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Putin's Mind and The War in Ukraine

How Putin's Life Experiences Are Continuing the Long-Running Genocide Against the Ukrainian People

By Atomic HistorianPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 13 min read
5

Before I begin, I realize by chance of birth that I stand in a glass house as I write this. And yet, some things need to be said, as we stand on yet another fulcrum of history. In particular, we stand on a fulcrum that will determine the future of international politics and the understanding of diplomatic relations.

Today is February 26, 2022, and we are two days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Correction, it is now April 11, 2022. I started writing this article a while ago, but life has a way of getting in the way of my writing sometimes.

For most Americans, the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia was their first close look at Russian foreign policy. However, the idea of this being a new development in Russian foreign policy is a notion almost exclusive to the West. This is due to how many, especially those in power, Russians view Ukraine. In his book, Near Abroad, Gerard Toal discusses how and why Russians view Georgia and Ukraine as a part of what they call the near abroad, and what this means to them. In addition, doctor Toal discusses how this has transformed the post-Soviet relations between Moscow and Washington in former Soviet states.

For both Georgia and Ukraine, the greatest trigger in their conflicts centered on whether or not they could, or should, be allowed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. While not a NATO member, Russia holds sway in both countries stemming from current and historic ties. The question of including Georgia in NATO stems from the question of, what is the geographic limit of NATO? In this lies the question of where should the border of Europe be. These questions are older than Russia or the United States. Is there a geographic feature that acts as the marker, or should Europe include areas influenced by and connected to European culture?

To answer this question, Occidental cartographers have relied on maintaining imperial notions of geography. With the geographic limitations of Europe starting in the homelands of the former empires and ending at the wall where their absolute power ends.

This has led Georgia to lie just outside of what is considered Europe while straddling the border between the Christian and Muslim worlds as well. If one were to include all areas of significant European cultural connection, rather than harkening back to the Great Game politics of the 19th century, the idea of Georgia joining NATO would be more palatable. The othering of Transcaucasia makes the region up for grabs, thus Russia was not expected to respect the territorial integrity of a fellow European nation. According to Toal, respect for the territorial integrity of fellow European nations has become a hallmark in post-World War Two Europe. This has been the collective work of NATO, and later the European Union, as stabilizing forces. Thus, Georgia has become one of two nations in the former Russian and Soviet empires, of the near abroad, to have their national sovereignty violated in the name of Russian security. If Georgia is outside the bounds of normative European border protection politics, then Ukraine lies at the center of what European sovereignty means in the 21st century.

Ukraine lies near the heart of Russia, both geographically and historically. From its earliest history, Ukraine was the breadbasket of Russia. This gave it preeminence when the Russian empire fell, and the Bolsheviks were solidifying their position. Historically, the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and the Russian people owe their namesake to the Vikings that founded Kyiv. Thus, for many Russians, Ukraine is Russia and Russia is Ukraine. This position was further solidified during the Soviet era when the Soviet government resettled native Ukrainians, Cossacks, and Tartars in the East. Yet, Ukraine is a part of Europe proper. One may even say it is more a part of Europe than NATO member Turkey. This is why in 2014 Russia could not appear to violate Ukrainian sovereignty. However, like the Sudeten Germans that agitated to join their kin across the border in 1938, ethnic Russians in Crimea and Donbas were encouraged in their effort. This is how Russia controls what it sees as an encirclement in the near abroad of its former empire.

Toal’s thorough research of Russia’s foreign policy helps one understand how the Russian state distinguishes between what they term the “inner abroad” and “near abroad”, and why they interject into the domestic relations of other nations to maintain their buffer zone. For the Russian government, the inner abroad includes Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia, as these have been the inner republics with the greatest resistance movements since the dissolution of the USSR. In Toal’s description of the geopolitical culture, these republics play a key role in Russia’s sense of identity. In particular, they are key to Putin’s image as the restorer of Russia’s dignity, prestige, and Christian identity. The republics also represented the local Islamic extremist that early in the Global War on Terrorism that Putin had hoped would bridge the gap between Russian and the United States foreign policies. However, the U.S.’s near-unilateral invasion of Iraq and the later Russian invasion of Georgia in support of Ossetian rebels would set the stage for the next phase of the Great Game that continues between Russia and the Anglosphere.

The late 1990s and early 2000s were the nearest that Russia and US-led NATO would come to rapprochement. Attempts at rapprochement continued to be made, despite Russia's dwindling faith in their Western partners during the Kosovo War in 1999. This was due to NATO’s Kosovo Force being able to push the Russians out of Pristina Airport, despite the Russians already holding the airport. This incident demonstrated their inability to also protect the interests of allies such as Serbia. Thus, in the eyes of the Russian government, pushing more former Soviet and Communist nations into the arms of NATO and the West. This further solidified Russia’s sense of isolation and abandonment on the Sarmatic plain.

Toal sheds light on why, with their prestige in tatters and the acceptance of unilateral state actors now the norm in international geopolitics, Russia sees controlling their near abroad against NATO encroachment as their last-ditch effort of sovereignty and authority on the world stage. The need for NATO to respect Russia’s southern border became tantamount in the minds of Russian government officials in 2001 when the US began using bases in Georgia and other former Soviet nations to prosecute their war in Afghanistan. With further US involvement in Afghanistan, the sense of the US taking over the Russian neighborhood further solidified with each new base acquired in the Stans. Thus, when Ukraine applied for NATO membership in 2008, it became imperative for them to protect their image, their border, and most importantly their Black Sea fleet in Crimea. Additionally, there was a need to keep open access to the Russian ethnic enclave in Transnistria. Thus, it became necessary for Russia to undermine the Ukrainian government.

However, not all of this is sufficient to explain why Vladimir Putin would take such a great risk to bring military force right to NATO’s front door, or some of the rhetoric he uses when speaking about Ukraine. But looking at some of his personal history mapped onto events happening in Russia at the same time can help those outside of Russia and Ukraine understand the thought process behind what the man is doing.

By now, many in the West know that Vladimir Putin is a former KGB officer, and the former head of the FSB, the KGB’s successor agency. However, his history with the organ of Russian intelligence goes back to before he was born. Both of Putin’s parents were born in 1911. Putin’s connection to Soviet, and later Russian, state security began when his father was conscripted into the Soviet navy and later the Destruction Battalions.

What were the Destruction Battalions?

In short, they are what Westerners often see in movies as the Soviet troops that shoot deserters. However, this was not their only role. In many areas of the Eastern Front, the destruction battalions were also utilized as death squads sent to keep those ethnic minorities that had been subjugated by the Soviet Union in line, and within the fold of the USSR. This was due to World War II breaking out towards the tail end of the Russian Civil War. The Russian Civil War broke out after the fall of the Romanov Empire. Into this fray were injected Nationalist movements that sought to break free of both the Russian Empire and the USSR.

From 1917 to the mid-40s, the USSR was fighting for both internal supremacy, as well as to stop Nationalist movements from breaking up the territory of the former Russian Empire. During this period in Ukraine, the Bolsheviks were fighting both fellow leftists, like Nestor Makhno’s Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine from 1917 to 1921, as well as the later iteration of Ukrainian fascists.

It is here that I have to take a break and clarify something that is often forgotten or not taught in the post-WWII era. During the early 20th century, fascism did not have the stigma it now has (a well-deserved stigma). This should not be construed as a defense of fascism. However, it does have to be placed in its proper context. At the time that fascism rose in appeal in Ukraine, it is important to remember two things. One, Ukrainians had just survived an attempted genocide through mass deportation, forced Russification, and a man-made famine, known as the Holodomor. Thus, if one were living in Ukraine at this time, and your choices were subjugation by the USSR, or joining with Nazi Germany, you might roll the dice on fascism. However, not all Ukrainians fit into this dichotomy, and many fought both the Nazis and the Soviets.

(I am attempting to keep this article short, but if you want a better understanding of what the world was like, and how the differences between fascism and communism were viewed in their time, there is a great book by James Burnham called The Managerial Revolution.)

With WWII eventually drawing to a close, Putin’s parents were thrust into the post-war world, having lost a son in the Siege of Leningrad, his maternal grandmother, and his maternal uncles. And it was the memory of fighting both Ukrainian separatists and Nazis that they would inject into their only remaining son.

So, how does this fit into Putin’s narrative of liberating Ukraine from Nazis?

The answer to this question is multifaceted. One is the idea held by many Russians, particularly those in the government, that Ukraine is “not a real country.” This notion comes from the idea that Ukraine, and Ukrainians are a group of Russians that have lost their way. However, we have many examples in the world of two countries sharing a common origin(Canada and the US being a close approximation of the Russo-Ukrainian split), and yet being recognized as separate and distinct cultures. The deep irony of Putin using the rhetoric that Ukrainians and Russians are the same people, and therefore should be united in one nation, is that this is the same logic the Nazis used to justify their invasion of other countries that spoke Germanic languages.

However, this situation is complicated by how the war was treated in the USSR. During the Cold War, the Soviets tended to downplay or ignore their atrocities, collaboration with the Nazis, and acceptance of Nazis(mainly scientists) into the Soviet power structure, while also now identifying the West writ large with fascism. In their defense, this assessment is not completely inaccurate. On the spectrum of political ideologies, capitalists have more in common with fascists, than they do with any left-wing ideology. Additionally, many of the men that were remaking Western Europe in the post-War years had often been sympathetic to the fascist governments before the war or were outright fascists.

We see this in the use of intelligence from the Gehlen Organization. As well as Western businesses that had interests in Germany before and after the war. And it was often these interests that were the most fervent in opposing the spread of communism around the world during the Cold War. While these business interests were not the sole cause of the Soviet Union’s downfall, they certainly did play a role. And it would be the implosion of the Soviet Union that would be the second greatest cause of Putin’s trauma.

As Gerard Toal notes, Putin once remarked on the collapse of the Soviet Union, “Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside of Russian territory.” (1)

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the second trauma in Putin’s life. A hardline KGB agent, he was instrumental in securing KGB files in Dresden as the East German government collapsed. Then in 1991, Putin would relive this experience during the August Coup of 1991. This coup was a last ditch effort by Communist Party hardliners to keep the Soviet Union and their party in power.

One of the leaders of the coup was Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of the KGB at the time of the coup. Kryuchkov and his fellow coup plotters were deeply opposed to Perestroika and Glasnost. Their opposition to Perestroika was due to the threat they felt it made towards their elite position within the Soviet economy. This combined with the threat that Glasnost would open them up to the Soviet public being made aware of the KGB’s activities against Soviet citizens, meant that the August Coup plotters were highly motivated to strangle any attempt at democracy in the Soviet republics in the grave.

Thus, we are presented with the mind of Vladimir Putin. A man that was raised in an environment, where denial of the existence of Ukraine as a country and people was not merely a passing thought, but imperative to the early Soviet state. A man that spent the formative years of his career in an organization that was directed at its citizens as often as it was its external security. We see a man that has committed his life and person to the sanctity of what he sees as Russian statehood, no matter the cost.

Putin as a man is very much like the majority of politicians in our world today. They were raised in a world where denying the right of existence to minorities was not just common, but seen as the way to protect the existence of their state. We are going to have a difficult time convincing Putin to back out of his invasion of Ukraine, not because he is unreasonable, but because he is incapable of conceptualizing Ukraine as separate from Russia. To him, the invasion of Ukraine is not a matter of international politics, but an internal matter of national security. This is why we have seen Putin use the same language, special military operation, as used during the Chechen Wars.

In short, and primarily American terms, explaining to Putin why denying the existence of Ukrainians is akin to explaining to your grandfather why people of color are protesting police brutality. He was born and raised in a world where not only was their existence denied, but the use of force to subjugate them to the will of the state was normalized. Thus, in his mind, he has done nothing wrong in the defense of Russia.

Thank you for reading my work. If you enjoyed this story, there’s more below. Please hit the like and subscribe button, you can follow me on Twitter @AtomicHistorian, and if you want to help me create more content, please consider leaving a tip or a pledged subscriber.

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Citations:

Toal, Gerard, Near Abroad: Putin, the West and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus, P. 56.

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About the Creator

Atomic Historian

Heavily irradiated historian developing my writing career. You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram. To help me create more content, leave a tip or become a pledged subscriber. I also make stickers, t-shirts, etc here.

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