The Ukrainian and Russian historical antipathy now a matter of Putin's Soviet era anti-West attitude

The Russian invasion of the Crimean Peninsula, which is Ukrainian territory but includes a major naval base that once serviced the Russian navy, is part of Russia’s power play to prevent the Ukraine from falling under the “sphere” of the West.  We saw this kind of bullying before during the Russian invasion of a breakaway province in Georgia, a newly independent country which also had longstanding resentment toward Russian domination.

Russia under Vladimir Putin continues to prove that it has an “us” against “them” mentality when it comes to dealing with the West, and clearly has no intention to enter into any “cooperative” arrangement with the West. Its continuing adversarial stance obviously engenders distrust in the West. There should be little question that Putin is an autocrat at heart who does not believe in democratic principles; the cable television program RT (Russia Today) may continue to mendaciously parrot the line that Putin is a “progressive,” but no one should be under any illusion that this anti-U.S. propaganda organ is a tool of the Putin government, busily “exposing” America’s faults, while painting Russia as a wonderland of “liberty.”

It is interesting to note that the attitude of today’s Russia in regard to foreign relations has a great more in common with the previous regime than Czarist Russia, which placed a great deal of importance on maintaining ties with various European sovereignties. With the ascension of Peter the Great, who traveled about Europe (mostly in disguise), there was an effort to “reform” what was regarded as a backward Russian society. This was not accomplished without a great deal of opposition, especially from hidebound boyars, even over Peter’s efforts to enforce a dress code and appearance modeled on that of the more “advanced” social circles of Europe. Eventually the aristocratic, intellectual and middle classes were thoroughly “Westernized,” although the vast majority of people, the working class and peasants, remained mired in Medieval-like conditions. 

But while countries like Japan embraced at least the outward appearance of Westernization—so much so that Japan took advantage of Western technology to emerge the victor in the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20^th Century—Russia would again turn inward following the Communist takeover. This was “necessary,” since the influence of Western liberalism—and one should not make the mistake of equating Communism with “liberalism”—with its notion of individual rights and freedom, was regarded as anathema to the authority of ruling elite. The party of “workers” would soon become nothing more than a self-selecting dictatorship which kept the population in line by promising personal security; any intimation of discontent was subject to harassment, detention, and sometimes death. 

With the end of the Soviet state, the West-leaning Boris Yeltsin permitted a somewhat chaotic period of “liberalization,” which Russia certainly wasn’t ready for, and soured many Russians (particularly older Russians) on the benefits of liberal democracy. They wanted a return to the “security” offered by the previous regime. Putin offered them that, not out of any great desire of help people, but because the former KGB agent had a taste for unfettered power and its corruptive influence. Putin knows that freedom—whether of assembly, the press, and politics—are “Western” ideals and anti-Russian, or at least anathema to dictatorship, which in fact is essentially how Russia is ruled today.

Being anti-West, Russia’s current ruling class naturally sees enemies everywhere. Putin stills sees the so-called independent states of the former Soviet Union as part of the Russian sphere of influence, and any attempt to align with European organizations are seen as threats to Russian security. Belorussia controls much of the former Soviet Union’s western frontier with the rest of Europe, yet it is no threat to Russian security, since it is more clearly a dictatorship aligned with Russia. 

But the Ukraine is a different matter altogether. “Ethnic” Ukrainians may be little differentiated from other Slavic groups, but they nevertheless have a history that predates the formation of Russia itself. The first major political entity in what is now the European portion of Russia was that formed around Kiev (the capital of the Ukraine), which lay along a major trade route between the Byzantine Empire and Asia. The Kiev state would eventually expand northward nearly to the Baltic Sea. The word “Rus”—which would eventually be transformed into “Russian”—was the description variously used to identify either the Viking invaders who founded the political unit centered in Kiev, or to what Russian scholars believe was a “sophisticated” subset of Slavic people already present. 

The region directly surrounding Kiev and to its west would become known as the Ukraine, with its own distinct cultural identity. It was the only large state of the former Soviet Union where there was a significant Catholic presence, and despite significant pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church—which predominates in western Ukraine—a version of Catholicism remains a major presence in the eastern part of the country. This coincides with the fact that there is a higher percentage of ethnic Ukrainians in the east, while ethnic Russians predominate in the west. This attempted suppression of (anti-Russian) religious belief would be part of the “Russification” of the Ukraine, basically an “ethnic cleansing” of Ukrainian culture and national identity, particularly during the Stalinist era. 

But before Russian control, the once powerful Kiev state would experience a long decline, during which the Mongols, Tartars, Lithuanians and Poles would claim sovereignty over Ukrainian territory, until the rulers from the state based in Muscovy (Moscow) would claim the Ukraine as part of its domain. However, when Lenin signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk during World War I (in order to get the Germans off his back so that he could deal with anti-Bolshevik  forces in Russia), the Ukraine briefly enjoyed an autonomous status, at least while the Kaiser’s Germany remained intact. But the Treaty of Versailles would end (for the time being) German influence in Russian affairs, and with it the possibility of Ukrainian independence. Stalin’s subsequent brutal policies in the Ukraine—which included the infamous enforced famine which saw 3 million Ukrainians die of starvation—allowed Ukrainians to see Hitler’s German invasion force as “liberators,” although they would soon be disabused of this notion. 

Given that the Ukraine was once a powerful state with its own history and culture, it should come as no surprise that Ukrainians chaffed under the domination of Russia. It is ethnic Ukrainians who are driving the rebellion against the virtual rule of Moscow, while ethnic Russians in the west continue to be of uncertain loyalty to the state. Putin’s bullying tactics are clearly designed to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty, and indicative of his anti-West paranoia and personal autocratic tendencies. While the Ukraine has one of the largest armies in the world, it might not be big enough to dissuade Putin from advancing from the Crimea.

Putin clearly is as contemptuous of world opinion as North Korea’s ruler is, and it will require the combined “might” of the U.S. and Europe to put a break on his Soviet-era ambitions.