Putin’s Gamble: A Strategic Analysis of the Ukraine War

The Ukraine War started on February 24, 2022. Months before that, in July 2021, the Russian president Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin wrote a paper titled ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’ uploaded on the Kremlin.ru website. It was subsequently published in hard copy too.

Those readers who might harbour a doubt that the paper was ghost-written as is common for political leaders across the world, I must inform that Putin is highly educated and that he does not lie about his educational qualifications. Putin (born 1952) had obtained his degree in law from the Leningrad State University (Russia’s second best; now called St. Petersburg State University) in 1975. He worked in the KGB from 1975 until 1991, mostly on foreign assignment in East Germany where he was given a medal by the East German government also. He is fluent in both English and German. He left KGB at the rank of Lt. Col. and entered politics thereafter. He went on to earn his PhD in economics in 1997 from Russia’s oldest technical university, the Saint Petersburg Mining University on a thesis titled ‘Mineral and Raw Materials Resources and the Development Strategy for the Russian Economy’ on energy dependencies and their instrumentalisation in foreign policy.   

Given this background, it can be safely believed that the aforesaid paper is indeed written by him and he genuinely believes in what he has been executing as president. Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading Moscow foreign policy analyst agrees with this.

The Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians

In this paper, Putin dwells at length on the history of Russia and Ukraine, concluding that Russians and Ukrainians share a common heritage and destiny. He argues that Russians and Ukrainians, along with Belarusians, are one people, belonging to what has historically been known as the triune Russian nation.

The concept of ‘triune Russian nation’, ‘all-Russian nation’ or ‘pan-Russian nation’ regarded the Russian nation as comprising a ‘trinity’ of sub-nations: Great Russia, Little Russia, and White Russia. These sub-nations in the modern context refer to Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.

There is yet another common thread amongst these people. An inclusive Russian identity is derived from the desire of bringing all East Slavs under its fold. The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. The East Slavs are the most populous subgroup of the Slavs and include Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.

Just to remind you, most European scholars of the 19^th century who worked on the theory of nations and modern scholars (such as John G. Stoessinger in ‘The Might of Nations: World Politics in Our Time’) unanimously agree that nations are created primarily on the basis of the commonality of race, language, and religion. In fact, the very word ‘nation’ comes from Middle English ‘nacioun’ which means ‘a race of people; large group of people with common ancestry and language’. ‘Nacioun’ comes from Old French ‘nacion’ which means birth (naissance). It, in turn, has its roots in Latin ‘natio’ which again means birth, race, tribe, etc. To these, the great French scholar Ernst Renan added the historical past of efforts, sacrifices, and loyalties also.

As you can see, Putin’s reasoning is in conformity with these concepts. He points out that 17.3% of the population of Ukraine identifies itself as ethnic Russians. They comprise a notable fraction of the overall population in the east and south of the country.

Why Russia Regards Independent Ukraine as a Self-Contradiction

There is no historical basis for the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians. Ukraine never had ‘real statehood’.

Putin blames the Bolsheviks, who set up a Ukrainian republic in the Soviet Union. ‘Ukrainization was often imposed on those who did not see themselves as Ukrainians’, argues Putin. Federalism was ‘the most dangerous time bomb, which exploded the moment the safety mechanism provided by the leading role of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) was gone, the party itself collapsing from within’.

Former President Dmitry Medvedev followed up the paper of Putin with an open letter, to brand Ukrainians as ‘people who do not have any stable self-identification’, ‘prey to rabid nationalist forces’, and ‘absolutely dependent people’. ‘It makes no sense for us to deal with these vassals’, Medvedev concluded.

Why Russia Calls Ukraine an Anti-Russia Project of the West

Putin calls Ukraine an ‘anti-Russia’ project of the West. As Andrew Wilson points out in his paper, “Russia and Ukraine: ‘One People’ as Putin Claims?”, Putin blames all Ukrainian self-assertion in the modern era on foreign intrigue from 17^th century: first, the ‘desire of the leaders of the Polish national movement to exploit the “Ukrainian issue” to their own advantage’; and then how ‘the Austro-Hungarian authorities…latched onto this narrative’ to harm Russia.

Putin says that the decisions of the present Ukrainian government are driven by a Western plot against Russia as well as by modern-day followers of Stepan Bandera.

Stepan Bandera was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B. From 1934-39, he was jailed for the assassination of the Polish interior minister, Bronisław Pieracki. During the Second World War, the day Germany invaded Russia on June 22, 1941, he formed the Ukrainian National Committee, and they announced the formation of an independent Ukrainian state on June 30 in the German-captured city of Lviv. However, that did not fit into the then Nazi plans and they arrested him. In September 1944, by which time the tide had turned, Bandera negotiated with the Nazis to create the Ukrainian National Army and the Ukrainian National Committee in March 1945. After the war, he settled in West Germany. In 1959, Bandera was finally assassinated by a KGB agent in Munich.

He is widely regarded as a Nazi collaborator. His followers (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army UPA) were responsible for the massacres of Polish citizens (about one lakh) in German-occupied lands during 1943-45. The ethnic cleansing was a Ukrainian attempt to prevent the post-war Polish state from asserting its sovereignty over Ukrainian-majority areas that had been part of the pre-war Polish state. Similarly, the Holocaust in Ukraine was the systematic mass murder of Jews in the areas under German control. During 1941-45, they killed 8.5 lakh to 16 lakh Jews.

In January 2010, Viktor Yushchenko, the then president of Ukraine, awarded Bandera the posthumous title of Hero of Ukraine, which was widely condemned.

Putin argues that the Western authors of the anti-Russia project set up the Ukrainian political system in such a way that presidents, members of parliament and ministers could change but the attitude of separation from and enmity with Russia would remain.

Why a NATO-Member or NATO-Leaning Ukraine is a Red Line

You cannot have NATO missiles right on your border, as simple as that. As Putin says, the West wants Ukraine as a springboard against Russia.

Putin maintains that the formation of an ethnically Ukrainian state hostile to Moscow was “comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us” and believes it his “duty” to reverse Ukraine’s path towards the West. The issue of an independent Ukraine that could potentially serve as even an informal ally of NATO right on Russia’s border is truly a “red line” for Russia.

It is not just Putin who, in his capacity as de facto dictator is imposing his views on Russians. Nikolai Patrushev, a former intelligence officer who now heads the Kremlin’s Security Council, calls Ukraine a ‘protectorate’. Orysia Lutsevych, a research fellow and manager of the Ukraine forum in the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House, notes that they regard Ukraine as a puppet state.

For Putin, as Pavlo Klimkin, former Ukrainian foreign minister, says, Ukraine is a kind of conspiracy, a kind of aberration.

Also Read: Will Ukraine last till the game is over?

Pro-Russian Sentiments in Ukraine

A brief time-line of developments would be instructive:

• In 2013, Ukraine’s parliament overwhelmingly approved finalising an association agreement with the European Union
• Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it.
• In November, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych suddenly withdrew from signing the agreement, choosing closer ties to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union instead.
• Feb 2014 Led to Maidan and Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine
• Yanukovych was removed from power by parliament and fled to Russia.
• Russian occupation of Crimea
• Feb 2014 pro Russia unrest in Ukraine.
• Putin gave legitimacy to the separatists when he described the Donbas as part of “New Russia” (Novorossiya)
• Ukrainian govt launched anti-terrorist ops
• Russian-backed fighters (no insignia, mercenaries) seized large swathes of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
• Russians fought on their side
• Dec 2014 Ukraine’s parliament voted in December 2014 to remove the neutrality clause from the Constitution and to seek Ukraine’s membership in NATO.
• Minsk II Agreement by Feb 2015
• After the Minsk agreements, the war settled into static trench warfare around the agreed line of contact, with few changes in territorial control.

As Putin says, the anti-Russia project has been rejected by millions of Ukrainians. The people of Crimea and residents of Sevastopol made their historic choice. And people in the southeast peacefully tried to defend their stance. Yet, all of them, including children, were labelled as separatists and terrorists by the Ukrainian government. They were threatened with ethnic cleansing and the use of military force. And the residents of Donetsk and Lugansk took up arms to defend their home, their language and their lives. Were they left any other choice after the riots that swept through the cities of Ukraine, after the horror and tragedy of May 2, 2014 in Odessa where Ukrainian neo-Nazis burned people alive making a new Khatyn out of it? The same massacre was ready to be carried out by the followers of Bandera in Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Luhansk. (Khatyn massacre refers to the massacre of the entire village of Khatyn (in Belarus, in Lahoysk Raion, Minsk Region, 50 km away from Minsk) in March 1943 by Ukrainian and Belorussian collaborators of the Nazis.)

Accordingly, when pro-Russian, counter-revolutionary protests erupted in southern and eastern Ukraine. Russia occupied and then annexed Crimea, while armed pro-Russian separatists seized government buildings and proclaimed the independent states of Donetsk and Luhansk, sparking the Donbas war.

How Russia Envisages the Future with Ukraine

Putin invites the Ukrainians to have a look at how Austria and Germany, the USA and Canada live next to each other. In his own words, “Close in ethnic composition, culture, in fact sharing one language, they remain sovereign states with their own interests, with their own foreign policy. But this does not prevent them from the closest integration or allied relations. They have very conditional, transparent borders. And when crossing them the citizens feel at home. They create families, study, and work, do business. Incidentally, so do millions of those born in Ukraine who now live in Russia. We see them as our own close people.”

“Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine and ready to discuss the most complex issues. But it is important for us to understand that our partner is defending its national interests but not serving someone else’s, and is not a tool in someone else’s hands to fight against us. We respect the Ukrainian language and traditions. We respect Ukrainians’ desire to see their country free, safe and prosperous.”

“I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources; they have been hardened by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.”