Stand with Ukraine

In April 2022, less than three months after Russia invaded Ukraine and the capital Kyiv remained within range of artillery bombardment, a strange event occurred in the city’s downtown.  A long queue formed in front of the General Post Office and extended as far as the Maidan.  The queue had formed to buy a stamp valued at just eight cents.

The stamp in question is the one above which pictures a  rather unimposing Ukrainian soldier gesturing defiantly and irreverently at the Russian warship in the Black Sea.  The soldier was one of thirteen soldiers defending Snake Island that guarded the approaches to Odesa harbour.

This stamp became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the invasion and along with pictures of ordinary citizens making molatov cocktail bombs in preparation for Russian tanks rolling through the city’s streets.  This fortunately didn’t happen but still this war has ground on now for four years with Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself increasing with each day and the rest of Europe slowly realising that support to Ukraine is an imperative for their own security rather than an option if they feel like it.

Much that is written about the war in Ukraine has a sense of inevitable Russian dominance over Ukraine but not a book by Serhii Plokhy titled The Russo-Ukrainian War.

Serhii Plokhy’s New Book

Serhii Plokhy is an Ukrainian-American and professor of history at Harvard University.  He is an authority on the Cold War and nuclear history.  He wrote Yalta, a history of how the three leaders of the Allies – Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill –  redefined Europe after World War II.  In this current book, which he wrote in Vienna during the first year of the present war, he describes the next redrawing of the map of Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1997- 2001.  Much more than this, Plokhy describes why and how Ukraine has managed to resist a new chapter of Russian dominance over the country.

This book is many things but whilst it covers the major military events of that first year it is not a military history.  Plokhy outlines the long relationship between the Russians and the Ukrainians that goes back to the tenth century on the vast plains of Europian Russia and to what he calls “the myth of origins” that is Kyivan Rus.  Russia’s evolution into empire and its domination of the Ukrainian lands is at the core of Putin’s claim of sovereignty over Ukraine.  As Plokhy sees it, the struggle between empire and nation has carried through to Soviet times and to the end of that era.

Plokhy takes us through the Soviet transition from Communist empire to the Russian democratic nation and back to the autocracy and the aspiration of empire.  He details Ukraine’s denuclearisation and the promised yet broken guarantees of security that came with it.  From here we move to the rise of Putin, his aspiration for Eurasian Union, the Maidan revolution and Ukraine’s turning towards the West.

Then comes Putin’s response – the occupation of Crimea and the sponsoring of separatist uprising in the Donbas.  Ukraine has suffered many examples of Russian treachery and bastardry but perhaps the biggest deception came with its agreement to denuclearise.  Then followed the two Minsk agreements and cease fires to the Donbas insurrection.  These are all agreements Russia broke with its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Plokhy presents the complexity of this war with great clarity.  He presents it as a tale of two paths – one towards democracy and one towards autocracy.  The aspiration in one case is nationalism and the other case it is empire.  There are the ‘events’ such as the Chechen war and Putin’s cementing of his position as leader the Orange Revolution’s impact on both the Ukrainian people and on Putin, the advance of NATO to the east and the advance of Russia into Crimea and the Donbas.  It is a complex matrix but Plokhy clarifies it to a point that the Russian invasion of 2022 is a logical extension of what Putin has been telling the West for decades.

There are few surprises – it is all explained within a context of yet another struggle between a declining empire and a vassal state that has had enough of overlordship.  One of the most interesting things Plokhy highlights is how the war has unified what was a quite divided Ukraine that became both determined to and effective in resisting Russian hegemony.

Putin’s Dream of Empire

Putin’s “Eurasian” empire aspiration is a core of his actions.  It is an ideology and delusional as Lebensaum was to another demagogue some eighty five years earlier.

Whilst the core of the book is as dispassionate an account as you would expect from such a highly credentialed historian, Plokhy reveals his emotional and highly personal attachments in both the Preface and the Afterward.  This war is very personal for him and his family.

Whilst the Western media has been critical of Europe’s tardiness in coming to the aid of Ukraine, Plokhy presents the reality of Europe’s energy dependence on Russia as a substantive reason for this tardiness.  However it is clear that with every day European resolve to resist the Russian threat grows.

Plokhy refers to the role of important ‘bystanders’ to the conflict – China, India and Turkey.  All have had an important geo-political role to play and whilst the Western media is reserved about their role Plokhy isn’t so much; he sees plenty of positivity in what each of these countries are doing.  It is possible that he misjudges China as it is the primary lifeline for Russia. However, it is also clear that China has reservations about Russian irrationality.

The book ends in February 2023.  The dramatic shift in approach taken by the United States since the second Trump presidency began is therefore not discussed.  This is a very confusing world particularly in interpreting what Trump is doing and purporting to do.

The war is now over four years long.  Peace talks are underway but there is no indication that Russia is willing to cease hostilities and sign a peace accord that gives Ukraine any security guarantee.  The toll in terms of human life, physical destruction and economic damage has been enormous and seemingly without end.

The book covers an outstanding level of detail of events, of key personalities, of political initiatives, of national perspectives and of policy shifts. The war itself is set within the context of a changing set of world alliances that have evolved since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.  The final chapter – Afterword, The New World Order highlights a number of significant geopolitical shifts.  The post 1989 unipolar world dominated by a single great power, the United States, has, with the rapid rise of China, reverted back to a bipolar world where China has replaced Russia.  This is not what Russia has sought.  It seeks a kind of old fashioned multi-polar world where several world powers have their own ‘spheres of influence’.

Plokhy says of this Russo-Ukrainian War that:

“The latest conflict in a long history of wars of national liberation, which can be traced back to the American Revolution.  It also belongs to the long list of wars that accompanied the decline and disintegration of world empires from the Spanish to the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian, and then from the British and French to the Dutch, Belgian, and Portuguese.”

 His optimism, if it can be called that, is in the sentence that follows the above:

“We know how those wars ended – with the political sovereignty of former colonies and dependencies and the concomitant devolution of former empires into post-imperial nation-states.”

 Plokhy’s positioning of this as a war of independence has made me realise that this is but the current phase of a centuries old struggle for Ukrainian independence.  The breakup of the Soviet Union and the associated creation of Ukraine as an independent state was essentially a false dawn for Ukrainian independence from Russia.  This present phase of that conflict may be the final stage but there is no guarantee of that.

Whilst the media tends to portray the current grinding advances of the Russian army as ending in an inevitable victory for Putin’s Russia, this is unlikely.  The burden of this war on Russian society is growing.  Plokhy suggests that the sacrifices Ukraine is making now are leading to better place:

“There are clear indications that the Ukrainian nation will emerge from this war more united and certain of its identity than at any other point in its modern history.”

No doubt recovery from the destruction of this war will be long but Ukrainians are motivated to make the most of the support others, especially that the Europeans are giving them.  What about Russia?  The damage that is being done to it is enormous.  The loss and permanent injury to over one million men, the destruction to infrastructure, military capacity and the energy industry is a very high price that will take decades to recover from.

This is particularly so because now Russia has few friends and those it has will seek to exploit its weaknesses. There is also the question of an absolute lack of moral rectitude.  Russians at some stage have to come to terms with what they have done to their neighbour, to their Eastern Slav brothers and sisters.  This cannot be ignored forever.

Plokhy sees for Russia that the cost of this war is in terms of both the loss of soul or identity and the more obvious material loss:

“Moreover, Ukraine’s successful resistance to Russian aggression is destined to promote Russia’s own nation building project.  Russia and its elites now have little choice but to reimagine their country’s identity by parting ways not only with the imperialism of the tsarist past but also with the anachronistic model of a Russian nation consisting of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.  By paying an enormous price in wealth and the blood of its citizens, Ukraine is terminating the era of Russian dominance in a good part of eastern Europe and challenging Moscow’s claim to primacy in the rest of post-Soviet space.”

 Of course this war is not yet over.  It may take decades for Ukraine to be fully free of the threat of Russian domination.  This threat will remain until Russia chooses to abandon its imperial rejuvenation ambitions.

In invading Ukraine, Russia has irreversibly damaged relations with Europe.  Even three years ago, Plokhy saw an irreversible shift:

“The war has erected a political and economic Great Wall between Europe and Russia that will grow even taller as the United States and the European Union continue to divest Europe of Russian oil and gas.”

 At the time this book was written it seemed that the United States and Europe were coming closer together but Trump has changed this perhaps permanently although this is uncertain.  What is clearer is that Europe is becoming more resolute in pushing back against a Russia that is seeking to push the line between Europe and Russia back towards the Iron Curtain of the Cold War.  Like much of the Putin plan, this is more and more pure fantasy.

Plokhy sees this war as a struggle for independence of a small but determined and unified nation against a morally corrupt and declining empire.  Historically this type of struggle is overwhelmingly in one direction – in favour of the nation state and against the empire.

So, is Putin, and Russia with him, hoisted on their own petard?  It seems likely but not before even greater suffering by ordinary Ukrainians and Russians.

Trump sees Putin as a role model, not an enemy

The strange affection of Trump for Putin is quixotic and against the natural flow of United States foreign policy.  Over the long term, it is hard to see that this will yield anything of value for either the United States or Russia. However it does feed a view that both countries are seeking their own spheres of influences and a return to the power balances of the late nineteenth century. If Trump had a skerrick of consistency we might be clearer on this but alas he does not. My best guess is that the United States, after this indigestible period of Trumpian populism, will return to a more predictable geopolitical path.

Right now, the world seems a gloomy place but this book gives a sense of hope that the forces of autocracy and demagoguery are nowhere near as strong as is often projected in the daily press.  We of the liberal left and the educated elites often fail to recognise the good features of nationalism, particularly its strength in repelling oppression.  It is something we are uncomfortable with.  We find it slightly distasteful, perhaps bordering on fascist.  We live and like the more fashionable internationalism.

When we look at the inconsequential presence of the lone soldier on Snake Island we are misled.  The truth of his story is that his gesture of defiance meant little at the time. He was captured by the Russian navy as was Snake Island leaving Odesa imperiled.  However, sometime later, he was part of a prisoner swap and returned to Ukraine.  Furthermore Snake Island was recaptured by the Ukrainians, Odesa remains free and the Russian fleet shelters somewhat precariously in a naval base in the far east of the Black Sea.

All the while many Ukrainians are treasuring their eight cent stamp of a scrawny soldier with his right index finger held high and his Kalishnikov in his left hand.