David vs. Goliath_Defeating Russian Autocracy

Year: 2025
Class: Source
Authors: Serhii Plokhy

Title: David vs. Goliath: Defeating Russian Autocracy
URL: https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/david-vs-goliath-defeating-russian-autocracy/
Zotero Link: PDF

🟩 Good Quotes

• “The stones that Ukraine keeps flinging at the aggressor come from Ukraine and abroad, but the sling that propels them is made exclusively in Ukraine. It is woven from Ukraine’s dedication to the ideas of freedom, independence, and democracy.” Page 2

• “Saved from the fire of Soviet tanks in August 1991, it was all but destroyed by Russian tanks in October 1993” Page 4

• “Yeltsin believed that he had the right and, indeed, the duty to choose his successor.” Page 5

• “Putin took full advantage of the existing political system, pushing it from hyperpresidentialism to autocracy.” Page 5

• “The Gorbachev-era democratic experiment died in Russia, but it survived in the former USSR’s second-largest republic, Ukraine.” Page 6

• “Again imitating Yeltsin, Kuchma wanted someone to succeed him who would protect his assets and his personal safety.” Page 7

• “The Ukrainian version of “Operation Successor” had been stopped in its tracks by the Orange Revolution.” Page 7

• “Ukrainian democracy posed a major threat to the Russian political regime.” Page 7

• “From Putin’s geopolitical perspective, Ukraine put democratic institutions squarely on Russia’s border—a situation that he saw as not merely undesirable, but unacceptable” Page 8

• “President George W. Bush’s “democracy crusade,” or policies designed to promote and support democracy on a global scale, put Washington and Moscow on a collision course.” Page 8

• “Moscow used Ukraine’s dependence on Russian natural gas, plus its role as a transit country for the export of that gas to Europe, to interfere with Kyiv’s westward turn.” Page 9

• “Berlin and Paris feared that Putin would treat NATO greenlights as grounds for making war on either or both of the two former Soviet republics. Thus stopped at the gates of NATO, each country would become a victim of Russian aggression.” Page 9

• “A mass protest movement that became known as the Revolution of Dignity arose in response, and on 22 February 2014 Yanukovych fled his post for exile in Russia. Parliament voted overwhelmingly for his formal removal, and an interim government took over as constitutionally prescribed.” Page 9

• “Russia’s annexation of Crimea and launching of a hybrid war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine were accompanied by flagrant violations of both international law and basic democratic principles under cover of referenda staged under Russian military rule.” Page 10

• ““one does not send slaves to liberate the free.”” Page 10

• “Ukrainians united across ethnic, linguistic, and cultural lines to defend Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy.” Page 12

• “It was rule by bayonets, not ballots” Page 12

• “Despite the enormous human and material cost of the war, Ukrainian democracy survived the Russian assault, notwithstanding wartime limits on the media and the postponement of the presidential election that had been scheduled for March or April 2024” Page 12

🟥 New Information

• “The fall of the Soviet Union, far from being a universal triumph of democracy, as was imagined back in 1991, was a victory not only for democrats but also for nationalists and former communist apparatchiks, with their roles and ideologies varying from one ex-Soviet republic to another.” Page 3

• “Democracy succeeded fully only in the three Baltic states” Page 3

• “Exploited a hostage crisis produced by a group of Chechen radicals whom the UN had declared terrorists in March 2003” Page 5

• “This shocking incident gave Putin an opening to limit whatever remained of Russian democracy: Elections to fill regional governorships were abolished, and there were new laws curtailing the activities of political parties and nongovernmental organizations.” Page 5

• “In 2015, political scientist Lucan Way could write that “Ukraine became the most competitive and democratic” among the ex-Soviet countries [...]” Page 6

• “During his last year in office, Kuchma published his memoirs under the telling title Ukraine Is Not Russia [...]” Page 7

• “Postcommunist and post-Soviet states that wanted to join Western institutions such as the EU and NATO would need democratic credentials to do so. Ukraine’s chaotic but viable democracy made it a genuine EU and NATO aspirant, yet the same could not be said of Russia” Page 7

• “Thrown onto the defensive by these events, Moscow began to mimic “color revolution” tactics. The Kremlin created and funded numerous organizations of Russian young people.” Page 8

• “The new Eastern Europe—the former western republics of the USSR—became the site where those competing interests collided [...] The focus of the new competition became Ukraine.” Page 8

• “There was a general policy to cut subsidies to the former Soviet republics, but Moscow-friendly Belarus received better terms.” Page 9

• “In Simferopol, members of Crimea’s Tatar ethnic minority gathered outside parliament [...]” Page 10

• “Fully Russian-controlled parliament was told to revise the questions [...] Crimea’s “reunification” with Russia.” Page 10

• “Russian authorities banned journalists other than press figures representing Russia’s right-wing allies [...]” Page 10

• “As March began, historian Andrei Zubov of the elite Moscow State Institute of International Relations had published [...]” Page 10

• “Compared Putin’s impending annexation of Crimea to Hitler’s Anschluss (joining of Austria to Germany) in March 1938.” Page 11

• “In the Donbas, Russian and separatist propaganda mobilized votes for the independence [...]” Page 11

• “Judging by its text, Putin was clearly upset with Ukraine’s democratic polity [...]” Page 11

• “Contrary to their expectations, international observers found that polling data showed growing support for democratic rule [...]” Page 12

• “By December 2023, in a country almost two years into an all-out fight for survival, those numbers had switched [...]” Page 13

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