By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

UK PM suggests that Russian forces pose a ‘clear danger’ to Ukraine. This while Putin accuses the U.S. of trying to lure Russia into war.

As we pointed out early on a first crisis was brought about by the disintegration of the USSR a second crisis was brought about by the 2014 crisis. Including that scholarly writing has studied nationalism in Russia in three ways. The first is to argue ideology is unimportant to Putin’s regime because it draws on nationalism instrumentally, for example, during elections and historical anniversaries. The second is to downplay nationalism in Russia to portray Putin’s government in a more favorable light and to disprove the Russian president is a nationalist. The third argues that excellent power nationalism defines Putin’s government, especially how Russia relates to Ukraine and Ukrainians. Irrespective of whether Putin is an instrumental or a committed nationalist, Russian policies have had important-Ukrainian relations. 

In The Shield and the Sword, a title is drawn from the KGB’s service emblem, the Soviet's own James Bond is pitched into action against the Nazis. By the time of his fourth film appearance, he was the poster boy of Soviet postwar espionage in the minds of millions, including that of the sixteen-year-old Vladimir Putin, who went straight from the cinema to volunteer his services to the KGB.1

As for his situated in Dresden, the suggestion is that Putin must have slipped up to end up in such a relatively unimportant post, and by his admission, he spent much of his time drinking beer.

Then on a December night in Dresden in 1989, he decided to do whatever it took to defend Soviet authority, his colleagues, and himself. The Berlin Wall was open, and the East German regime was collapsing. A crowd of peaceful protesters had just flooded the nearby headquarters of his secret police allies, the Stasi, overwhelming the guards as they had overwhelmed the regime: through conviction and sheer numbers rather than through violence. Now some two dozen protesters were drifting around the corner to the deceptively modest outpost of Soviet State Security, or the KGB, where on December 5 he was the senior officer on site.

Helmut Kohl (Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998) agreed to give a public speech in Dresden on the night of December 19, just two weeks after the protesters there had backed away from Putin. It is possible, indeed probable, that the young KGB officer stopped throwing files in the furnace long enough to listen to a broadcast of Kohl's remarks or even attend in person. Later in life, Putin admitted to another time during the East German revolution when he "stood in the crowd and watched it happen," so perhaps he did the same with Kohl's speech; it was given outdoors, not far from his outpost.

Boris Yeltsin who at the time was already very ill decided that the exit had come. According to his memoirs, he confided to Putin on December 14, 1999, that he would make the younger man acting president on the last day of the year, although Putin had to keep that information to himself until then.2

 

A week after his conversation with Yeltsin, Putin took part in an unveiling ceremony for the restored plaque of former longtime KGB head (and later Soviet leader) Yuri Andropov, held on the anniversary of the founding of the Soviet secret police.3

The symbolism was obvious. Andropov’s formative experience had been the 1956 uprising in Hungary; he had watched in horror from the window of the Soviet embassy in Budapest as a rebellion threatened to topple the Communist government and remove Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. Andropov never forgot watching the bodies of executed Hungarian secret police swaying from the streetlights. The experience marked the birth of what one US expert called “Andropov’s - and the KGB’s - ‘Hungarian complex,’ the mortal fear of small, unofficial groups sparking movements to overthrow” their leaders.4 The Andropov plaque had come down in August 1991 but was back, and Putin decided to give the restoration his public blessing.5

 

The  reckoning that has been 30 years in the making

What can be said with certainty is that the current crisis between Russia and Ukraine is a reckoning that has been 30 years in the making. It is about much more than Ukraine and its possible NATO membership. It is about the future of the European order crafted after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

During the Munich Security Conference of 2007, Putin said that ‘I am here to say what I really think about international security problems,’ he told his fellow world leaders. Just like any war, the Cold War left us with live ammunition, figuratively speaking. 

As we have seen, during the 1990s, the United States and its allies designed a Euro-Atlantic security architecture in which Russia had no clear commitment or stake, and since Russian President Vladimir Putin came to power, Russia has been challenging that system. Putin has routinely complained that the global order ignores Russia’s security concerns, and he has demanded that the West recognize Moscow’s right to a sphere of privileged interests in the post-Soviet space. He has staged incursions into neighboring states, such as Georgia, that have moved out of Russia’s orbit in order to prevent them from fully reorienting.

Putin has now taken this approach one step further. He is threatening a far more comprehensive invasion of Ukraine than the annexation of Crimea and the intervention in the Donbas that Russia carried out in 2014, an invasion that would undermine the current order and potentially reassert Russia’s preeminence in what he insists is its “rightful” place on the European continent and in world affairs. He sees this as a good time to act. In his view, the United States is weak, divided, and less able to pursue a coherent foreign policy. His decades in office have made him more cynical about the United States’ staying power. Putin is now dealing with his fifth U.S. president, and he has come to see Washington as an unreliable interlocutor. The new German government is still finding its political feet, Europe, on the whole, is focused on its domestic challenges, and the tight energy market gives Russia more leverage over the continent. The Kremlin believes that it can bank on Beijing’s support, just as China supported Russia after the West tried to isolate it in 2014.

Putin may still decide not to invade. But whether he does or not, the Russian president’s behavior is being driven by an interlocking set of foreign policy principles that suggest Moscow will be disruptive in the years to come. Call it “the Putin doctrine.” The core element of this doctrine is getting the West to treat Russia as if it were the Soviet Union, a power to be respected and feared, with special rights in its neighborhood and a voice in every serious international matter. The doctrine holds that only a few states should have this kind of authority, along with complete sovereignty, and that others must bow to their wishes. It entails defending incumbent authoritarian regimes and undermining democracies. And the doctrine is tied together by Putin’s overarching aim: reversing the consequences of the Soviet collapse, splitting the transatlantic alliance, and renegotiating the geographic settlement that ended the Cold War.

Russia, according to Putin, has an absolute right to a seat at the table on all major international decisions. The West should recognize that Russia belongs to the global board of directors. After what Putin portrays as the humiliation of the 1990s when a greatly weakened Russia was forced to accede to an agenda set by the United States and its European allies, he has largely achieved this goal. Even though Moscow was ejected from the G-8 after its annexation of Crimea, its veto on the United Nations Security Council and its role as energy, nuclear, and geographic superpower ensure that the rest of the world must take its views into account. Russia successfully rebuilt its military after the 2008 war with Georgia, and it is now the preeminent regional military power, with the capability to project power globally. Moscow’s ability to threaten its neighbors enables it to force the West to the negotiating table, as has been so evident in the past few weeks.

The Kremlin insists that this preoccupation is based on real concerns. Russia, after all, has been repeatedly invaded from the West. In the twentieth century, it was invaded by anti-Bolshevik allied forces, including some from the United States, during its civil war from 1917 to 1922. Germany invaded twice, leading to the loss of 26 million Soviet citizens in World War II. Putin has explicitly linked this history to Russia’s current concerns about NATO infrastructure near Russia’s borders and Moscow’s resulting demands for security guarantees.

Today, however, Russia is a nuclear superpower brandishing new, hypersonic missiles. No country - least of all its smaller, weaker neighbors - has any intention of invading Russia. Indeed, the country’s neighbors to its west have a different narrative and stress their vulnerability over the centuries to invasion from Russia. The United States would also never attack, although Putin has accused it of seeking to “cut a juicy piece of our pie.” Nevertheless, the historical self-perception of Russia’s vulnerability resonates with the country’s population. Government-controlled media are filled with claims that Ukraine could be a launching pad for NATO aggression. Indeed, in his essay last year, Putin wrote that Ukraine was being turned into “a springboard against Russia.”

The modern Kremlin’s interpretation of sovereignty has notable parallels to that of the Soviet Union. It holds, to paraphrase George Orwell, that some states are more sovereign than others. Putin has said that only a few great powers - Russia, China, India, and the United States - enjoy absolute sovereignty, free to choose which alliances they join or reject. Smaller countries such as Ukraine or Georgia are not fully sovereign and must respect Russia’s strictures, just as Central America and South America, according to Putin, must heed their large northern neighbor. Russia also does not seek allies in the Western sense of the word but instead looks for mutually beneficial instrumental and transactional partnerships with countries, such as China, that do not restrict Russia’s freedom to act or pass judgment on its internal politics.

Moscow’s revisionist interference also isn’t limited to what it considers its privileged domain. Putin believes Russia’s interests are best served by a fractured transatlantic alliance. Accordingly, he has supported anti-American and Euroskeptic groups in Europe; backed populist movements of the left and right on both sides of the Atlantic; engaged in election interference, and generally worked to exacerbate discord within Western societies. One of his major goals is to get the United States to withdraw from Europe. 

 

Kyiv's position

Changing its position from the day before Kyiv has urged the West to remain “vigilant and firm” in its talks with Moscow, a day after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned his Western partners to avoid stirring “panic” over the massive Russian troop buildup at the border. The West has rejected Russia’s key demands such as stopping new members from joining the alliance but has laid down a raft of areas where it sees room to negotiate with the Kremlin.

He added that the West had ignored the “key question”, that no country should strengthen its security at the expense of others, adding Russia would “carefully study” the responses, “after which it will decide on further actions”.

The US already has tens of thousands of troops stationed across mostly Western Europe. In the face of Russia’s latest buildup, some Western allies, led by the US, have stepped up deliveries of arms to Kyiv that could be used to ward off an attack.

Reuters was first to report Russia's movement of blood supplies to the border with Ukraine, which would be necessary to treat casualties in the event of a conflict. Ukraine has denied that Russia has moved any blood supplies to the front lines. On Saturday, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar called the reports "not true."

Another issue that has been brought up the past few days is that the US has threatened to halt the opening of a key pipeline that would send Russian gas to Western Europe if Russia invades Ukraine.

While the US insisted that it would stop the opening of the pipeline completely, Germany only said it would not rule out imposing sanctions on the project. The country's foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, told parliament that Western allies were "working on a strong package of sanctions" covering aspects "including Nord Stream 2".

But she added that she would prefer to "continue the dialogue" with Moscow.

Her comments came after the German ambassador to the US Emily Haber tweeted that "nothing will be off the table, including Nord Stream 2" if Russia violated "Ukraine's sovereignty".

The 1,225km (760-mile) pipeline took five years to build and cost $11bn (£8bn). The energy project, which would run under the Baltic Sea, is designed to double Russia's gas exports to Germany. But as yet it has not started operating, as regulators said in November it does not comply with German law and suspended its approval. Major European businesses have invested heavily in Nord Stream 2, which is run by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But many groups object to the plan.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously described the pipeline as a "dangerous geopolitical weapon".

Whereby Victoria Nuland under Secretary of State for Political Affairs of the United States added that “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward” the White House also announced that Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will visit on February 7 and discuss the crisis with President Joe Biden.

 

The United States and Britain on Sunday today flagged new and "devastating" economic sanctions against Russia, as Washington and its NATO allies step up efforts to deter any invasion of Ukraine. Amid a flurry of diplomatic contacts, US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said a proposal on security issues presented last week by the US and NATO to Russia may have stirred interest in Moscow."We've heard some signs that the Russians are interested in engaging on that proposal," Nuland said on CBS, including the likelihood of new talks this week between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meanwhile, took a tough stance, saying it was crucial that the United States send a powerful message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that any aggression against Ukraine would come at a very high cost. He indicated some penalties could be levied over actions Russia has already taken in Ukraine, including cyberattacks, but that "devastating sanctions that ultimately would crush Russia" would come if Moscow were to invade.

Nuland said the White House is working closely with the Senate, and that any sanctions measures would be "very well-aligned" with those coming from European allies.In London, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Britain would unveil sanctions legislation next week targeting "a much wider variety" of Russian economic targets."There will be nowhere to hide for Putin's oligarchs," Truss told Sky News.

Thus Western leaders are continuing to pursue a two-pronged approach, stepping up military assistance to Ukraine but also undertaking a full-court diplomatic effort to defuse the crisis.

Hence so far, the first foreign policy challenge of the post-Merkel era, Germany is floundering as it struggles to balance its war legacy and demands of allies.

 

Why Germany is heavenly reliant on Russian gas pipelines:

 

 

1. Martin Sixsmith, The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind, P. 315.

2. Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, 5– 7; see also Myers, New Tsar, 166– 67.

3. Vladimir Kara-Murza, “Putin’s Dark Cult of the Secret Police,” Washington Post, December 28, 2017; Weiner, Folly, 127– 28.

4. Benjamin Nathans, “The Real Power of Putin,” New York Review of Books, September 29, 2016.

5. Russian democracy activist Vladimir Kara-Murza later recalled that event as the moment he and his colleagues realized that under Putin, much else from the past would also come back. See Kara-Murza, “Putin’s Dark Cult”; TOIW Vladimir Kara-Murza, Center for a New American Security, July 10, 2020, https:// www.cnas.org/ publications/ podcast/ vladimir-putin-and-the-future-of-russian-politics-with-michael-mcfaul-and-vladimir-kara-murza.

 

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