The Critic Magazine

Regathering the Russian lands: the rationale for Putin’s war in Ukraine

IN 2015, THE EUROPEAN UNION COMMITTEE of the House of Lords inquired into the conflict unfolding in Ukraine. Among the problems it identified were a decline in collective European analytical capacity to read political shifts in Russia and, within the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a loss of deep knowledge of the cultural and historical factors that have shaped Russia. Judging by July’s Institute for Government report “How should the Foreign Office change now?”, the Foreign Office’s Russian expertise has diminished still further.

At the very time when ability to understand Russian actions in historical perspective is thus decreasing, the “special military operation” Vladimir Putin launched against Ukraine on 24 February underlines the urgent need for such perspective. After all, Putin himself takes a keen interest in Russian history.

Fiona Hill, who has served in the US as presidential adviser on Russian affairs, has written that Putin believes “his personal destiny is intertwined with that of the Russian state and its past”. The Russian president implicitly made this point in June when he alluded to Peter the Great (ruler from 1696 to 1725), who fought a war against Sweden for 21 years with the aim, as Putin saw it, of returning to Russia what was rightfully Russia’s. More generally, Putin’s preparations for and prosecution of his war in Ukraine have been accompanied by historical commentary that may have gained traction both in Russia itself and beyond.

Of course, many statements about Russian policies and intentions that are made by Putin or his speechwriters must be taken with a pinch of salt. The mendacity of the Russian govern-ment was unforgettably demonstrated by repeated denials in the weeks preceding the invasion that the huge military force being assembled in Belarus and southern Russia would be used to attack Ukraine.

YET, PUTIN’S OVERARCHING is easily discernible from the selective historical allusions and geopolitical remarks that punctuate his own and his propagandists’ writings and speeches. His 20-page article “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, published in July 2021, in which he turns to history to gain “a better understanding of the present and look into the future”, is particularly illuminating.

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