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Putin’s Dreams

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What did he ho= pe to get out of the war? Anatol Lieven on natio= nalist ambitions, historical narratives, and Moscow’s fraught relatio= nship with the West.

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Envato

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(Originall= y published 2022 | 05.03)

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Three days before invading Ukraine, Vlad= imir Putin justified the impending attack as necessary for Russian security= , saying that Moscow had spent 30 years patiently negotiating with NATO whi= le being lied to and blackmailed by the West. The Kremlin, he said, wouldn&= rsquo;t repeat the errors of those who failed to take Hitler seriously befo= re World War II. Last summer, however, in a long essay titled “On the= Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” Putin offered a differ= ent view of Ukraine’s relationship with Russia. Drawing on historical= details from past centuries, he argued that Ukraine was an artificial mode= rn concoction on historically Russian lands. Years earlier, he offered stil= l another view, speaking of Russia as an “energy superpower” on= account of massive oil and gas reserves, whose value depends on pipelines = that run through Ukraine. How do these ideas fit together?

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Anatol Lieven is the senior researc= h fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible State= craft and the author of Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry.&n= bsp;According to Lieven, Putin’s chauvinistic views about his co= untry are historically inaccurate and illogical but essential to supporting= his certainty that Moscow is, and must always be, a global power. Putin ha= s long spoken of Russia as an alternative Western civilization, different f= rom Western Europe or the United States but equal in importance. Yet, Lieve= n says, the Kremlin has never been economically or politically strong enoug= h to fulfill these ambitions. As Lieven sees it, Moscow’s military fa= ilures in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians’ determined resistance, also re= present a defeat for Putin’s vision of Russia and Ukraine. The questi= on now is how that vision will wind up influencing the way he seeks to end = the war.
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——= —

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Michael Bluhm: What did Putin see in Ukr= aine?

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Anatol Lieven: He would agree with the l= ate U.S. national-security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who wrote that Russ= ia ceases to be a great power without it. As long as Russia keeps Ukraine a= s a satellite or a subordinate, Russia is a vital power on the world stage.= Without Ukraine, Russian power is vastly reduced.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Then there’s the fear, which you can call paranoid,= that America is going to establish Ukraine as a military base, expel Russi= a from its naval base at Sevastopol and its remaining positions in the Cauc= asus, and blockade the Russian enclave in Moldova.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09There’s also an intense nationalistic feeling that = you could hear continually intensifying in Putin’s statements: <= em>Ukrainians are a brotherly people who belong with Russia—thou= gh younger brothers, of course. There’s a depth of emotionality in th= e attitude to Ukraine that doesn’t apply to Georgia, Moldova, or the = Baltic states. It’s this idea that Ukrainians are family, and Ukraini= an behavior before the war was a betrayal within the family. Historically, = large parts of Ukraine were conquered by Russia from the Turks, not by Ukra= ine. The feeling is, These areas naturally belong in Russia—= and if Ukraine was going to turn against Russia, Russia was damn well going= to take these areas back.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Bluhm: You mention the shared history be= tween Russia and Ukraine going back more than 1,000 years. Putin discussed = this history in detail, in a long essay about the two countries that he pub= lished last summer. Where does Ukraine fit in Putin’s thinking a= bout the history of Russia?

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Lieven= : It goes back to the fact that the origin of the Russian state wa= s in Ukraine and then moved north after the Mongol invasion in the 13th cen= tury. Ukraine is regarded by many Russians as inherently part of Russia. =09=09=09=09=09=09

Moscow invadin= g Ukraine was never a prelude to invading the Baltic states, let alone Pola= nd or Romania. Russia doesn’t regard these places in the same light; = they’re completely different.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09There’s this deep belief that Russia and Ukraine ar= e one—but dominated by Russia. It’s been a close relationship. = Ukrainians who showed themselves loyal—first to the Russian Empire an= d then to the Soviet Union—advanced to the very highest positions. Et= hnic Ukrainians—not just Russians born in Ukraine—also played a= tremendous part in Russian culture. The first great Russian novelist, Gogo= l, was an ethnic Ukrainian. Former Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Co= ssack, who has often been tipped as a potential successor to Putin, is an e= thnic Ukrainian, born in Ukraine.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09This feeling that we are closely bound together<= /em> encourages the belief that if the Ukrainians are now aga= inst us, it can’t be because ordinary Ukrainians are really against u= s; it must be on account of the wicked plots of the Americans and a small m= inority of Ukrainian fascists. Out of that came the fatuous belie= f that Ukrainians would welcome the Russian invasion and greet the Russian = army with flowers. To explain this crazy misapprehension, you have to under= stand these deep elements of emotional bias in Putin’s view and wider= Russian attitudes to Ukraine.

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Mehrnaz Taghavishavaz= i

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More from = Anatol Lieven at The Signal:

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=09=09=09=09=09=09"The dilemma for Russia is tha= t it’s partly European and Western, but it’s largely not. It&rs= quo;s never been accepted by Europe as part of Europe, because it’s m= uch poorer and has a different culture. That’s = deeply offensive to Russian pride: We’re the heirs of Byzant= ium. We’re the biggest state and the largest population in Europe, an= d yet we’re treated with contempt by Europeans. This has created= a desire among Russians to see their country as a separate civilization&md= ash;not an inferior part of Western civilization, but separate and equal. B= ut Russia has never been strong enough to maintain this idea of itself as a= separate and equal civilization.”

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=09=09=09=09=09=09"Putin’s preferred phrase about Russia= n identity for a long time was the idea of Russia as the = ;Third West. There are already two Wests, Europe and America,= which are closely related culturally but significantly different. There ar= e big differences between America and Europe on issues such as religion, gu= ns, and attitudes toward the individual, yet they’re both considered = the West. Putin asks, Why shouldn’t Russia be a third West, = with highly distinctive aspects, but also closely related to the others? The last time I saw Putin was at a conference in Russia in October.= He didn’t talk much about Ukraine but did talk an awful lot about at= tacking woke-ism and LGBTQ ideology. I thought he was looking for the Repub= lican nomination for U.S. president in 2024. That rhetoric about carving ou= t Russia as distinct from the dominant Western culture and ideology—b= ut it’s not fundamentally different from the rhetoric of hardline con= servatives in Europe and, even more so, America.”

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=09=09=09=09=09=09"Now, he’s trying to fulfill his visio= n of turning Ukraine into a brotherly party—by force. F= rom that point of view, Ukraine has already won. Putin’s attempts to = capture Kyiv and overthrow the Ukrainian government were completely defeate= d and have been publicly abandoned by the Russian government. All their tro= ops have withdrawn from northern Ukraine. They’ve basically gone back= to an expanded version of what they did in 2014: take the whole of the Don= bas and then either negotiate a ceasefire and peace settlement or hold the = land bridge between Donbas and Crimea. Military defeat has shown Putin that= the wider agenda is simply impossible. His original dream has been shatter= ed by reality, and he’s gone to a much lesser alternative.” =09=09=09=09=09=09
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The Signal explores urgent quest= ions in current events around the world—to support it and for full ac= cess:

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