The Ukrainian government and NATO last week both sent angry missives to Moscow demanding clarification over inflammatory comments attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov regarding Ukraine’s NATO bid. According to media reports, Putin told a closed session of the early April Bucharest summit of NATO members that Ukraine risked disappearing altogether as a state if it pursued NATO membership, and threatened to begin the process of incorporating southern and eastern Ukraine into the Russian Federation. Mr. Lavrov later seconded this sentiment, claiming that Russia would do everything in its power to prevent NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.
These remarks, while clearly beyond the pale of accepted diplomatic correspondence, would seem to require little in the way of further clarification. The simple truth is that most Russians continue to regard Ukraine as an accidental state undeserving of the respect traditionally shown between sovereign nations. The only difference is that now, just over three years since the Orange Revolution first thrust Ukraine’s troubled historical ties with Russia into the modern media spotlight, such opinions are finally being voiced at the highest political levels within the Kremlin.
Contempt for Ukrainian statehood
Middle-ranking Russian politicians have long been prone to making highly disparaging remarks about Ukrainian statehood. Russian state officials have repeatedly been guilty of fanning the flames of Russian nationalist separatism in Crimea, while one could fill a small book with the derogatory statements of Russia’s state clown Vladimir Zhirinovski. Nor is this tendency to belittle Ukraine restricted to the political classes. Anyone who has ever discussed Ukraine with ordinary Russians will have been struck by the staggering scale of the contempt in which Ukrainian statehood is held north of the border.
Although enlightened exceptions exist, for the vast majority of Russians Ukraine is simply not considered a proper country at all. It had never been an independent state prior to 1991, they argue, and remains a Russian creation utterly unable to govern itself. Accepted wisdom has it that only Moscow can bring law and order to the wilds of Ukraine, a dogma which the state-controlled Russian media portrayal of Ukraine’s turbulent recent upheavals has only reinforced.
The idea of an independent Ukraine formulating its own policy and moving away from the Russian orbit continues to be regarded as a form of madness in much of Moscow. Far from the ravings of a tiny minority of extremists, such sentiments are part of mainstream public opinion throughout Russia, something which the West ignores to its peril. It is a measure of Russian frustration that the country’s leaders have now resorted to such naked threats and tantrums, but nevertheless it would be dangerous to underestimate the potential for these school bully taunts to be transformed into action. It is now crucial that the West unites behind Ukraine and demonstrates to the Kremlin that this kind of aggressive posturing is no longer acceptable and will, if necessary, be met in kind.
The question remains of whether there is enough political will in the Western democracies over the Ukrainian question to produce the necessary resolve.
Democracies remain divided
The scale of the post-Soviet collapse in 1991 was so devastating that it seems to have lolled many Western leaders into a false sense of security which encourages them to disregard the threat posed by Mr. Putin’s imperial posturing. The loss of Soviet empire certainly dealt a crushing blow to Russian chauvinism, but it has clearly not proved fatal. On the contrary, we are currently witnessing an anti-Western, anti-democracy counter-reformation which is sweeping Russia and threatening to overflow into the former Soviet republics.
While some in the West, notably the Americans and the states of the former Eastern Bloc, have been unafraid to point out the dangers posed by revived Russian authoritarianism, there are many who continue to voice sympathy for Russia’s grievances, arguing that Ukraine is by rights part of the Russian sphere of influence without ever once asking the Ukrainian people whether this is to their liking or not. The recent NATO conference was a case in point, with leading European nations France and Germany both arguing against a Membership Action Plan for Ukraine on the grounds that it might upset Russia. This kind of logic will only serve to encourage Mr. Putin’s counter-reformation.
Responding to Russia’s challenge
Russia has long since cast off the mask of its faux democracy. It has now abandoned the pretence of respect for existing international borders. In other words, we are finally witnessing the imperial ambitions of the Kremlin laid bare. As the geopolitical temperature rises, much will depend on the ability of Ukraine’s leaders to demonstrate that their struggle is of wider regional importance and not simply a domestic quarrel. Ukraine alone will struggle to withstand the kind of pressure that Russia is both willing and capable of applying, but the Kremlin would be no match for a truly united Europe.
