Ukraine: History Lesson

Today, I re-post an article I wrote four years ago after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It provides some historical background to the conflict that still goes on today. The map to the left is especially interesting.

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My guess is that Russia’s Vladimir Putin regards the conflict in Ukraine as a Civil war, and not as an invasion of a neighboring country. Unlike others who guess at his motives, I don’t think he is a madman, or a Hitler out to conquer the world. In other words, I believe that for Putin Ukraine has been an integral part of Russia for over 500 years, and that the separation after the recent collapse of the Soviet empire was a dangerous mistake, politically, economically, and militarily.

Looking through an atlas of European history, I noticed that only about the time that Christopher Columbus discovered a New World does the name  Russia appear on the map. Before that it was called Muscovy since in the later Middle Ages, a people from the area of what is now Moscow began to travel, explore, and trade down the great Russian rivers that emanated from the nearby Valdai hills, and that eventually brought them to the Baltic, the Black, and Caspian seas.

The history of Russia under the Czars (Emperors) is a history of conflict with the tribes and peoples they encountered along these rivers, all of whom they eventually brought under subjugation. Eventually, they came up against more powerful opponents like the vast Kingdoms of Lithuania and Poland, as well as the mighty Ottoman or Turkish empire. Thumbing through the atlas I could see that by the nineteenth century  Lithuania and Poland had largely been absorbed by the Russian empire, and that the Ottoman empire was shrinking. 

On none of these maps does the word Ukraine appear. It and its people were always considered a part of the Russian empire. Although the Communist revolution of 1917 did not alter the imperial policy of the Czars, the Soviet leaders did create the fiction of an independent collection of popular republics, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Only then does Ukraine, the land of the Ukrainian people, appear on the map. Nevertheless, like all these Soviet republics, it was ruled with an iron hand by the Communist party leadership in Moscow.  The despotism of Joseph Stalin led to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians before WWII. After the war, Ukraine became a member of the UN but still remained subject to Russian laws and control.

In 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Ukraine shook off its legal ties with Russia, but its government still had close ties with Russia. It agreed to return the nuclear missiles placed there by the Soviet Union back to Russia in exchange for guarantees of its security. It established close economic ties with Russia and became a major importer of Russian oil and natural gas. 

I am not able to describe what happened in Ukraine after 1991 that led to the present conflict. I do know that there was graft and corruption as wealthy oligarchs profited from the breakup of Communist industries in both Russia and Ukraine. I also know that during the Obama administration, Vice-President Joe Biden was put in charge of US relations with Ukraine. Not only did his son land a lucrative position with a Ukrainian energy company, but also, Biden bragged about holding up a huge aid package to Ukraine until its government removed a prosecutor investigating corruption, an interference in another country’s affairs that seems far more impeachable than President Trump’s famous call to President Zelensky. *

In any event, during the Obama administration Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to reclaim some territory given up in the 1991 agreement. He was quiet during the Trump administration but shortly after President Biden declared in 2021 that he would welcome Ukraine’s admission into NATO, Putin launched the current military invasion. It seems obvious today that Ukrainian independence had become a more and more bitter pill for Putin to swallow. 

As noted above I believe that Putin regards the current conflict as a Civil war, and, as such, it is no one else’s business. I am reminded of our own Civil War. In 1860 the election of Abraham Lincoln led the Southern states to secede from the Union almost immediately upon his inauguration. Lincoln raised a large army, not to abolish slavery, but to quell a rebellion and bring the seceding states back into the Union. He and his advisors must have thought it would be a brief conflict, but the war turned out to be a long, drawn out affair with over 650,000  casualties. 

I wonder whether Lincoln, if he  could have foreseen the death and destruction, might have allowed the South to secede. Looking back, we can see that time and technology would have put an end to slavery in a few years. Rather than creating a more perfect union, the war only inflamed and prolonged sectional animosities.

I believe that Vladimir Putin has made a great mistake in attempting to regain the Ukraine for Russia. Even if he wins the war, the death and devastation will be enormous. He may conquer the country, but he will never gain the friendship and loyalty of the conquered people.  Time and technology could eventually have created a working relationship between Russia and Ukraine, Russia’s best customer. Why bomb your best customer?

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* Back in 2022 I wrote that "I am still waiting for the book that will examine the role of Vice-President Biden in the affairs of Ukraine during the administration of President Obama." To my knowledge, it has still not appeared.