Imperialism in Crimea and the Donbass: Territorial Claims and Perceived Interests in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict.

The Invasion

     In August of 2014, following political upheaval and the resulting violence, the Russian Federation invaded the neighboring nation of Ukraine. Many international political commentators were caught unaware. Much like the global financial crisis of 2008, almost no one saw the arrival of this conflict coming. Also, like the 2008 financial crisis known as the “Great Recession”, the seeds of this conflict were sewn well in advance, and seem impossible not to notice in retrospect. Adrian Karatnycky and Alexander Motyl were some of the few political commentators to acknowledge the possibility of war.  Karatnycky and Motyl, writing for Foreign Affairs in 2009, wrote that “given Russia’s regime type and its power today, a nondemocratic Russia might well take advantage of Ukraine’s increased weakness” (Karatnycky and Motyl 2009, 113).

     Ethno-cultural associations with space have long been the cause of conflict. Take Jerusalem for example, where three of the so-called “great” religions vie for dominance of the land, with rivaling narratives and competing historiographies that each in turn use as their claim for possession. This tribalistic ethno-nationalism, itching for war against the “other”, the enemy, the foreigner, is a cornerstone of modern fascist political thought. When Adolf Hitler annexed the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, he claimed to be protecting ethnic Germans. A similar situation has been at play in the foreign policy of the Russian Federation as of late. A reactionary and xenophobic regime has now taken root in Moscow, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. Putin has made it his raison d'être to “protect” ethnic Russians within the entirety of the former Soviet Union.

     With this in mind, the Russian Federation has been increasingly active, both in terms of its military/espionage activities, and in asserting its economic/political objectives, within the whole of the former Soviet Union. From anti-terror operations in the Caucasus and the military offensives in South Ossetia—a disputed region on Russia’s border with Georgia—to the “frozen conflict” in Moldova, the Putin regime has become increasingly aggressive within its perceived sphere of influence. Many international relations and military experts now see these actions as “dry runs” for its current actions in Ukraine. 

The “Heart” of Russia

Figure 1. “Donbass serdtse Rossii” Donbass Heart of Russia

     All wars require justifications for the actions of the aggressors, and the current conflict is no exception. The United States for example, has repeatedly cited the “Monroe Doctrine”—which considers the entire Western hemisphere as its sphere of influence—as its justification for the use of force from the Spanish-American war, to President Kennedy’s embargo of Castro’s Cuba. With the conflict in Ukraine, Russia is acting in much the same way, within its perceived sphere of influence.  As Dominic Johnson and Monica Toft writing in Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution put it, the Donbass “is a flashpoint not because Russia is throwing down the gauntlet to the west, but because it is throwing down the gauntlet on what it considers home territory” (Johnson and Toft 2014, 90).  

     The Donets Basin, or Donbass, is a large region encompassing the eastern most oblasts — regions or states — of Ukraine and extending into Russia until Rostov on Don. This geological formation is mainly contained within the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine. The region is the industrial heartland of not only Ukraine, but has long been featured in Soviet and then Russian propaganda as the “heart of Russia” (Figure 1).                            

     The Russification of eastern Ukraine began during the reign of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, whose extractionary policy of forced starvation toward Ukraine led to the mass deaths of ethnic Ukrainians, in an event remembered as the “Holodomor” —extermination by hunger— which has been deemed by many historians to be an act of genocide. While Stalin was starving millions of ethnic Ukrainians, he was simultaneously moving large populations of ethnic Russians into the then-recently depopulated Donbass of Ukraine. This massive depopulation of ethnic Ukrainians and deliberate importation of ethnic Russian nationals would have wide and far-reaching consequences. As Andreas Kappeler notes, as a result of Stalin’s policies favoring ethnic Russians in Ukraine“[t]he relations between the two independent states were from the very beginning difficult” and almost all of the resulting differences between the two nations “have their roots in the imperial past” (Kappeler 2014, 108).

     The media in the Donbass is exclusively Russian, and Russian media is almost exclusively under the purview of the Russian state.  Under the watchful eye of Vladimir Putin, the Russian government has consistently cracked down on sources of information that are not favorable to the state. As Adrian Karatnycky and Alexander Motyl stated, the Russian media are “now pliant government instruments” (Karatnycky and Motyl 2009, 114).These Russian state media operations have painted the Ukrainian people as fascist puppets of the “West”. This constant bombardment of Russian government propaganda has inevitably led to negative perceptions of the Ukrainian people by the Russian public, as well as with ethnic Russians in the east and south of Ukraine. As Karatnycky and Motyl have pointed out, in “polls conducted in January 2009, some 62 percent of Russians are negatively inclined toward Ukraine and 24 percent are positively inclined. (In contrast, the same polls showed that only 9 percent of Ukrainians have negative feelings toward Russia, whereas 71 percent have positive ones.)” (Karatnycky and Motyl 2009, 114).

A Question of Identity

     The nation of Ukraine has been in a precarious state since its inception. The lack of a founding national narrative left people unsure about their national identity and place in world history.  As the Soviet Union rapidly dissolved in the early 1990s, Ukraine became an independent country almost overnight. The main concern of the Russian government at the time was the fact that Ukraine, as an integral part of the Soviet Union and its defenses, was home to one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. In an international agreement dubbed the Budapest Memorandum, The United States, Russia, and Great Britain all committed to the defense, and recognition of, Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for its promise to surrender the entirety of its nuclear forces. This is a decision that has come to haunt Ukraine.

     Since gaining independence, Ukraine has experienced a seesaw of governments, a “color” revolution, political assassinations, and a deepening divide between the Russian East and the Ukrainian West. It is exactly these kinds of divisions along ethnic lines, which lead to the bifurcation of states. People form their associations with a given piece of land through “duration and distribution of ethnic kin” within said territory (Johnson and Toft 2014, 91). And within Ukraine, multiple generations of ethnic Russians have lived in the eastern regions, particularly in the Donbass. As a result of this, Russia, “under the pretext of the protection of the rights of linguistic minorities…uses the language question as an instrument of pressure and intervention into the internal affairs of Ukraine” (Kappeler 2014, 111).

     The latest revolution in Ukraine occurred when then-President Yanukovich spurned a promised economic association with the European Union in favor of entry into Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union, which includes, along with Russia, the countries of Belarus and Kazakhstan.  People by the hundreds of thousands took the country’s independence square, known as the “Maidan”, in protest. This last minute switch in favor of the Russian trade union was seen by many Ukrainian citizens as yet another attempt by Russia to subvert the will of the Ukrainian people.

Little Green Men and Hybrid War

     When armed Russian-speaking Special Forces arrived in Crimea to take control of strategic locations throughout the territory, they bore no military insignia to identify themselves. At the same time, the Russian government denied having any involvement. These soldiers that had seemingly appeared from nowhere, were jokingly dubbed “little green men”, in reference to the U.F.O. phenomenon, and the fact that these soldiers wore green combat fatigues.  Although the Russian government initially denied having any involvement in these military operations, Vladimir Putin would give a victory speech in the region’s capital Sevastopol several months later.

     Alongside the use of Special Forces and conventional military operations, the Russians are conducting a massive propaganda and media relations campaign in both Ukraine, and within Russia itself. This includes providing local “rebel leaders” with constantly updated lists of talking points for use when confronted by media organizations. Because of this added propaganda component of the war, the current conflict has been called a “Hybrid War”.

     When these Russian Special Forces operators arrived in Crimea, they immediately seized the parliament and hoisted the flag of the Russian Federation. Simultaneously, they captured other strategic locations in the region, most importantly the local television, cellular, and radio communications stations. These communication sites would be necessary to disseminate information favorable to the Russian government to the local populous.

     One of the most prominent features of Russia’s immense state-backed system of media being put to use in the conduct of this Hybrid War is the television network Russia Today. RT has a budget that enables it to be broadcast in multiple languages and territories twenty four hours a day.  This broadcast presents viewers with imagery that paints the Ukrainians as uncaring fascists that are perpetrating a genocide against ethnic Russians in the east of Ukraine.

The Birth of a Nation

     Ironically, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has given it the very thing it was lacking: a foundational national narrative. The Ukrainians now see themselves as a people and a nation fighting for its survival and the right to self-governance in the face of foreign aggression. In Ukraine there is a new patriotic fervor, and new national slogans such as “glory to Ukraine, glory to heroes”. A large portion of Ukraine’s defense forces are comprised of volunteer units with names like “Azov Battalion” and “Donbass Battalion”. Unlike the national army, these people are not paid for their service and aren’t entitled to government health benefits that are available to professional soldiers, but nevertheless, they fight. These men and women that fill the ranks of these units are farmers, business professionals, teachers, and former company owners that feel it is their patriotic duty to defend their homeland.

     The new Ukraine, oriented toward Europe, is trying to break free from its subaltern position in relation to Russia. The Ukrainians look at their neighbors that have become a part of the European Union and are filled with a sense of both apathy and envy. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s neighbors that have become members of the European Union—Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, etc…—have seen an explosion of growth in their economies and a corresponding rise in standards of living. Whereas, Ukraine itself has stagnated—by some estimates its economy has actually contracted in real terms since independence—the former Soviet countries aligned with Europe have thrived. Within the populace of Ukraine, this has caused a desire to bring themselves into alignment with the greater European community. This desire for European alignment, has in turn, bred yet more anger and suspicion on the part of Russia toward Ukraine and its ambitions.

“Novorossiya”

     Many of the Russian soldiers fighting in the Donbass proclaim to be fighting for the formation of a new nation called “Novorossiya” (New Russia). The Russian soldiers that are fighting for this imagined state fly a battle flag that, because of its visual similarity, is quite reminiscent of the Confederate “stars and bars” from the American Civil War. In many instances, flying alongside this battle flag, is a flag with a depiction of Jesus Christ—in traditional Russian Orthodox fashion—upon a red background, that is an adaptation of a Tsarist imperial flag from the 1800s. This is an obvious allusion to the alliance of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the ethno-nationalist ideology espoused by Vladimir Putin. This imperialist component of Putin’s fascist ideology, which harkens back to the 1880s, stands in stark contrast with the Ukrainian narrative of independence and struggle for democracy. As Andreas Kappeler asserts, for the “Russian Empire the close cooperation of the state and the Orthodox Church was an important factor of legitimation and stability. Today’s Russia follows this policy and is using the Orthodox Church as an instrument of its politics of hegemony” (Kappeler 2014, 111).  The term Novorossiya itself, in reference to the area of the Donbass harkens back to Tsarist terminology, and has been quite deliberately reintroduced by Putin.

     The use of such terminology by Putin and his regime is telling. Combined with statements like “Ukraine is not even a country”, and that the Ukrainian military’s defense of its territory as “smell[ing] of genocide”, given at multiple press conferences, we are given valuable insight into Vladimir Putin’s inner thoughts. Andrei Tsygankov, writing for Russian Analytical Digest, states that the “Kremlin now view[s]…Ukrainian values as incompatible with those of Rus­sia” and that Putin said in a press conference the he viewed the recent political actions in “Ukraine as the ‘rampage of Nazi, nationalist, and anti-Semitic forces.’”(Tsygankov 2014, 4).  Note the attribution of negative terms like ‘Nazi’ and ‘anti-Semitic” to the democratic actions of the Ukrainian people. This labeling of the enemy with your own flaws is yet another example straight from the neo-fascist playbook. Russia has clearly shown that it is more than willing to use military force to achieve its political objectives. And if Putin’s objective is to reunite the entirety of the ethnic Russian population with its previous homeland, then the danger to Ukraine and Europe as a whole could not be clearer.

Torn Asunder

     Currently the intensity of the war has slowly deescalated as the Ukrainian and Russian governments have agreed to a ceasefire known as the “Minsk Agreement”, named for the city in which the French and German-brokered deal occurred. Many, including the Ukrainian government, do not believe that the cease fire will hold, and that it is merely a ploy by Putin to bide time and amass further forces for an all-out assault on the strategic port city of Mariupol. Mariupol is strategic not only because it is a port city, but also because of the fact that it is the only large city in the region that separates Russian forces in the Donbass from those in Crimea.

     As mentioned earlier, Russia has previously intervened militarily in the areas of the former Soviet territories. One of these territories is that of Moldova and its Transnistria separatist region that borders western Ukraine and the port city of Odessa. Here, Russia maintains a troop presence of several thousand men. The fear in Kyiv is that the Russians will not be content with their gains in Crimea and the Donbass, and that they could launch a war for the totality of the regions of Ukraine containing ethnic Russians. If the Russians take Mariupol and move west to link up its armies from Russia through to Transnistria, then Ukraine will have been cleaved in two. Not only would Ukraine have lost a large portion of its territory, it would be completely land-locked. This would leave the future economic prospects of Ukraine in tatters. And as Motyl has shown, any such action undertaken by Russia could change “the balance of power in eastern Europe” (Motyl 2010, 136).

     If Russia begins an all-out assault for the south and east of Ukraine from Donetsk to Odessa the Ukrainian army is ill-equipped to defend itself from a much more powerful adversary. The Russian military has modern military hardware that the Ukrainian military is sorely lacking. Tellingly, the current cease fire came about not as a result of sanctions that have pushed the Russian economy into recession, rather Putin seems to have been brought to the bargaining table by President Barack Obama’s threat to arm the Ukrainian military with American-made weaponry. It appears that violence is the only language that Putin understands.

European Security and the Threat of Russian Ethno-Fascism

     This is not the first time that Europe has come under threat from a fascist nation committed to an ideology of ethnic supremacy. Europe would be wise to heed the lessons of the last utterly devastating conflict to inflict unspeakable horrors upon millions of innocents across its lands. In 1938, when British Foreign Secretary Neville Chamberlain returned to England after having spoken with Adolf Hitler in Munich, he declared that with his agreement with Hitler he had achieved peace in their time. Chamberlain’s drastic misreading of the intentions of the German fascists would have devastating consequences for Europe.

    At the very least, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the beginning of a new “Cold War” between Russia and the West. Noted Colombia University political scientist Robert Levgold, writing in Foreign affairs asserts that this “new Cold War will affect nearly every important dimension of the international system”, and that Putin’s “emphasis on Russia’s alienation from contemporary Western cultural values will add to the estrangement” (Levgold 2014, 75).  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many leaders in Europe hoped that Russia would become integrated into the larger European community. But Putin’s Russia is moving further and further away from the ideals of European democracy and human rights, and instead Russia has embarked down a path of fascist authoritarianism, in which any and all opposition has been systematically eliminated through violent coercion, imprisonment, and even assassination.

     It is well-known that Vladimir Putin believes that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a tragedy of monumental proportions. Putin’s first job in the KGB had him working in East Germany. When Putin came of age Russia’s borders extended all the way from the Pacific Ocean to Berlin. He would like nothing more than to see the glory of the Soviet Union reconstituted in his preferred image. The xenophobic, reactionary, militaristic ideology espoused by Putin that now dictates Russia’s domestic and foreign policy is a danger not only to Ukraine, but also to Europe and potentially the entire world. The West must stand up to this aggression, or be doomed to repeat the past.

    

Bibliography:

Donbass serdtse Rossii.  [The Don Basin - the heart of Russia.] (1921)   Image ID: 1216161. New York Public Library Slavic Collection.

Johnson, Dominic D.P. and Toft, Monica Duffy. Bringing “Geo” Back into Politics: Evolution, Territoriality and the Contest over Ukraine. Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution.5 (1). (2014):87-91.

Kappeler, Andreas. Ukraine and Russia: Legacies of the Imperial Past and Competing Memories. Journal of Eurasian Studies 5. (2014):107-115.

Karatnycky, Adrian and Motyl, Alexander J. The Key to Kiev: Ukraine’s Security Means Europe’s Stability. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 88, No. 3 (May/June 2009):106-120.  

Levgold, Robert. Managing the New Cold War: What Moscow and Washington Can Learn From the Last One. Foreign Affairs. July/August (2014):74-84.

Motyl, Alexander J. Ukrainian Blues: Yanukovych's Rise, Democracy's Fall. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 4 (July/August 2010):125-136.

Tsygankov, Andrei. The Sources of Russia’s Ukraine Policy. Russian Analytical Digest. Issue No. 158. December (2014): 2-11.