What drove Putin to act on Ukraine

By Ajay Patnaik

It is now common knowledge that NATO’s east-ward expansion towards Russia since 1999, adding 14 more members to the existing 16 since the end of the Cold War, has been the main reason behind Russia’s actions in Ukraine, with which it shares a border of some 2,295 kilometres. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, is a relic of the Cold War and was formed in 1949 to defend Western Europe and North America against the Soviet Union and its allies. Countering it was the Soviet Bloc’s Warsaw Pact alliance, which was dissolved in 1991. The continuation of NATO and its expansion eastward created an imbalance that threatened post-Cold War global peace. This became clear from the unilateral bombing of Belgrade (1999) and the invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003).

Vladimir Putin, unlike his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, decided to counter the Western moves through an integration process in Eurasia.

Along with NATO expansion, a spate of regime changes in the post-Soviet space, including a violent one in 2014 in Ukraine, created a spectre of encirclement for Russia. This process dates back to 2003, when a pro-Western regime came to power in Georgia after orchestrated protests aided and abetted by the West. Before the violent protests in 2014 in Kiev, a regime change had already taken place once in Ukraine in 2004. Viktor Yanukovich, the former Prime Minister who was ousted in 2005 came back as President of Ukraine in 2010 but was ousted again in 2014 because he was not seen as sufficiently pro-West and was perceived to be “soft” towards Russia. Earlier, during the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan, two American bases had come up in 2001 in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, which created more insecurity for Russia.  

Vladimir Putin, unlike his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, decided to counter the Western moves through an integration process in Eurasia (comprising post-Soviet States). The two organisations – Eurasian Economic Union (2015) and Collective Security Treaty Organisation (2002) – have re-established Russian leadership in the post-Soviet space, even though only a few States have joined these initiatives. Ukraine, the most developed State after Russia in the region would have been a strong pillar of this integration process. Obviously, at a time when the West was pushing to take NATO to Russian borders, Viktor Yanukovich (the Ukraine President from 2010-2014) could not be relied upon to serve the purpose of orienting the post-Soviet States towards Europe. His removal in 2014 paved the way to draw Ukraine closer to the West and bring NATO right to the Russian border.

In a hard-hitting speech a decade-and-a-half back, at the February 2007 Munich Conference on Security, Putin criticised the United States’ monopolistic dominance in global relations, and its “almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations”. The warnings in Munich did not stop NATO from encouraging Georgia to join the Alliance and a referendum was held there in 2008 to approve future integration with NATO. Ukraine since 2014 followed a similar trajectory when 7 February 2019, the Ukrainian Parliament voted to change the Ukrainian constitution in order to help the country join NATO and the European Union, and on 12 June 2020, Ukraine joined NATO's enhanced opportunity partner interoperability programme. NATO recognised Ukraine’s contribution that day in a Press Release that said: “This status is part of NATO’s Partnership Interoperability Initiative, which aims to maintain and deepen cooperation between Allies and partners that have made significant contributions to NATO-led operations and missions … Allies highly value these significant contributions, which demonstrate Ukraine’s commitment to Euro-Atlantic security.”

At the June 2021 Brussels Summit, NATO leaders reiterated the decision taken at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine would become a member of the Alliance. Ukraine began joint military exercises with the US and other NATO troops between 20 September and 1 October 2021.

What are Russia’s objectives in Ukraine?

In many post-Soviet States, the nation-building process has excluded ethnic minorities, their languages and cultures. The ruling nationalists have ignored the multi-ethnic character of post-Soviet states. This happened in Georgia, where two break-away regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were sought to be forcibly integrated in 2008. This led to a 12-day war with Russia following which these two regions have become independent. Being on Russia’s borders, South Ossetia and Abkhazia have become buffer areas, preventing any hostile forces and missiles being placed close to Russia.

When Russia declared military operations in Ukraine, the twin goals it worked with were demilitarisation and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine

Ukraine is facing a similar situation. It has strong divisions along geographical and cultural identities. The western part is more Europe-oriented and people there mainly follow Roman Catholicism. On the other hand, people in the eastern part of Ukraine are Russian-speaking or of ethnic Russian origin and follow Orthodox Christianity. The nationalist takeover of Ukraine made the Russian speaking population and areas the target of huge offensive by the Ukrainian army and their right-wing supporters like the Azov battalion (a right-wing, neo-Nazi former paramilitary group that became a unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, based in Mariupol, in the Azov Sea coastal region) since 2014. This resulted in the death of nearly 15,000 persons. The alienation of Russian-speakers has created an opportunity for Russia to pre-empt further NATO expansion and create a buffer zone along its border with Ukraine.

When Russia declared military operations in Ukraine, the twin goals it worked with were demilitarisation and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. Having achieved a certain amount of success in terms of destroying much of the military infrastructure of Ukraine and pressurising President Volodymyr Zenlensky to agree to a status of neutrality during the talks with Russia, Moscow is moving very systematically to achieve the other objective. It is around eastern and southern Ukraine that the Russian-speaking population mainly lives. Most of the Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, which are part of the Donbas region, have been taken from the Ukrainian forces. These areas along with southern cities like Mariupol and Odessa are the ones where since 2014 Ukrainian forces along with the ultra-nationalist battalions have inflicted maximum repression and damage. In the process of taking control of these areas, Russia would be inflicting greater damage on what it considers “neo-Nazi” groups.

When on 1 April 2022, Russia made freeing Donbas region one of its main objectives, it was also indicating that it is going to create a buffer along its land and maritime border with Ukraine. The southern part of Ukraine, especially its two main Black Sea ports of Odessa and Mariupol are of immense strategic importance, since Russia’s main navy is located in the Sevastapol base on the Black Sea and Mariupol will create a vast land corridor between Crimea and Donbas. The buffer zone addresses the long-term security interests of Russia, even if in future Ukraine reneges on its promise of neutrality.

(Dr. Ajay Patnaik is retired Professor, Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University)