'Make Russia great again': why Putin is a man on a mission

The latest military build-up of Kremlin forces near Ukraine's border is part of Putin's plan to restore historical Russia, writes Oleg Chupryna, PhD scholar in the Department of Sociology

Amid the ongoing fears about possible Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it makes sense to look at this situation from different perspectives to understand the current crisis better. The recent military build-up of the Russian forces near Ukraine's border brought into the spotlight by the international media to many came up as a shock.
 
However, there is not much of a surprise for the Ukrainian people and those who closely follow Russia's international politics. Firstly, Russia is not 'about to start a war' with Ukraine – they are already at war since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Russia's encroachment in Eastern Ukraine. Since then, in this so-called 'low-intensity conflict' 14, 000 Ukrainians were killed; the country lost 7 per cent of its territory and a fifth of its industrial base. The endless talks within Normandy and Minsk formats did not deliver any solution. Russia is unwilling to compromise, and there is a solid reason for that. And the reason is not that, as Russian officials have repeatedly publicly stated, 'NATO's eastward expansion threatens Russia's security'.
 
The real reason is that the Kremlin has the grand plan and is determined to deliver. At least since Vladimir Putin's infamous speech in 2007 in Munich, where the Russian president stated that the collapse of the USSR 'was the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century'. He openly declared his revanchist intentions to overcome it and practically restore the empire in one form or another. Since then, president Putin does not make a secret of his geopolitical views which he clearly expressed on numerous occasions.
 
One of the most recent was Vladimir Putin's seven thousand words essay in which he virtually denies Ukrainian people their national identity. For him, independent Ukraine is historical nonsense, which the West artificially created to weaken and divide historical Russia. Apparently, he is a man with a mission to restore that historical Russia and bring together a divided Russian people, parts of which he believes are Ukrainians and Belarusians.
 
In recent years, Russia's officials and public figures often openly declare territorial claims on the national TV on former parts of the Soviet Union, like Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Baltic states, or even former subjects of the tsarist Russian Empire Poland or Finland. For example, the Deputy Head of Russia's State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, often calls for invading Europe or bombing America. To some extent, those calls are likely just a part of state propaganda aimed at a domestic audience intended to brainwash the public into believing that Putin will make Russia great again.
 
Nevertheless, Russia's actions speak even louder than the words of their political leaders. Since the early 1990s, Russia has acted towards restoring control over former Soviet space, either openly or through its proxies. It openly invaded Georgia in 2008, annexed Crimea in 2014, controls parts of Moldova (Transnistria), Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), Ukraine (Donbass). Kremlin supports the most notorious dictators like Syria's Bashar Assad, Belarusian Alexander Lukashenko and alike.
 
Within Russia, Putin's regime mercilessly murders its critics or political opponents like Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov and many others. Recently the opposition leader Alexey Navalny just marginally escaped death by poisoning by the infamous Novichok. Abroad Putin is as ruthless as at home. The murder of Alexander Litvinenko, an attempt to poison the Skripals father and daughter in the UK, an attempt to kill Montenegro's prime minister Milo Djukanovic are just some of the most publicised examples. Kremlin is aware of the collective West's economic and military superiority over Russia; thus, it has been waging an indirect hybrid war against it. Kremlin spends hundreds of millions of euros annually on its anti-Western propaganda within the country and abroad, trying to undermine the viability of the liberal democracy.
 
Putin's regime corrupts western politicians, like former German chancellor Gerhard Schröderr, and gives financial support to radical parties and groups like French National Front or Italian Five Stars. It regularly interferes in elections in Europe and the US, and it meddled in the Brexit referendum and illegal Catalan 'referendum'. Russian military aircraft provocations into NATO member states' air space have become common.
 
Even neutral countries, like Sweden, Finland or Ireland, do not feel safe anymore. Not that long ago, Russians meddled with the subsea cables in Irish waters. Their strategic bomber provocatively entered Irish sovereign air space. In the coming weeks, Russia's warships will be using waters in the Irish exclusive economic zone for a military exercise. All those tactics have been used to weaken the stability and unity of the Western democracies and threaten their people. Following an old Soviet tradition, today's Russia also pursues imperialistic interests in the developing world, from Mali and Mozambique in Africa to Venezuela in Latin America.  
 
Putin continues his hybrid aggression against the West for internal reasons too. The worsening economic situation for ordinary Russians has led to a decline in his popularity. After Russia had annexed Crimea, his approval amongst Russians, perceiving Putin as a strong and resolute leader, skyrocketed to an impressive 86 per cent. Abandoning imperialist politics for him would mean the further loss of popular support and the loss of power as a result.
 
While Kremlin continues its military build-up near Ukraine's borders, it has put forward its  'propositions' to the West, which look more like an ultimatum. In short, their demands actually mean that Russia wants to return to the world as it was 25 years ago. The world, divided into the spheres of influence between Russia and the USA in which the former would dominate the ex-Soviet space and Eastern Europe disregarding the interests and wishes of the peoples of those countries. If the West did not accept those demands, Russia alludes that it would use force to achieve its goals.
 
How much of a bluff is in those demands, it's impossible to say. Still, the lack of decisiveness and unity on the part of the collective West in the past may have allowed Russia's leadership to believe that the game is worth the candle. What is certain is that Vladimir Putin is a skilled and pragmatic politician. It is unlikely he would gamble with luck if he were not confident in the success.
 
So far, the West rejected those impudent and unrealistic demands, and demonstrated support of Ukraine. It threatened Kremlin to use severe economic sanctions against Russia if it stars a full-scale military offensive against Ukraine. In the meantime, the US, Britain, Estonia, and some other Eastern European countries supplied Ukraine with various portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles like Javelin, NLAW, Stinger and alike. That was a serious signal to Kremlin, but likely it would not be enough. Those weapons are a substantial addition to the ability of Ukraine's armed forces to detain or even stop the Russian tanks accumulated now at the country's border.
 
But that may be not enough to convince Putin, and supplying more, different modern weapons to Ukraine would be more convincing. Ukraine is currently vulnerable against Russia's medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles Iskander which Russia now is redeploying closer to Ukraine's borders. Supplying Ukraine with highly effective American interceptor antimissile systems like Patriot, for example, would sort out this vulnerability in Ukraine's defence. That alone most likely would deter Kremlin from using full-scale invasion in Ukraine. Still, supply and training of the Ukrainian military to use the systems would require several months.
 
In the short term, however, in my view, the only practical solution would be for the US to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine in case of Russia’s invasion. Once again, the West should make it unambiguously clear to the Kremlin that Russia will suffer from international isolation and destructive economic sanctions if it attempts to take military action. I am convinced that all those measures will not stop Putin's hybrid war against the West and its allies but could deter him from a full-scale military offensive and eventually the major war in Europe.

This piece originally appeared on RTÉ Brainstorm https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2022/0201/1277091-ukraine-crisis-russia-putin-united-states-nato-history-ussr/

(Front photo: Gabriel Lenca on Unsplash)