The Real Reason Putin is Invading Ukraine
The war has begun between Russia and Ukraine.
“The message is very clear. Should Russia take further aggressive actions against Ukraine the costs will be severe and the consequences serious.” — Ursula von Der Leyen (European Commission President).
I want to explain what’s going on here and why!
It’s not a typical geopolitical behaviour, stuff that can just be explained on the map. Instead to understand why Missiles are getting fired on the Ukrainian cities, you have to understand Russia and how it’s been cut down over the ages from Slavic empire to Soviet Union which was defeated in the 90’s. And what you really have to understand here is that how that history is transposed into a brain of one man, Vladimir Putin.
This is a story between regional domination and struggles between big powers, but really this is a story about what Vladimir Putin really wants.
What does Putin really wants?
A few months ago, Russia started sending more and more troops to Russian- Ukrainian border.
They said they were doing a military exercise, but the rest of the world was like, “yeah we totally believe you Russia”(~_~;). This was right before the big meeting where North American and European countries were coming together to talk about a lot of different things but soon, because of Russia’s aggressive behaviour coming in and setting up 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, the entire summit turned into a whole,”W-T-F Russia, what are you doing on the border of Ukraine”, meeting. Before the meeting Putin comes out and says “ Listen, I have some demands for the west”. And everyone was like”oh okay what are your demands Russia, you know we have Covid-19 to deal with” But Putin was like”No, here are my demands”.
Putin’s demand for this summit were this:
- NATO stops expanding
- Troops out of Eastern Europe
- USA won’t protect Eastern European allies with Nuclear weapons.
There he is, Putin with these very very aggressive demands. And he was basically implying that if these demands aren’t met, he’s going to INVADE Ukraine.
What I love about these demands is that it gives us a clue what Putin really wants, what he’s after here.
You read them closely and you can grasp his intentions. But to grasp his intention you must know what NATO is and what Russia & Ukraine used to be.
Modern Day Russia started in Kyiv, which is actually modern day Ukraine.
Means The Russia we know of has its original roots in Ukraine. These place grew up together and they eventually became a part of the same mega empire called the Soviet Union.They were deeply intervened not just in their history and their culture, but also in their economy and their politics.
So its actually after world war II , its like 50’s, 60’s, 70s and NATO was formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, this was a military alliance between North American and some European countries, that was meant to sort of deter Soviet Union from expanding and taking over the world. But as we all know, the Soviet Union, which was Russia, Ukraine and other countries, collapsed in 1991. And all of these smaller countries including Ukraine became independent meaning they were not now a part of of one big block of countries anymore.
But just because the border’s all split up doesn’t mean that the cultural ties actually broke. For example, the soviet leader the time, Gorbachev, he was the son of a Ukrainian mother and a Russian father. In his mind, Ukraine and Russia were like one thing. So there was major reluctance to accept Ukraine as a separate thing from Russia.
There was another young Russian who did not accept this division, This young intelligence officer known as Vladimir Putin, who was starting to rise up in the ranks of the post — soviet Russia.
There’s a quote from 2005 where Putin is giving address to state of the union thing where Putin declares collapse of the Soviet Union, quote “The greatest catastrophe of the 20th century”. Sure Putin why not?! It is not like anything like World War II happened. This means The Soviet Union were all one people in his mind. Putin’s worry about the collapse of this one people starts to get way worse when The West, his enemy starts showing upto his neighbourhoods to all these ex-Soviet countries and starts selling its ideology of democracy and capitalism and inviting them to join their military alliance called NATO and guess what, these countries are totally buying it, all these ex-Soviet countries are joining NATO. And Putin is hating this. Over the years this continues to happen while Putin himself starts to chip away at Russian institutions making them weaker and weaker. He silenced his rivals and consolidated power to himself.
It has been decades since soviet union fell, but as Putin gains more power, he still sees the region through the lens of the old Cold War, Soviet, Slavic empire view. And the worst situation of all of these, according to Putin is Ukraine, which was like the gem of Soviet Union. There was tons of cultural heritage, again Russia kind of started in Ukraine and not to mention it was a very populous, resource rich place. And over the years Ukraine has been drifting west. It hasn’t joined NATO yet, but more and more it’s been electing pro-Western presidents. It’s been flirting with membership in NATO. It’s been getting less and less attached to the Russian heritage that Putin so adores. And more than half the Ukrainians say that they’d be down to joining the EU. 64% of them say that it would we cool joining NATO. But Putin can’t handle this . He’s in total denial. For the past decade he’s been trying to keep the west out and bring Ukraine back to its motherland Russia. This usually takes in the form of Putin sending secret soldiers from Russia to Ukraine to help the people who want to like separate from Ukraine and join Russia. It also takes the form of, oh yeah, stealing entire parts of Ukraine for Russia. Like in 2014 Putin just did this. Russia just invaded Crimea and folded it into Russia.
So you’re starting to see what’s going on here. Putin’s life’s work is to salvage what he calls “the greatest catastrophe of 20th century. And if really want to understand the mind of Vladimir Putin and his whole view on this you have to read article by Vladimir Putin “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. A blog post that kind of sound like high school history essay. In this essay Putin argues that Russia and Ukraine are one people. He calls them essentially the same historical and spiritual space. (Kind of beautiful writing, honestly). And then he launches into this 10 page like argument, as to every single historical beat of Ukraine and Russia’s history, to make this argument that like this is one people and division is totally because of outside powers, i.e. the West. In the last lines of this post he says “Just have a look at Austria and Germany, The USA and Canada, how they live next to each other, close in ethnic composition, culture, in fact sharing one language. They remain sovereign states with their own interests , with their own foreign policy. But this does not prevent them from the closest integration or allied relations. They have very conditional, transparent borders, and when crossing them citizens feel at home. They create families, study, work, do business. Incidentally, so do millions of those born in Ukraine who now live in Russia. We see them as our own close people.”
I mean, listen I’m not in support of what Putin is doing, but that is a pretty solid analogy. There’s a deep heritage and connection between these people. He genuinely feels it as a brotherhood with the people of Ukraine. Okay, okay, okay. Putin, I get it. Your essay is very compelling at the end but this doesn’t justify what you’ve been up to. Okay?!
Putin has constructed his own reality here. One in which Ukraine is actually being controlled by shadowy western forces who are holding people of Ukraine hostage. And that if he invades it will be a swift victory because Ukrainians will accept him with open arms. The Great Liberator.
But in world’s reality Putin is behaving like an abusive boyfriend. They had a great relationship but they broke up and she (Ukraine) is free to see whomever she wants. But Putin is not ready to let go. He still thinks she actually really loves me but its her annoying friends(The West) who’re planting all these ideas in her head. That’s why she broke up with me.
Russia has far superior army to that of Ukraine’s but controlling territory in Ukraine would be very hard. It’s a giant country, they would fit back. If Russia invades Ukraine this gives NATO a new purpose. If you remember, NATO was created because of the cold war. Once the Soviet Union fell NATO has been looking for a new purpose and if Russia invades Ukraine, NATO suddenly has a brand new purpose to unite. Also this war will be incredibly costly for Russia which I would love to discuss in the upcoming blog.
Thanks for reading this. Peace.
References -: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
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