Special Edition: The Russo-Ukraine Conflict 4 Years On

Ukraine and Russia

Which brings us to Ukraine. In 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved, the Russian position regressed to a place worse than it had been on the eve of Operation Barbarossa. Not only did the Warsaw Pact collapse, but the non-Russian Soviet Republics were, one by one, gleefully declaring their independence, including the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. The ties that connected Russians and Ukrainians ran deep. They were descended from the same Slavic peoples, the Kievan-Rus, whose Kingdom capital was Kiev. Their languages were closely related. They were mostly Russian Orthodox. The name, Ukraine, literally means borderland in both languages. Ukraine may have declared independence – 92% voted yes in the referendum, including a narrow Crimean majority - but it was still firmly in the Russian sphere of influence.

Therefore, the possibility of a Ukraine with NATO membership was unacceptable to the Russians for obvious cultural, historical and security reasons. Ukraine in NATO meant not just a potential American military presence right on Russia’s border, but a European one as well. Allowing them to influence, to limit the scope of Russian actions, to even attack Russia, enact regime change. Look at the Yugoslav Wars; did not NATO involve themselves, on a poorly understood pretext, in a conflict whose major belligerents were not even NATO members? Serbia reduced to a rump. Russian influence diminished. From the Russian perspective NATO is not a defensive alliance, but an aggressive tool of American and European ambition. As Ukraine practically begged to join NATO, even amending its constitution in 2019 to explicitly declare membership a national goal, the Americans and Europeans prevaricated, afraid of provoking the Russians without appearing weak. In the end, Ukraine was left in the worst possible position, Russia provoked without NATO protection.

In many ways, the current conflict is a product of western short-sightedness and arrogance. Like it or not Russia is the world’s largest country by size, with a well-trained and highly experienced army and enough nuclear weapons to make life on earth redundant. Its perspective matters and must be, if not respected, then at least understood.

A Polish Perspective

However, there are very different perspectives on this conflict from the one just presented. There are the American and European perspectives (though hardly uniform), but if we are arguing that there is more to this conflict than great power rivalry, we should zoom our focus deeper and consider, for e.g. the Polish perspective and in doing so return to the first half of the 20th century and the two German invasions of Russia. When one thinks of a nation invading another it is fair to assume that the invasion begins in their country, Germany, and lands in the country being invaded, Russia. Not exactly. Many of the operations of the First World War were conducted on territory that had been occupied and annexed by neighbouring great powers. None more so than Poland. In 1914, over the previous 150 years, Russia, along with Prussia (later Germany) and Austria had engaged in three separate partitions of Poland, eliminating a Commonwealth that had once been the largest by land size in Europe. With the collapse of all three empires from 1917 onwards Poland reemerged as an independent state in 1918. It was almost reoccupied in 1920 by a Soviet invasion but, in one of modern history’s more underrated events, Polish forces defeated the Russians at the Battle of Warsaw and forced them to retreat. Yet in 1941 when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union some of the first locations they attacked were in Poland. Had they not already invaded and conquered Poland two years earlier? Not quite. 16 days after the German invasion of Poland the Soviet Union followed suit. The two powers agreed to a non-aggression pact which divided Eastern Europe into two spheres of influence with Poland, once again, to be partitioned. The Nazis were, to put it mildly, lying through their teeth. If this was a nightmare for the Russians, imagine what it must have been for the Poles. By 1945 approximately one-fifth of the country’s pre-war population was dead, many of them Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Celebrate the end of the war, as they surely did, it would soon have become very clear that one tyranny, German Fascism, had simply been replaced by another, Russian Communism. For the next 45 years though ostensibly independent Poland was a mere vassal of the Russians – do as we say or else; a harsh lesson the governments of Hungary and Czechoslovakia were taught in 1956 and ‘68 respectively. This tyranny was not merely Communist, but also Russian. The latter component very important to the Soviet Union’s conceptualisation of itself. As Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz vividly captured in his non-fiction classic the Captive Mind, the Russian language became a tool of Russian domination, Moscow the centre of intellectual life.

The End of History?

This tyranny would eventually extinguish with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of Russian troops by 1993. With Russia weak and chastened by the loss of its empire how should the newly independent Poland act? Does it accept, as some argued, that with the victory of the United States in the Cold War the end of history had arrived? The future was said to be liberal democracy and globalised free markets. Russia, it was hoped, had seen the light, learnt its lesson and would become a good global citizen, respecting its neighbours and developing democratic institutions. The Polish, suffice to say, did not fall for this wonderfully wishful narrative. They believed the Russians would be back, that the confluence of historical anomalies which allowed the collapse of Russian power in Eastern Europe would not sustain. Russia would rebuild, rearm and once again pose a threat to its neighbours. If Poland was at any time tempted to believe the ‘end of history’ thesis, Russian actions in the early 90s disabused them quickly. Russia got involved in Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan and most violently in Chechnya. It was clear that Russia was not likely to just accept the collapse of its empire; when it could fight, it would. After two centuries of near continued occupation, Poland had no choice but to ensure its security.

This is where NATO comes into view. Right next door in Germany, reunification effectively meant an annexation of East Germany by West Germany. Overnight what was once a Warsaw Pact country was now a key part of NATO. Poland wanted that for itself. Here was an alliance which provided a theoretical guarantee of assistance in the case of an attack by a hostile power, underpinned by the United States, a great power thousands of kilometres away – all the better. For the Polish this was a no-brainer and they immediately went about trying to make it happen, brashly, confidentially. A former-Polish president travelled to the US during the ‘96 election hoping to influence the result in Poland’s favour. It’s even been claimed that Polish official(s) threatened to develop their own nuclear weapons if they were not admitted to NATO. The Americans, hesitant, eventually agreed and in 1999 Poland, Hungary and Czechia were all admitted. The core reason being the Eastern European fear of Russian aggression. From the perspective of Poland NATO is a defensive alliance that guarantees their protection from Russian revanchism. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not the natural reaction to reckless NATO expansionism, but a vindication of Poland’s position on Russian motives and decision to join the alliance.

Great power rivalries are very real and potent. 35 years since the end of the Cold War, the USA and Russia remain competing adversaries across different theatres. However, the removal of one of these great powers from the equation is by no means a guarantee of peace. Russia’s security concerns don’t disappear if America pulls out of NATO, ditto Poland. History did not begin in 1945 and conclude in 1991. Local issues, older, more complex, have a way of becoming international crises and world wars. That’s the thing about history, it has a way of pervading a complexity we choose not to give it; binaries are easier to understand and deal with, but they are by no means accurate.

This special edition was written by our guest writer and community member, Raymond Nassif Sources News/Journal sources available upon request, not shown to maintain visual integrity of page.