First Draft: Russia, Ukraine, and Rumors of War
Whatās happening with Russia and Crimea?
Short answer: Putin wants everyone scared enough to do whatever he asks.
The long answer comes in 5 parts:
Germany & the United States
A few cultural traits or principles have remained true in Russia for centuries, regardless of changes to its form of government:
They believe they are the rightful heirs of Ancient Rome. Rome conquered the Mediterranean by finding paranoid reasons to believe that neighboring countries were about to attack, and then preemptively but defensively attacked them first, thereby conquering the world defensively.
Russia believes it is their moral obligation to protect ethnically Russian populations anywhere in the world, and especailly in neighboring countries. (This is often their reason for their preemptive defensive wars.)
They donāt trust a united Europe, like the EU and NATO represent today. They genuinely think a united Europe will inevitably invade them and fight deep into Russian territory before eventually being destroyed by Russian winters. Like how Napoleon did after the French Revolution, and like the Austro-German Alliance did in World War 1, and like Hitler did in World War 2. The USA even invaded Russia during its Bolshevik Revolution. Nuclear weapons and the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction are probably why that pattern stopped since then, but Russia hasnāt forgiven or forgotten.
In addition to that, there are some current, modern factors that affect how its national character expresses itself.
Russia still has about 45% of the worldās supply of nuclear weapons (4,000 or so), and theyāre old and in bad repair. It would be almost convenient to use some of them, but it might expose that most of them donāt work anymore and in their view thatād be tantamount to suicide to expose that weakness. They almost certainly wonāt use their nukes, but 99% certainty isnāt comforting.
Russiaās economy is heavily dependent on the export of fuels and energy products these days (63% of total exports, with crude oil and natural gas accounting for 43 of those percentage points).
Putinās political agenda has two points: 1) to restore Russian power, and 2) to convince the Russian people that all democracies are pretty authoritarian and corrupt, so they shouldnāt bother to complain about Russiaās corrupt authoritarianism.
Crimea is a peninsula sticking south out of Ukraine into the Black Sea the way Florida sticks south into the Caribbean.
Russia (under the Tsar) first conquered the Crimean Khanate in 1783, ran it as a Russian province for centuries, then (as the Soviet Union) added it to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921. Ukraine declared independence in 1991, taking advantage of Soviet weakness during an attempted coup d'etat in Moscow. When Ukraine elected corrupt oligarch billionaire and pro-NATO President Petro Poroshenko, replacing corrupt pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, Putin took decisive action to keep Ukraine out of NATO and the EU. He declared Poroshenkoās government to be a modern Nazi party, a theory based on delusions and string, and sent Russian troops disguised as pro-Russian locals to hold a popular referendum on whether Crimeans wanted to join Russia or get shot where they stood. 96.77% of respondents voted to join Russia (local community activists put the real number at about 20%), and the international community labeled the entire Crimea adventure āthe Russian annexation of Crimea.ā Russia disputes this characterization the way Trump denies the 2020 US election results.
Torture and other human rights abuses of hundreds have characterized the Russian occupation of Crimea, but most Crimeans keep their head down and Russia treats that compliant set like citizens with rights. Selective application of human rights is one of the hallmarks of tyranny.
Russia also invaded eastern Ukraine, justifying themselves with the argument that the far east was mostly Russian, mostly pro-Moscow, and the imaginary Nazis just elected would otherwise have killed them off. Poroshenko, bloated plutocrat that he was, still managed to arrange an impressively effective resistance to Russian aggression in the east, but that took all his forces. All he could do about Crimea was dam up the North Crimean Canal that supplies Crimea most of their drinking water. Crimeaās agriculture was destroyed, and the population is chronically short of drinking water. Russia spent a ton of money trying to build wells and things, but itās not really working.
Putin has to get Ukraine to open up that canal.
Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, similar to how the Great Plains states feed America. Ukraine and Russia have been parts of the same country a lot in recent centuries, and citizens of both countries tend to have a lot of family in the other and a lot of mutual loyalty. War between them is a war between brothers.
In the mid-1600s, a war against Poland was going poorly, so Ukraine called in Russian help. They ended up split between Poland and Russia, with the exact border bouncing around for a few centuries but favoring Russia. They also oscillated between relative independence and heavy-handed rule by Russia. Ukrainians fought on both sides of World War 1, but about 14 times as many on the Russian side. Ukraine was one of the founding members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1921, and the centralized management of agriculture quickly led to widespread crop failures in Ukraine and tens of millions of people starving to death across the Soviet Union. In 2010, the Ukrainian Parliament declared this mass starvation to be a genocide, but scholars are divided on whether thatās technically true.
When World War 2 came around, Russiaās alliance with the Nazis included uniting the Polish part of Ukraine with the Russian part for the first time. But when the Nazis (predictably) betrayed their alliance with the Russians, much of the fighting took place in Ukraine, including the famous resistance of the Battle of Kyiv (or Kiev). Caught between two dictatorships, about 6 million Ukrainians died, about 40% of the USSRās total causalities. After the war, the Soviet Union invested heavily into Ukraine, and it quickly developed into a major European industrial center, and many leading Soviet citizens came from Ukraine.
Ukraine developed a major energy and energy transportation sector, made infamous by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, killing 56 people directly and an estimated 4,000 due to increased cancer rates. Mostly safe today, the site has become somewhat of a tourist attraction.
A unity and independence movement arose in 1990, and when an attempted coup distracted Moscow in 1991, Ukraine declared its independence. Ukraine voluntarily gave up their nuclear arsenal, the 3rd largest in the world, and ceased to be a nuclear power in exchange for security assurances. The collapse of the Soviet Union hit all of the component republics with a severe economic disaster as the economy adjusted from centralization to something more like crony capitalism, with Ukraine hit with a deeper economic depression than most. After a particularly corrupt election in 2004, the people arose in the peaceful Orange Revolution seeking freer elections and spreading the economic benefits of the energy industry away from the oligarchs and toward social safety nets and infrastructure projects. When President Viktor Yanukovych reversed national policy, pushing away from Europe and toward Russia, another wave of anti-corruption and anti-Yanukovych protests known as Euromaidan broke out. Yanukovych reacted by banning protests, and the protesters reacted to that by getting violent; 86 died, 100 went missing, and an estimated 15,000 were injured. Yanukovych signed a compromise that included freer elections, and the elections chose pro-NATO President Petro Poroshenko.
Putin accused this populist movement of being as bad as Nazis, and used the imaginary danger to ethnic Russians as an excuse to invade eastern Ukraine and annex Crimea. (Protests gone violent seeking democracy and justice portrayed as rising tyrannyā¦ why does that rhetoric sound familiar? Oh, because thatās exactly the same rhetoric in the USA about 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Itās almost as if the same sources are telling the same lies in Ukraine and the USA, almost as if Russia is using the same lies in both countries to deepen national disunion.)
Before and after Putinās 2014-6 campaign of hostility in Ukraine, pipelines through Ukraine continued to deliver Russian natural gas to German customers for a transport fee. This was a huge economic benefit to Ukraine, and Russia hoped to evade those charges. To that end, they built the Nord Stream 1 pipeline through the Baltic Sea to Germany (now open) and the Nord Stream 2 to Germanyās border (Germany refuses to allow the construction to continue onto their soil, because it gives Russia too much money and power). Natural gas transport through Ukraine has dropped to about a quarter of what it once was, dousing the Ukrainian economy. This pressures Germany to buy Russian natural gas through the Nord Stream pipelines, where more of the money goes to Russia, rather than through Ukraine, where Ukraine gets transportation fees.
In the Ukrainian election of 2019, Poroshenko was beaten by Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his populist, pro-NATO, anti-corruption platform with over 73% of the vote. Zelenskyy represents a move from oligarch-headed crony capitalism towards genuine representative democracy. Though he is praised for his handling of Russian and American meddling in his country (remember Trumpās phone call to him?) and for his handling of the COVID pandmeic, his critics generally complain about his not doing enough to shed Ukraineās authoritarian past.
Russia wants to avoid having to pay Ukraineās transport fees when it sells natural gas to Germany, so that Ukraineās economy and international sanctions against Russia will be weakened.
GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES
Germanyās entire political system and governing philosophy is based on never again resembling Nazi Germany to even the least degree.
Germany wants to move to 100% renewable sources of electricity, but about a third of their energy comes from natural gas and about 16% from nuclear. Theyāre trying to cut their dependence on these thermal energy sources, while investing tremendously in solar and wind energy. In the meantime, though, theyāre importing a lot of natural gas from all over. About 10% of their total energy consumption is Russian natural gas specifically. Thereās far more capacity for Russian natural gas to be imported through Ukraine, but with war and rumor of war blocking the use of Ukraineās pipelines, Germany is actually getting more Russian natural gas through Nord Stream 1 now than through Ukraine.
Then-Prime Minister Angela Merkel encouraged the importation of more Russian natural gas through Nord Stream 1 and 2 as recently as summer of 2021. But her center-right coalition was voted out of office and replaced her with Olaf Scholz of the most left-wing party in the left-wing coalition that formed Germanyās new government. He opposes Nord Stream 2, fossil fuels generally, Russiaās escalation of tensions in particular, and anything that smacks of war most of all.
Since the fall of the Nazi Party, Germany never wavers on its anti-war stance. To that end, theyāve refused any hint of willingness to defend Ukraine if Russia attacks and even refuses to let other nations use German-made military equipment to defend Ukraine. The have dragged their feet about Ukraineās aspirations to join NATO and the EU, in hopes of preventing tensions from escalating by preventing Ukraine form joining. But tensions have escalated anyway. Germany is disgusted with Russiaās tactics of disinformation and provocation, and has declared intention to stop importing Russian natural gas entirely if they invade Ukraine. This would mean paying a LOT more money to keep Germans warm this winter, but most Germans across the ideological spectrum consider that a small price to pay to prevent war.
Then thereās the United States. The United States led NATO in laying the sanctions smackdown on Russia in the aftermath of the 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. Neoconservative Republicans wanted Obama to take a stronger stand against Russia, perhaps with some bombings or military assistance to Ukraine, but paleoconservatives wanted to stay out of any foreign conflict. When Obama did take a strong stance against Russia, the paleoconservative position became the partyās dominant position. Donald Trump took special glee in his 2016 campaign calling Obama a warmonger and making excuses for Putinās Russia.
After the Trump Campaignās cooperation with Russians who hacked the 2020 election fell technically short of the US criminal law definition of conspiracy, Trump was adaptable ā some would say erratic ā about US foreign policy towards Russia. He would strengthen and weaken sanctions without obvious pattern, met with Putin at times openly and other times in secret, and when Congress passed a new sanctions bill against Russia (and other countries) Trump simply refused to enforce the Russian sanctions.
The Trump Administration also dragged their feet in defending the interest of any countries that sought American help against Russia, including Ukraine. The most famous example of this is Trumpās call to the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in which he ostensibly demanded a political assassination of Joe Biden in exchange for actually giving Ukraine the military aid that Congress had already voted to give them. This was bribery (specifically, soliciation of a bribe) under US criminal law and the US Constitutional description of what crimes justify conviction on impeachment of a President. But, in a rejection of rule of law, most Senate Republicans ignored the evidence and worked directly with Trumpās defense lawyers in order to thwart the impeachment trial. Trump was impeached by the House, but escaped conviction in the Senate, for his role in undermining Ukraineās defense against Russian meddling for his own personal benefit.
Trump and German PM Angela Merkel found a rare point of common ground in their mutual support for Nord Stream 2. But when they both lost elections in 2020, the dream of Russia circumventing Ukraine to sell natural gas directly to Germany died. In April 2020, in response to the economic impacts of the COVID pandemic, Trump brokered an international agreement with 20 countries including OPEC, Russia, and Mexico to cut global oil production by 9.7 million barrels/day (3.1 million B/D of it in the USA) and slowly reintroduce oil production back into the economy; half by 2022, and the other half to be negotiated based on circumstances in 2022. This deal or one substancially like it was absolutely necessary to prevent adding an global oil crisis to the already tumultous first pandemic year, but as a side effect ensured US and global oil and gasoline prices would stay high for years after lockdowns ended and oil demand returned. Russia heavily favored cutting oil production, since the oil company profits enabled Russia to improve their economy without despite the economic sanctions they operated under, and Trump did nothing to oppose Moscowās call for as large a cut as possible.
Summarizing all this, Putin has at least 4 good motives, solidly based on Russiaās national interest, to heighten tensions with Ukraine. And history demonstrates that he will lie, cheat, steal, and commit acts of war in order to achieve his ends.
The very existence of tensions between Ukraine and Russia has increased profit margins on Russian oil and natural gas exports, helping Russiaās economy and helping them circumvent international economic sanctions.
Putin can pressure Ukraine to release fresh water into Crimea, implying that they accept the validity of the annexation and making it easier for Russia to manage Crimea.
He can pressure Germany to accept natural gas through Nord Stream 2, either by physically destroying the Ukrainian alternative pipeline or as a German concession in negotiations to prevent war. This would hurt Ukraineās economy, benefit Russiaās, and would make Russia even more impervious to international sanctions.
He can test the resolve of the USA, NATO, and the EU (collectively, āThe Westā), and take for Russia whatever they will allow Russia to take. This fulfills his political promise to restore traditional Russian power on the global stage by traditional Russian means.
More speculatively, he might be able to annex more of Ukraine. Traditionally, Russia doesnāt feel complete as a nation without Kiyv and Moscow residing within the same national borders. Think of it as Russiaās equivalent to the Manifest Destiny cultural myth.
Interestingly, he can accomplish all of these goals (except annexing Ukraine) without war. All he has to do is bring the West to the negotiating table and get them to concede these points. But, if negotiations fail, he can go to war to try to take these concessions by force. This puts him in a strong negotiating position. Russian people generally think that Putin would never be crazy enough to fight their family in Ukraine, but is just trying to bluff the West into greater concessions. Theyāre probably right about that. That doesnāt imply that it will fail.
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