21_Fighting for Freedom

This is the twenty-first #generalhistory note, following 20_Contact with Europe.

Maidan Revolution

Euromaidan/Revolution of Dignity

• Soon after the results of the EU summit in Vilnius were announced, young people gathered at Maidan, Independence Square, to protest against Viktor Yanukovych's decision.
• On November 30, 2013, riot police tried to dislodge them from the square by beating them up.
• This galvanized the rest of the population, leading to half a million Kyivans showing up on December 1 to protest police brutality.
  • This signaled a shift from the protest being referred to as "Euromaidan" to the protests being referred to as the "Revolution of Dignity".
  • The overall goal now was to combat authoritarianism.
• On December 11, police began to storm the Maidan encampment, but the defenders managed to persist, and the police withdrew.
• This took place almost simultaneously with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and an EU representative visiting Kyiv to help resolve the crisis. After they visited Maidan to show support, the raid happened.
• On January 8, 2014, Yanukovych flew to Moscow to receive aid money in exchange for not signing the association agreement.
• In mid-January, the parliamentary majority of Yanukovych supporters adopted the so-called "dictatorial laws" that banned the activities of Western-funded NGOs and prohibited certain forms of protest.
• The protests only grew in size in opposition to these new laws. Some radical groups also broke with the tradition of peaceful protest and started attacking government buildings. A majority of Western Ukrainians opposed Viktor Yanukovych, with protesters beginning to take over government buildings.

Tactical Retreat

• Yanukovych could do nothing against the developments in western Ukraine, and the situation in Kyiv was escalating, so he started making concessions:
  • Parliament reversed some of the "dictatorial laws."
  • Yanukovych dismissed his prime minister, Mykola Azarov, who had faced strong criticism for not learning Ukrainian.
  • In mid-February, the government released 230 previously arrested protesters.
• In response, protesters started leaving some government buildings they had occupied.
• An agreement was in the works with the short-term goal of forming a new government and the medium-term goal of crafting a new constitution.

All-out Violence

• The fragile peace broke on February 18, when protesters marching on parliament clashed with security forces. Amid the violence, they stormed and set fire to the ruling Party of Regions headquarters. Source
• Riot police responded by using live ammunition and tear gas on the protesters, pushing them back to Independence Square, parts of which they then occupied. The Trade Union Building (the protesters’ headquarters) was set on fire by agents of the Security Service. Thugs were hired by the government to terrorize the protesters.
• On February 20, 2014, special forces and snipers with unclear allegiance opened fire on the protesters, killing 108.
• The same day, negotiations between Yanukovych and the opposition reached an agreement:
  • Formation of a new government
  • Reduction of presidential powers to the levels they were in 2004 by returning to the constitution of that year
  • Early presidential elections
• Foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Poland, as well as a representative of Russia, were present. Vladimir Lukin, the representative of Russia, did not sign the agreement. Previously, Russian officials had urged Yanukovych to crush the protests using force or risk Russian intervention.
• While Yanukovych was negotiating, parliament voted on a resolution prohibiting the use of police against protesters. It came into force on February 21.
• By midday, police units were leaving Kyiv, with Yanukovych soon following them out of worry for his safety now that they were gone.
• On February 22, parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office with a simple majority. The reasoning given was that he had neglected his duties. An interim president and prime minister were elected.
• Yanukovych refused to resign or return to Kyiv.

Russian Aggression

Ideological Background

• After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the issue of Russian identity was left unresolved. Russia now had to make the transition from an empire to a nation-state (based on the principle that political and national units should be congruent), with millions of ethnic Russians directly outside its borders and a wide array of other (including non-Slavic) ethnicities inside. This is the reason nationalists like Solzhenitsyn and Vladimir Putin decry this collapse to this day.
• The task of nation-building was thus all but impossible without a major war after the model of Serbia under Milošević, but the state couldn't afford such a war, nor did it want one.
• Soviet identity was also no longer an available instrument for nation-building or for maintaining control over the post-Soviet space. In response, some ideological models arose in the 1990s that strived to achieve exactly that, mainly Eurasianism.
• Eurasianism sought to re-create the former Russian imperial space based on imperial heritage, Russian culture, and Orthodoxy.
  • This ideology made its way into Putin's orbit through Aleksandr Dugin, who advocated for the creation of a Eurasian Empire and became chief of the presidential staff and later speaker of the Duma and head of the foreign intelligence service.
• This was not the only intellectual tradition that Putin picked up on. He also incorporated ideas about Russia being opposed to Europe as a Eurasian Slavic civilization.
  • That tradition was derived from an old schism among Russian intellectuals:
    • Westernizers believed that Russia should integrate into Europe and adopt its civilizational framework.
    • Slavophiles glorified Russian uniqueness rooted in language, culture, and nationality.
  • The Slavophilic definition of Russian nationality was, in fact, East Slavic. One common conceptualization was a tripartite nation with Great Russia, Little Russia, and White Russia inside a big Russian nation.
  • Imperial elites adopted the Slavophile notion into their identities and policies.
  • That idea was replaced with a Union state with equal rights for the republics after the Bolshevik takeover. The Big Russian idea initially went into exile, where it was propagated by figures like Anton Denikin and Ivan Ilyin.
  • The link between the idea and the post-Soviet order was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who represented them in his 1990 essay "Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals", where he called for the separation of non-Slavic republics from the Soviet Union and the formation of a Russian Union consisting of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and northern Kazakhstan. While these ideas never materialized, Solzhenitsyn kept questioning the legitimacy of Ukrainian borders in 1998, when he wrote "Russia in Collapse". In that essay, he argued for the annexation of eastern and southern Ukraine on the basis of the ethnically Russian population.
• Putin was an admirer of these thinkers, personally showing up to lay flowers on the graves of Anton Denikin, Ivan Ilyin, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in May 2009. On that occasion, he expressed his support for Denikin's ideas:

"Denikin discussed Great and Little Russia, Ukraine, [...] He writes that no one may meddle in relations between us; that has always been the business of Russia itself." —The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 104

• By this logic, it was up to Russia to decide how to conduct relations with a weaker neighbor, and every Western involvement could be condemned on the basis of the common Slavic roots.
• Putin's archimandrite confirmed that Putin had deep admiration for Solzhenitsyn. This is reflected in their shared belief that parts of eastern and southern Ukraine were wrongful gifts from Russian Bolsheviks to the Ukrainian nation. This creates justification for the idea of "Greater Russia", which would claim all the enclaves that are historically or ethnically Russian.
• To summarize, Putin now had several ideological tools at his disposal which he could switch between:
  • The Eurasianist view that offered justification for the complete reclamation of the former imperial space
  • The notion of a Big Russian Nation to invoke a common East Slavic state
  • The idea of a Greater Russia that would annex historically or ethnically Russian enclaves

Crimean Annexation

Dealing with Yanukovych

• After the flight of Yanukovych and the inevitable improvement of relations with the EU under the new government, Putin needed to destabilize the country.
• The best option for this was Crimea, which had an ethnic Russian majority and a history of separatist movements, though none were active at the time.
• There were multiple other factors that contributed to that decision:
  • There was an interregnum in Kyiv, with the new people in control being questionably legitimate, not yet fully coordinated among themselves, and certainly not with the security services, which mistrusted them.
  • The Ukrainian parliament also adopted a law that supported the use of the Ukrainian language, which could easily be used as a pretext to claim that Russian forces needed to interfere to protect Russian minority rights from being infringed upon.
• Yanukovych's flight had not been Putin's original plan. Initially, he wanted Yanukovych to use massive force and the army against the protesters and then pivot to a compromise solution with new elections.
• Nevertheless, Yanukovych fled Kyiv and even failed to keep the riot police in place. His first plan was to show up at the congress of deputies of southern and eastern Ukraine, transfer the capital to Kharkiv, and rule from there. However, Ukrainian border guards intercepted him, so he asked Vladimir Putin to help him establish a base in Crimea.
• At this point, Putin already had intentions of annexing Crimea, allegedly due to the threat of Ukrainian nationalists harming the local population. This would have been rendered impossible with Yanukovych using it as a bastion to rule Ukraine. Thus, Russian security forces misled Yanukovych about a fictional ambush waiting for him in Crimea (at that point the Ukrainian government was far too disorganized to even attempt this, aside from the fact that they had no ambition of doing it) and implored him to wait for Russian helicopters to transport him there.
• After he boarded the helicopters, he was directly transported to Russia. While he was granted the right to return to Crimea, he assessed that the situation there was already out of his control and left for Russia again on February 23.
• His departure meant the removal of a huge challenge to Putin's plan to annex the Crimean Peninsula. In terms of the ideological tools available to him, he wanted to implement parts of a plan for Greater Russia in order to pave the path for the Big Russian or Eurasian aspirations.

Annexation

• On February 27, heavily armed men in military gear with no insignia entered and secured the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol (Crimea's capital).
• Another group brought the deputies to the building to vote on the ousting of the acting prime minister and replace him with Sergei Aksenov.
  • Sergei Aksenov previously headed the Russian Unity Party, which was sponsored by Russian security services. His party only received around 4 percent of the vote in the parliamentary election.
• The deputies complied and also voted in favor of federal ties with Kyiv and thus broader autonomy for Crimea.
• In reaction, Crimean Tatars gathered in the city and shouted: "Glory to Ukraine!", which was countered by pro-Moscow demonstrators mobilized and funded by Russia chanting "Russia!"
• Another Russian-organized demonstration in Sevastopol demanded a return to Russia, while a rally in Kerch called for the federalization of Ukraine.
• On February 28, unmarked Russian special forces seized the airports in Sevastopol and Simferopol.
• The Ukrainian head of security, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, reported on a total collapse of Ukrainian control in the peninsula. The highest offices there now fully complied with Russian military and navy commanders. They were reinforced by riot police returning from Kyiv after the success of the Revolution of Dignity. Ukrainian military and naval command, on the other hand, was demoralized, outgunned, and outnumbered. Nalyvaichenko warned that any use of violence could be used by Russia as a pretext for invasion.
• With Russian troops massing at the border, some officials proposed that Ukraine become an "associate member" of NATO. There were several problems with this idea:
  • NATO had no such position.
  • Making appeals to NATO now would only further Russian aggression, which could lead to a situation similar to that in Georgia.
    • This case was made by Yulia Tymoshenko and the interim prime minister, Arsenii Yatseniuk.
  • It was also very unlikely for NATO to let them in, since they hadn't done so under more favorable circumstances in 2008.
• Ukrainian leadership was also very aware of the fact that the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum would not come to their aid.
• With all of this in mind, there was nothing the Ukrainian government could do besides sitting back, monitoring Russian abuses of its sovereignty, and rallying international support behind them.
• This assessment was backed up by a call between Turchynov (Ukraine's interim president) and a close aide of Putin in which he implicitly threatened that if one Russian was shot in Crimea, a full invasion of Ukraine would follow (framed, of course, in the language of defending Russian speakers from abuse). German and French leaders also implored the Ukrainians not to fight Russia.
• On March 1, Sergei Aksenov called on Putin to "provide assistance in ensuring peace and tranquility." On the same day, Putin asked the upper house of parliament (Federation Council) for permission to deploy Russian armed forces on Ukrainian territory.
• Upon objection by the UN Security Council, which said that the Crimean prime minister was way out of his jurisdiction, the Russian envoy to the UN produced a document signed by Viktor Yanukovych. In it, he authorized Putin to take military action against not only the Crimean population but also that of southern and eastern Ukraine.
• Regardless of the attempts to retroactively legitimize it, Russian military occupation of Crimea was already ongoing.
• On March 4, Putin claimed that the Russian military personnel in Crimea were "local self-defense units" reacting to the "coup d'état" after the Maidan protests. He then went on to explain the tactics the Russian army would use if the Ukrainian armed forces resisted:

"And let anyone from among the military servicemen try to fire at their own people, behind whom we will be standing, [...] Not in front, but behind. Let them try shooting at women and children." —The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 117

• What he describes here is illegal under international law.
• Two days later, the Crimean parliament revised the question in the referendum, which was to take place on March 16. The main question now concerned the "reunification" of Crimea with Russia.
  • Journalists were prohibited from covering the referendum, with the exceptions of some friendly far-right European outlets.
• According to independent estimates, voter turnout was 30–50 percent, and 60–80 percent of them voted in favor of "reunification".
• Official numbers reported a voter turnout of 83 percent, with 96.77 percent voting in favor.
• On March 18, Putin delivered a speech in which he asked deputies from both chambers of parliament to sign a law annexing Crimea and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation. Three days later, he signed the law integrating the new territories into Russia, violating international law, as well as the Budapest Memorandum and the Treaty of Friendship (I explain them in 19_Problematic Divorce).

Hybrid Warfare

• In his speech, he explained that the Crimean people took matters into their own hands through self-defense units and then decided to "return" to Russia through a referendum, preventing the new government from causing harm on the peninsula. According to him, there was a possibility of a NATO base being established there under the interim power holders, who were brought to power in a Western coup.
• There were strong elements of the speech appealing to Russian nationalism, through language about Russia being plundered after the collapse of the USSR and referring to the annexed territories as Russian lands.
• However, he also dropped hints about Russo-Ukrainian unity:

"Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus." —The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 119

• Such a hybrid argument was made to exploit the notion of unity prevalent on both sides of the border. He then went on to assure Ukrainians of Crimea being an exception, stating:

"Do not believe those who want you to fear Russia, shouting that other regions will follow Crimea. [...] We do not want to divide Ukraine, we do not need that." —The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 118

Birth of "New Russia"

• Contrary to that statement, the annexation of Crimea was the first step towards control of the entire country. This was the implicit message of a Russian Foreign Ministry proposal:
  • It called for a return of Yanukovych to the position of president, the creation of a constitutional assembly representing "all Ukrainian regions", and the assembly's adoption of a new constitution which would turn Ukraine into a politically and militarily "neutral" country. Russia would become the nation's second official language, and the regions would have broad autonomy in establishing "transregional ties". effectively "breaking the center's monopoly on the formulation and execution of foreign policy".
• These proposals would end Ukraine as a sovereign state, and the central government would be rendered incapable of achieving an EU association agreement. The Ukrainian parliament rejected this but conceded to reforming local government and accordingly amending the constitution in April.
• Russia was not satisfied with this and made clear that the only alternative to the proposal was a partition of Ukraine:
  • The first sign of this was when Vladimir Zhirinovsky (the leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party) sent letters to the governments of Poland, Hungary, and Romania proposing that they partition Ukraine in a similar fashion as it had been before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It was not clear if the letter was endorsed by the Kremlin.
    • None of these countries was interested in the plan, with Poland dismissing it vehemently. According to the Polish Foreign Minister (Radosław Sikorski), Putin made him a similar offer in February 2008.
  • Around the same time, some circles in Moscow were developing ideas for a new state called "New Russia", which was supposed to be comprised of southern Ukraine and Moldova. The name was borrowed from the time period of Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century.
  • By the spring of 2014, the geography of New Russia changed. In mid-April, Putin defined the territories as the Ukrainian Oblasts of:
    • Donetsk
    • Luhansk
    • Kharkiv
    • Zaporizhia
    • Kherson
    • Mykolaiv
    • Odesa
  • The historical argument for the control of these regions was ahistorical, as none of them had been in "New Russia" as Catherine had defined it (Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk were outside of it). It corresponded broadly with Solzhenitsyn's view of historically and linguistically Russian lands. However, this view was also misguided, as these regions were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR because the majority of the population was Ukrainian.
• By the time this vision was formulated, the Russian Federation was already orchestrating and funding rallies and riots in the target regions.
  • On April 7, crowds organized by Russian nationalists moving out from Crimea proclaimed the creation of the Donetsk People's Republic, with the capital in Donetsk.
  • By the end of the month, the same playbook was repeated in the Luhansk Oblast.
  • Kharkiv was next; rioters there took over government buildings.
  • On May 2, pro-government and pro-Russian protesters clashed in Odesa, ending in a tragedy as 42 anti-Kyivan activists died in a building they took cover in, as fires raged due to combat with Molotov cocktails.
• In mid-May, the Ukrainian government, along with local activists and business leaders, managed to quell the protests in Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhia, but lost control over the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk).
• The relative ease with which Russian forces took over that territory can be explained through several factors:
  • Weakness of the Kyiv interim government
  • The lack of control over the security forces
  • The perception on the part of locals (elites and otherwise) that they were harmed by Euromaidan
    • Yanukovych was essentially their candidate, as he had his political base in the region
  • Managers of machine-building companies in particular were concerned about the EU association agreement, counting on good relations with Russia to sell their products.
  • In general, the people in the Donbas resented western Ukrainians and their politics:
    • The standards of living in Donetsk and Luhansk were among the lowest in the country.
    • Politicians like Yanukovych had used fear-mongering about western Ukraine to galvanize Russian and Russian-speaking voters.
    • The Donbas had the most concentrated number of ethnic Russians in Ukraine (excluding Crimea).
  • This translated into 30 percent of the population being in favor of union with Russia in April 2014.
• Following the Crimean playbook, the pro-Russian authorities hastily organized referendums to decide on the independence of the so-called "Donetsk/Luhansk People's Republics". Predictably, the vote went through.

"Civil War"

• New Russia soon became a rallying point for various groups like:
  • Russian nationalists
  • Eurasianists
    • Aleksandr Dugin even altered his theories to allow for a "Big Russia" inside Eurasia
  • Neo-Nazis
  • Orthodox monarchists
• All of them flocked into the area to realize their visions for the future of Russia. Backed by the Russian Federation's intelligence services, they soon took control of the new people's republics.
  • The most successful example of this was Aleksandr Borodai, a Russian political consultant, who became the prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic.
  • Even more prominent was Igor Girkin, a former officer of the Russian security services, now in charge of the republic's defense.
    • Both of them were Russian nationalists, with Igor Girkin being known to favor monarchism.
• Russian agents had a huge impact on the conflict, with Igor Girkin seizing Sloviansk (a key transportation center) and starting a shooting war by killing a Ukrainian security officer.
• These developments progressed the way they did because there was an interregnum in Kyiv, which weakened their authority. That ended on May 24, with the election of Petro Poroshenko as Ukrainian president. During the campaign, Poroshenko made it abundantly clear that his objective was to retake the Donbas.
• By May–early June, the first volunteer battalions were formed by the interior ministry and funded by Ukrainian oligarchs.
  • The most notable among them was Igor Kolomoisky, who also became head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
• They showed that Russian mercenaries and their supporters could be pushed back. In May, volunteer battalions retook some parts of the rural Donbas.
• Efforts to stabilize the situation had been ongoing since mid-April, but now the Ukrainians started going on the offensive:
  • On May 26, Ukrainian forces retook the Donetsk airport and captured several Russian mercenaries.
  • In mid-June, the volunteer Azov battalion reclaimed Mariupol, a major industrial center and port.
  • On July 5, Igor Girkin was forced to abandon his stronghold in Sloviansk.
• Russian authorities realized that the light weapons they had supplied until then were no longer capable of securing the new territories. Thus, they started intervening even more directly:
  • On July 13, Russia claimed that a Ukrainian missile had hit a Russian village and responded with a wave of MLRS attacks.
  • On July 14, a Russian anti-air system shot down a Ukrainian plane.
  • On July 17, a Russian anti-air missile launcher fired a rocket, shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, killing 283 passengers and 15 crew members (Bellingcat analysis).
    • The launcher and its crew came from Russia and belonged to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade stationed in Kursk.
• The MH17 disaster caused outrage in the West, followed by U.S. and EU sanctions.
• Russia denied their involvement in the attack and accused Ukraine of being at fault. It then tried to prevent a repetition of such a scenario and recalled Borodai and Girkin to mask their influence on the conflict.
• By early August, Ukrainian forces had split the separatist territories in half and reached the Russian border.
• On August 24, 2014, hundreds of Russian tanks, artillery, trucks, and thousands of regular army soldiers crossed the Ukrainian border.
• Two days later, the Ukrainians could already show proof of this, as they captured ten Russian paratroopers and showed them on television.
  • The Russian response was to claim that the soldiers (20 kilometers deep in foreign territory) had simply lost their way.
• With this reinforcement, the separatists managed to advance:
  • Russian troops surrounded Ukrainian units near Ilovaisk. After they admitted defeat and negotiated the right to safe passage, the Russians opened fire, massacring the soldiers.
• The Ukrainian counter-offensive was essentially over.

The Minsk Agreements

• Petro Poroshenko was forced to negotiate out of a position of weakness.
• On September 5, 2014, he agreed to the Minsk Protocol, signed by representatives of:
  • Ukraine
  • Russia
  • OSCE
  • The leaders of the two "People's Republics" in the Donbas
• The protocol called for:
  • an end to hostilities
  • the withdrawal of illegal armed units and mercenary forces from Ukrainian territory
  • the establishment of an OSCE mission to monitor the Russo-Ukrainian border
  • the recognition of new entities on Ukrainian territory not controlled by Kyiv
    • Ukraine had to give these regions special rights, as Russia had originally demanded in the federalization proposal
• These provisions were almost immediately broken by Russia, as the OSCE was either unable to monitor the border or their reports were ignored.
• In January 2015, Russia resumed hostilities, seeking to improve its position on the front line.
  • Separatist groups managed to capture Donetsk airport after a months-long defense by Ukrainian units.
  • In the same month, 8,000 troops (mostly regular units of the Russian army, but supported by separatist forces) launched an attack on Debaltseve, which they took.
    • This time, Ukrainian forces managed to retreat.
• In February 2015, a new meeting between Putin, Poroshenko, Merkel, and Hollande concluded with the Minsk 2 agreement. The new protocol had several provisions:
  • the conducting of local elections in the Donbas
  • the return of the Donbas to Ukrainian authorities
• Apart from that, Ukraine implemented new laws on the status of the territories and even amended its constitution to allow for it.
• The main problem with the agreement was that it wasn't clear if the elections would take place before or after Ukrainian authorities re-established control over the regions. This hindered its implementation, but nonetheless fighting substantially decreased.
• Russia had stopped using the term "New Russia" after it became clear that the project wouldn't succeed (around the fight for Ilovaisk). Instead, they returned to the earlier plan of federalizing Ukraine.
  • Essentially, Donbas and Luhansk were to remain separate and only be integrated into Ukraine according to Russia's interpretation of Minsk 2.
    • Their interpretation being that the elections take place before Ukrainian authorities regain control over the territory.
  • This demonstrated Putin's pragmatic thinking, as he kept switching between the best paths towards achieving his maximalist goal. Nationalists like Girkin and Borodai felt betrayed and fell out of favor.
• Ukraine was, of course, worried that the autonomous regions would block their aspirations to join the EU through their special rights once they had again become part of Ukraine.

Peaceful stalemate

Ukraine's transformation

• The war profoundly changed Ukraine.
  • Electorally, the country now coalesced around pro-Western presidential candidates, which first showed in the election of Poroshenko. Ukraine had become a more homogenous country.
    • Poroshenko won in the first round with 55 percent and won 187 out of 188 precincts under Ukrainian control.
    • The reasons for this included the fact that the pro-Russian base had been ripped out of Ukrainian control, and the division of the remaining anti-Western candidates.
  • Its national consciousness developed with the explicit rejection of its communist past.
    • It started with the toppling of some 500 monuments to Vladimir Lenin in the first half of 2014, and continued with the subsequent removal of the remaining 1,500 in the following three years by decision of parliament. So-called "decommunization laws" were implemented.
• Ukraine survived the Russian attacks by uniting across ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic lines. Identification with the "national culture" became more popular.
  • One prominent example of this was the increasing adoption of the Ukrainian language among the population. As Putin used Russian speakers as a justification for aggression, many Ukrainians who had previously used Russian as their language of choice switched as an act of defiance.
    • The number of those self-reporting the use of Ukrainian at work or at home peaked in 2014–2015 and then returned to previous levels.
    • In 2019, the parliament passed a law making the Ukrainian language mandatory for government officials and public-sector employees. Contrary to Russian warnings, this did not result in societal tension.
  • Bookstores were flooded with Ukrainian-language books.
  • Books concerning Ukrainian history and culture topped bestseller lists.
  • The Ukrainian government created the Ukrainian Institute to promote their culture abroad.
  • Internally, the Ukrainian Cultural Fund and the Ukrainian Book Institute were tasked with supporting cultural events and publications.
  • In 2018, the government strongly supported the unification of the two Ukrainian Orthodox churches independent of the Moscow Patriarchate. This resulted in the creation of the unified Orthodox Church of Ukraine under the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarchate. It enjoyed popular support, as many Ukrainians preferred a church connected to a country that was not invading them.
• While there was criticism of the government for involving itself so directly in matters of language, religion, and culture, Ukrainian society at large agreed that such measures of nation-building were necessary to deter Russian aggression.
• The new government fulfilled its promise of improving relations with the West, signing the association agreement with the EU in June 2014 and giving Ukrainians the possibility to travel to EU countries without a visa in 2017. It also placed NATO membership back in the constitution.
• Western countries responded in kind, with the EU providing Ukraine with 14 billion dollars in financial assistance and the U.S. providing 2.2 billion dollars.
• The U.S. was particularly involved in the security sector, providing 1.6 billion dollars, accompanying the Ukrainian government's desire to create a modern, professional army.

Putin justifies war

• In July 2021, Vladimir Putin published an article called "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians". The article elaborates on his views about the past and future relations between Russia and Ukraine and highlights his return to the "Big Russian Nation" after the failed Eurasianist project and the realization of the Greater Russia ambition. He states:

"I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context. It is what I have said on numerous occasions and what I firmly believe." -The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 136

• His argument throughout the text went along the lines of:
  • Russia and Ukraine were a common, unified, Orthodox entity during the times of the Kyivan Rus. //This is not true as it was an enormous, multi-ethnic territory.
  • They were then split by wrong decisions by Russian leaders as well as malign foreign forces.
    • The prime example he brings up is Poland. According to him, the notion of a Ukrainian identity separate from Russia originated from the Polish elite and then spread to the Little Russian intelligentsia. //This fits cleanly into the 19th-century Russian imperial narrative and does not correspond to the truth. It is at best an oversimplification to the point of completely distorting reality and at worst a lie. Several counterpoints exist, including that the Hetmanate arose in opposition to Poland, that Ukrainian national consciousness was awakened during the Napoleonic Wars, and that the Poles were at war with the Ukrainian People's Republic after World War I.
    • Ukraine emerged as an anti-Russia, propped up by the West as a weapon to destroy it. According to him, the West has attempted to use it consistently across history. By that logic, Russia must have some level of control in Ukrainian foreign affairs to defend itself.

"There was a need for an 'anti-Russia' concept, which we will never accept. The owners of this project took the old groundwork of the Austro-Polish ideologists to create an 'anti-Moscow Russia'. [...] We will never allow our historical territories and the people close to us living there to be used against Russia." -The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 138

Zelensky's election

• In the spring of 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky won the Ukrainian presidential election. He had no prior experience in politics, but he was known for playing the president in the popular TV series "Servant of the People".
• His astounding success of winning 73 percent of the vote in the first round had multiple reasons:
  • He ran on an anti-corruption platform, which resonated with voters frustrated by rampant corruption in Ukrainian politics. While Petro Poroshenko managed to curb corruption, he was an oligarch himself and was not seen as trustworthy in addressing the issue.
  • Efforts to position him as pro-Russian failed, while Zelensky ran with the promise of ending the conflict in Donbas.
  • His TV persona exemplified what many Ukrainians wished for in their president.
  • His status as a newcomer untainted by the political system helped him with younger voters.
• Zelensky continued both the pro-Western foreign policy and the Ukrainian cultural projects initiated by Poroshenko.
• His main strategy for settling the Donbas conflict was a personal meeting with Putin in December 2019 in Paris.
  • There, he, Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron, and Angela Merkel made some progress on a new ceasefire but failed to resolve the rival interpretations of Minsk 2.
  • Putin was allegedly disappointed that Zelensky could not be easily convinced as his aides had predicted and fired Vladislav Surkov, the main proponent of that theory.
  • Zelensky doubled down on not exchanging Ukrainian territory for peace. He was more hesitant on implementing constitutional reforms envisioned by Putin, which would have given the Donbas special rights that could be used for Russian influence if Russia managed the elections in the two regions. Similar to Poroshenko, he initially tried to achieve that goal but was moved off it by mass protests across the country.
• Reconciliation with Russia thus became all but impossible, leaving stronger integration within the West as Zelensky's only option.
  • In December 2019, his party (which had a majority in parliament) passed a resolution affirming the course towards NATO membership.
  • Zelensky implemented several measures as part of the new National Security Strategy aimed at moving closer to the alliance.
  • In December 2020, the Defence Minister of Ukraine raised the issue of NATO giving Ukraine a Membership Action Plan (MAP) in his address to NATO ambassadors in Kyiv.
• Zelensky also clamped down on pro-Russian media channels as a measure to limit Russia's meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs.
  • The main targets were channels owned by Viktor Medvedchuk, who had close ties to Putin. They were shut down using the National Security and Defense Council.
  • Putin was displeased with the move, as it limited his influence inside Ukraine. He publicly complained about it, invoking Western influence as a motive.

Escalating tension

Early Concerns

• In April 2021, Russia moved the largest number of troops to the Ukrainian border since 2014-2015. It gave no justification for this move, with analysts speculating that it was in response to Ukrainian inquiries for a Membership Action Plan (MAP) with NATO.
• Alarm bells sounded in Western capitals, and Ukraine stepped up its advocacy for NATO protection. Western leaders assured them of their support.
• Most of the troops left in May, but elements of their equipment and infrastructure remained.
• In June 2021, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin met in Geneva, where they made no progress on the developments in Donbas.
• Around the same time, British and American intelligence forces started receiving reports that Russian military strategists were planning an all-out invasion of Ukraine. By October, US intelligence suggested that Putin was determined to invade.

"We assess that they plan to conduct a significant strategic attack on Ukraine from multiple directions." -The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 143

• In response, the White House released the intelligence and began assembling a coalition of countries to resist Putin.
  • CIA director William Burns flew to Moscow to tell his counterparts that they knew about their plans. Putin did not dispute the intelligence but complained about NATO expansion.
• By early December, the Washington Post reported on 175,000 Russian soldiers massing on the Ukrainian border.
• On December 17, Russia presented NATO with an ultimatum. The demands included:
  • A written commitment by NATO to cease any further expansion.
  • The withdrawal of all multinational forces from Poland and the Baltic states.
  • The removal of all US nuclear weapons from Europe.
  • A formal commitment that Ukraine would never join NATO.
• This put the US in the unenviable position of trying to enforce the rules-based international order against a nuclear-armed country without triggering World War III. Eventually, they converged on four principles:
  • Avoid kinetic conflict between NATO and Russia.
  • Contain war inside Ukraine.
  • Strengthen NATO unity.
  • Support Ukraine and provide them with the tools to fight.
• US officials repeatedly visited Ukraine and warned local officials:
  • Anthony Blinken first informed Zelensky about the coming war in early November.
  • A few weeks later, senior State Department officials told Ukraine's minister of defense to "dig trenches".
  • William Burns visited Kyiv on January 12, 2022, warning Zelensky of the plan to take Kyiv from Hostomel airport, as well as the plan to assassinate him and his family.
• Zelensky was not impressed by these warnings, citing the lack of accompanying action. According to him, the warnings only hurt Ukraine financially without providing tangible results.
• Ukraine also intensified negotiations with Russia, with the head of Zelensky's administration, Andrii Yermak, meeting with Putin's trusted ally Dmitrii Kozak. The talks failed, but a draft agreement was created in which Ukraine would deter Russian aggression by agreeing never to join NATO.
• Publicly, Ukrainian officials signaled that no war was coming, with the defense minister stating:

"As of today, there are no grounds to believe that Russia will invade." -The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 147

• Behind the scenes, they were asking allied nations for weapons, believing that a stronger army would deter Russia.
• This was also Zelensky's position on February 17, 2022, at the Munich Conference. He also used this occasion to remind Western powers of their duties under the Budapest Memorandum and pressured them into providing security guarantees.
• Even more importantly, he insisted on returning to Ukraine to lead his country, regardless of the accompanying risk:

"I had breakfast in Ukraine this morning, and I will have dinner in Ukraine." -The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 148

Developments in Russia

• In late 2021, rumors about Putin's health started spreading in Russia, exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. This fueled speculation about the legacy he would leave behind.
• A large part of that legacy would be determined by his actions concerning Ukraine. Political consultant Sergei Markov, close to the Kremlin, stated:

"Putin cannot step down leaving Ukraine unoccupied, given that Russians there are being turned into anti-Russians by means of terror. [...] Because Ukraine is in fact part of Rus'." -The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 148

• Markov argued that Putin's rhetoric about Russo-Ukrainian unity had to be translated into action.
• However, some Russian nationalists used the same standpoint to argue against an invasion, such as Leonid Ivashov, leader of the All-Russian Officer Assembly, who argued that it would split the "brotherly peoples" and cause severe demographic damage.
• Putin himself spent the months, weeks, and days leading up to the invasion denying any intention of attacking Ukraine.
  • He went on record on February 12, 2022, denying any plans for a Russian invasion, despite between 150,000–190,000 Russian soldiers massing on the Ukrainian border.

The Declaration of War

• On February 21, at the Russian Security Council meeting, Putin officially denounced the Minsk Agreements and supported the proposal to recognize the two "independent" Donbas republics.
  • The footage strongly suggested that Putin made the decision on his own, not even discussing it beforehand with his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov allegedly remarked that Putin's advisers were Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and Alexander II.
• After that meeting aired, Russian television broadcast a lengthy speech by Putin explaining his decision.
  • The reasoning was largely consistent with his historical essay, reaffirming the notion that Ukraine was a manufactured entity created by Bolshevik Russia, a theme he picked up from Anton Denikin.
• On the same day, he recorded another address, which aired the morning of the attack. He framed his aggression as a response to "genocide" committed against the people of Donbas by the forces behind the "Maidan coup". He also cited a request for help from the two Donbas republics.
• This provided him with a casus belli to start what he called a "special military operation". Under his reasoning, it was a defensive action against a radically nationalist government, propped up by Russia's foreign enemies, seeking to destroy Russian civilization starting in Donbas.
• His stated goals were as follows:

"demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation." -The Russo-Ukrainian War, page 152

• Demilitarization meant leaving Ukraine defenseless against potential future Russian attacks. Denazification is harder to interpret:
  • The most obvious reference was to volunteer battalions formed in 2014-2015, some with far-right elements, which had been portrayed as Nazis by the Russian Federation for years.
  • US intelligence provided information that Russian services were compiling lists of people "to be killed or sent into camps", including:
    • Russian and Belarusian dissidents in Ukraine
    • Journalists
    • Anti-corruption activists
    • Religious and ethnic minorities
    • Members of the LGBTQ+ community
  • Russian media often portrayed Ukrainian nationalism itself as a Nazi ideology, leaving open the possibility that everyone resisting the invasion was considered a Nazi in Russian eyes.
• Putin called on the Ukrainian military to immediately lay down arms and return home.
• The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began shortly before 4:00 a.m. Kyiv time on February 24, 2022, on multiple fronts.

Sources

The information is derived from Serhii Plokhy's book: "The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History" (Pages 95-153).