Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t just another land grab. It’s an attempt to recolonize lost empire, and threatens to return us to the age of conquest. |
Putin is trying to restore the decrepit Soviet empire of his youth. He doesn’t care how many Ukrainians or Russians have to die for his delusional fantasy.
In the article (archived) at the Journal of Democracy, Renée de Nevers and Brian D. Taylor view the invasion, now almost 14 months old, as an attempt at recolonialization by Putin’s Russia.
[C]alls for Ukraine to cede territory in exchange for peace follow the maxim of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Given the size of Russia’s population and economy, not to mention its nuclear arsenal, the reasoning goes, Ukraine has no choice but to yield territory. It may be unfair, according to these international relations “realists,” but that’s just how the world works.
Yet this is not how the world today works. Russia’s aggression—a naked attempt to recolonize Ukraine—is a violation of the norm of territorial integrity and a throwback to the age of imperialism. It’s a jarring anomaly, and possibly unique, in the post–World War II era. Putin announced in September 2022 that Russia had annexed four more Ukrainian provinces—Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. As NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg pointed out at the time, this was “the largest attempted annexation of European territory by force since the Second World War.”
Stoltenberg is right. The Ukrainian territory that Russia has forcibly seized and declared Russian territory since 2014, including Crimea, encompasses more than 135,000 square kilometers—that is larger than Austria and Switzerland combined.
This is not a simple territorial dispute as Ron “Pudding Fingers” DeSantis called it. And border disputes are settled by arbitration, negotiations, and treaties like the Webster-Ashburton Treaty – not by one side starting a genocidal war against the other side. This is a blatant land grab whose basic aim is to eliminate Ukraine as a national entity. Putin wants Ukraine back as a Russian colony and most Ukrainians strongly oppose this.
The story of the Russia-Ukraine War is different. It is, in essence, a war of recolonization by the former imperial power. Further, and a critical and consequential feature of this case, Ukraine is a full-fledged member of the UN whose 1991 borders were explicitly affirmed by Russia on no fewer than four occasions before 2014: the Alma Ata Declaration (1991), the Budapest Memorandum (1994), the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Russia and Ukraine (1997), and the Treaty Between Russia and Ukraine on the State Border (2003). This last treaty was signed personally by Vladimir Putin. As recently as 2008, Putin said, “Russia has long recognized the borders of modern-day Ukraine,” and “Crimea is not a disputed territory.”
Russia’s invasion is in violation of numerous treaties. Yet, brainless tankies and pro-authoritarians in the West insist on immediate negotiations. Presumably such negotiations would result in a treaty which Russia would soon violate just like the ones it is violating now. We’ve seen this film before, in the 1930s.
The international community would set a terrible precedent if it pressured Ukraine to give up multiple provinces—lands on which Russian forces have committed genocidal acts, including taking thousands of Ukrainian children and sending them to Russia. The return to business-as-usual with Russia after the 2014 annexation of Crimea emboldened rather than deterred Putin’s larger territorial ambitions. Ukraine is right to insist that the norm of territorial integrity be upheld. We should not accept that forcible territorial conquest is legitimate in the twenty-first century. It is, in fact, extremely rare and viewed with opprobrium by most of the world’s states. After Putin declared Russia’s incorporation of the four Ukrainian provinces in September 2022, the UN General Assembly denounced the move by a vote of 143 to 5, with 35 abstentions.
Borders, of course, are made by humans and thus imperfect. But respect for existing borders is central to the UN-led international system of sovereign states. On the eve of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, the Kenyan ambassador to the UN, Martin Kimani, noted that after independence Africans chose to “settle for the borders that we inherited” rather than descend into decades of war, and that they “rejected irredentism and expansionism on any basis.”
Africa may have its share of problems. But one problem it does not have is countries going to war with each other over old colonial borders. Putin’s war of aggression is a regression to the archaic era of imperialist colonialism.
Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny recently made a similar point. He stated that Ukraine’s 1991 borders were recognized by Russia at the time and should be recognized by Russia now. “Nearly all the borders in the world are accidental and cause someone’s discontent,” he declared. “But we cannot fight to change them in the twenty-first century. Otherwise, the world will plunge into chaos.”
Kimani and Navalny are right. And the “realists” who want to pressure Ukraine to trade territory for peace are wrong to believe that doing so would work. If Ukraine capitulated, Putin would simply pocket his gains and seek to further subjugate the country in the future. Moreover, by backing such a “resolution” the West would become complicit in undermining the UN system of sovereign states and respect for territorial integrity. Finally, if a powerful state is simply allowed to change its mind about existing borders and treaties, invade and bomb its neighbors, and seize territory by force, what’s to stop others from doing so in the future? Do we really want to turn back the clock to the age of conquest?
In the short run, it’s always easier to do nothing or to let bullies have their way. But that inevitably leads to more and even worse problems. The 1938 Munich agreement tossed Czechoslovakia to Hitler and shut him up for a few short months, it also made World War II more likely the following year.
A victory for Ukraine would end Russia’s attempts to recolonize its former empire. There won’t be a secure peace in Europe until Russia learns how to act like a normal country.
