Why Vladimir Putin will not back down on Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked the world, but in many ways Vladimir Putin has been preparing this operation for some time.

For Putin and for some Russians, the villains of the crisis are not only Ukrainian nationalists, but also Western governments. They see the West as having one set of rules for itself, and another for countries like Russia.

Understanding this aspect of Putin’s outlook on the world is crucial to understanding why he has been so unwilling to back down from what he sees as Western intransigence and hypocrisy.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Russian perceptions of Western hypocrisy have a long history dating back to the days of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. A particularly crucial event was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. During that crisis, the United States questioned whether it was reasonable for the Soviet Union to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, while at the same time placing its own weapons near the Soviet Union in Cuba. Turkey.

At that time, the United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine, first expounded in 1823, which implies the assertion of American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. US politicians said it gave them a free hand to prevent foreign influence in the Americas.

Although Cuban leader Fidel Castro would have liked it, Cuba was never allowed to join the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet equivalent of NATO. The Soviet Union was aware that it would have been extremely provocative to allow Cuba to do so.

The Monroe Doctrine has persisted long after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was reflected in the US invasions of Grenada and Panama in 1983 and 1989 respectively. The United States has never formally renounced the Monroe Doctrine, and it remains part of the American policy toolbox when needed.

The Soviet Union attempted to introduce something similar in what became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, named after its longtime president, Leonid Brezhnev. In it, the Soviet Union was asked to intervene in countries where the socialist regime was threatened, even if by force.

In the West it was seen as lacking the same legitimacy as the Monroe Doctrine because the American cause was seen as just and the Soviet cause as unjust. Putin is now putting into practice his own Monroe – or Brezhnev – Doctrine.

Protesters carry a banner depicting Putin as Leonid Brezhnev during a massive protest rally in St. Petersburg, Russia, in May 2018. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

western aggression

For many in post-Soviet Russia, the West remains, to this day, historically and routinely flouting international law, invading other states, often on a whim. The best example of this is the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” never materialized, and are often seen as a fabricated pretext for Western intervention.

NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia in the 1990s is another of the Russians’ favorite examples of the West’s willingness to cross international borders when convenient. The West oversaw the breakup of Yugoslavia, where it supported the separation of Kosovo from the Russian-backed Serbia.

For Putin, the protection of Russian-speakers in Ukraine is as justifiable a reason for intervention as those offered by the West in Iraq and Yugoslavia.

In Russian eyes, the West has so far been the aggressor, taking advantage of Russian weakness since the collapse of the Soviet Union to support nationalist governments in the former Soviet space. These countries have often had large Russian minorities within their borders.

Indeed, NATO’s expansion into the former Soviet Union has been, from the perspective of the Russian government, a betrayal of Western commitments made at the end of the Cold War to limit such expansion to a united Germany. It has also been seen as part of a growing security threat to Russia, right in its backyard.

Arm Ukraine

To be sure, the West’s arming of Ukraine has been seen by the Russian government as a means for the Ukrainians to finally crush the pro-Russian separatist forces in the east without having to grant them the kind of autonomy that was suggested in the now-defunct Protocols of Minsk from 2014-15. These agreements were designed to end a Russian-speaking separatist war in eastern Ukraine.

For Putin, the only solution in the face of the lack of progress on the Minsk Protocols and the Western unwillingness to take Russian demands seriously has been to recognize the breakaway republics and move from covert to overt military action.

The Western approach to diplomacy with Russia and other powers that are not “us” has contributed to bringing the crisis to its current and tragic point.

When a parent is raising a child, discipline is often more effective if it is not a case of “do as I say, not as I do.” The Vladimir Putin crisis will undoubtedly cost thousands of lives. (I)