It has been clear since the beginning, since 2014. Russia did not want peace with Ukraine. It wanted Ukraine to be erased as an independent state. It wanted Ukraine to be Russia. It had tried before. From 1917-1921, Ukraine fought to be independent but was forced into the Soviet Union. 1932, the Holodomor was meant to starve Ukraine to death. These genocidal policies also extended into other areas in the Soviet Union, but that does not diminish the fact. The gruesome history between and Russia put Ukraine in a difficult spot when Nazi Germany, with its own designs on Ukraine, presented itself as a savior. Sadly, some Ukrainians thought that was a possibility for an opportunity to regain independence, but instead, many became complicit in Nazi crimes, and eventually, Ukraine suffered doubly – by being conquered by the Nazis, and retaken by the Soviets. This land, these Bloodlands, as Timothy Snyder calls them, have been at the center of armed conflicts since time immemorial even before Kyiv became the founding site of Russia, ironically.
Moscow has never forgiven that Kyiv has an older claim to Eastern Slavic culture. With a thriving Ukraine and Belarus, Muscovite Russia cannot play the imperial role it wants to play. As Zbigniew Brzezinsky has said, “It cannot be stressed strongly enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire” (Foreign Affairs, March 1, 1994).
Ukraine has tried to leave Russia. In 1991, it declared independence. It relinquished its Nuclear Weapons, and its security and territorial integrity was guaranteed by the Budapest Memorandum – signed by representatives from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Russia still wanted to exert control, so Ukraine had to fight for independence again a second time from November 2004-January 2005 in the Orange Revolution against the corrupt pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich. Sadly, the coalition between Timoshenka and Yushchenko (who had been poisoned by Russia) eventually failed, and Russia managed to bring Yanukovich back. His eventual refusal to support Ukraine’s European path led to the Revolution of Dignity, the third post-soviet revolution against Russian domination. Ukraine has wanted to be free before the Soviet Union, and after. It has tried several times. This is a desire innate to Ukraine. Russia has rejected this wish for independence.
This is what this is about. It is not about territory in Ukraine that Russia wants. It is Ukraine that Russia wants, and a Ukraine that is ethnically cleansed to not be Ukrainian anymore but Russian. Stalin has already done work on that premise, following Peter I. and Catherine II, with the deliberate settling of Russians in the area, and Putin has continued on the path of Russification.
And, not incidentally, Ukraine is rich in resources that are much easier to harvest than those in Siberia. Having grown up in the Soviet school system in East Germany, which followed the mandates of historical materialism, I can say with confidence that everyone brainwashed or educated by the Soviets knows how central Ukrainian resources were to the Soviet Union, and now to Russia. Coal, Steal, Oil, Gas, black fertile Earth, sea access, perfect trading position.
We are witnessing a genocide combined with a theft. Putin wants the land and what is under it and can grow on it, and needs all Ukrainians gone, their culture destroyed, their cities in rubble, no need to rebuild, or only for Russians when needed. He wants Ukrainian refugees fleeing bombed-out cities to Europe, to destabilize European democracies so that Russia can return and this time not be stopped by the Americans as it aims to create a realm from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as Putin’s chief propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov has said. These are real plans. Moscow sees itself as the Third Rome. It wants to rule Europe and the world. It has allied itself with Iran and North Korea. It is threatening the entire West, the entire world if need be.
All this can be stopped. Support Ukraine with everything they need. Finish off Russian imperial plans. Russia has to leave all Ukrainian territory: Crimea, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk. It needs to pay reparations. It needs to punish the offenders. Ukraine needs a path to NATO and EU. Then, there will be peace.
Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!
Erratic Attempts 