Ukrainian Obsession of Vladimir Putin

Moscow | Too soon and at the same time too far away. Vladimir Putin has an obsession: to bring Ukraine back into Moscow’s arms in the name of Russia’s greatness and push NATO back, even if it means invading it.

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For many Russians of his generation, a person who grew up shaken by poems glorifying the Soviet Union, the disappearance of the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence in three years (1989-1991) is still a wound.

Vladimir Putin, then a KGB officer stationed in East Germany, suffered defeat head-on. He said that he, like many citizens, was forced to make ends meet by illegal taxi upon his return to Russia.

The humiliation and destitution of a part of the Russian people, who remained on the margins of the liberation rush of the young and the intelligentsia, contrasted with the victory and prosperity of the West.

It is enough to convince him, according to his own formula, that the end of the Soviet Union is “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century”, a country that nevertheless experienced two world wars.

What also fuels the desire for revenge, NATO and the European Union gradually expanded into former vassals of Moscow.

For the Russian president, then his historic mission is to stop this invasion of his zone of influence. In the name of Russian security, Ukraine has become a red line.

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“Rockets in Moscow”

In his view of things, if Russia does not solve this security issue, then Ukraine will be in NATO in 10-15 years, then “NATO missiles will be in Moscow,” explains Alexei Makarkin, of the Center for Political Technology.

A sign of the Kremlin’s determination, after a pro-Western revolution in Kiev in 2014, Ukraine’s Crimea was annexed and pro-Russian separatists set fire to Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.

For Putin, his neighbor is mistaken when he sees himself as a victim of Tsarist, then Soviet, and now Russian imperialism. And its two revolutions – 2005 and 2014 – that brought out pro-Russian elites were the result of Western conspiracies.

For the master of the Kremlin, Moscow must be powerful, even terrifying. Surrender is not in the nature of this Judoka black belt.

“If a fight is inevitable, you have to strike first,” he said in 2015. One of his teachers, Vera Gurevich, said that at the age of fourteen, young Vladimir, having broken Rafik’s leg, declared that some “understand only imposition.”

Ukraine suffered from the “Orange Revolution” of 2004-05 “gas wars” with Moscow, which destabilize it economically.

Militarily, there is of course the Crimea and the war in the east in 2014.

Ideologically, there is the denial of the Ukrainian nation.

“time stopped”

As early as 2008, according to Russian and American media, Vladimir Putin told his American counterpart, George W. Bush, that Ukraine “is not even a country.”

In December, he announced during his annual press conference that this country was an invention of Lenin.

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A few months ago, in an article entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” he explained the options of his neighbor with an “anti-Russian” plot by the United States and its allies.

The West was going to create a “Ukrainian political system in which presidents, parliamentarians and ministers would change, but not the separatist path and its hostility towards Russia.”

Tatiana Stanovaya, who heads the Russian think tank R Politik, notes that, according to Putin’s reasoning, Russian soldiers who entered the Ukrainian regions in the north and east on Thursday are waging a “war of liberation.”

Moreover, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in December that “the brotherly people are not lost, there is still a brotherly people.”

In short, it is up to Russian power to restore the normal course of things in Ukraine and beyond.

Moscow says it over and over again: the West took advantage of Russia’s post-Soviet weakness to camp in its periphery. Putin is demanding more and less the return of NATO to its 1997 lines and the abandonment of the Cold War security architecture.

In short, says Alexei Makarkin, “the driving force behind Vladimir Putin’s behavior is his desire to stop time.”

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About the Author: Hermínio Guimarães

"Introvertido premiado. Viciado em mídia social sutilmente charmoso. Praticante de zumbis. Aficionado por música irritantemente humilde."

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