester wrapped in the Ukrainian flag holds a drawing of Putin, Stalin and Hitler at a rally in Kyiv on Feb. 12.
(Efrem Lukatsky / Associated Printing)
Fears of Ukrainian democracy
"What he feared most was Ukrainian commonwealth, which would deprive him of influence over the colonial possession that he felt was his birthright," Foer wrote last week.
U.S diplomats in Europe — including ambassadors to Russia and Ukraine — warned throughout the 2000s that showing whatever inclination toward incorporating Ukraine into Western organizations similar NATO would exist "neuralgic" for Putin.
Putin's goal? A submissive Ukraine
Putin at present may not want to take over all of Ukraine, but he certainly wants to swallow up enough of the land to render it a submissive ghost nation, experts and analysts say. One scenario floated by U.S. intelligence is that Putin would brand the invasion swift and only long plenty to install a new leader.
"The primal crisis will not end," Carl Bildt, former prime number minister of Sweden and now a senior envoy in Europe, said on Twitter, "until Putin leaves the Kremlin and [Russian federation] finally decides whether information technology will build a modern nation state or whether information technology still seeks an empire."
Source: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-02-24/why-is-russias-vladimir-putin-so-obsessed-with-ukraine-invasion
0 Response to "Does Russia Want to Be Communist Again"
Post a Comment