The sense of encirclement featured prominently in the 2003 Russian Defense White Paper, which essentially dismissed the concept of a “common European home” that had been proposed by the last Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, along with its commitment to non-aggression. Equally, it seems that many Russians are unable to appreciate how seminal personal and political freedom, democracy, and the rule of law are to the self-identity of people living in Western Europe and North America, and to the peoples of Central Europe that retain a clear recollection of Soviet oppression. In this sense, no territory is more significant than Ukraine, in which is located much of the original Russian heartland known as the Rus, and Crimea which, when transferred to Ukraine by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, occasioned considerable resentment even at the time. Russians also ascribe cultural and military significance to territory it is difficult for outsiders to understand how important it is to Russians’ sense of national identity. With the fall of the Soviet Union, significant portions of that depth were lost, most significantly in Europe. It began under the tsars, took a pause during the early days in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, but continued in 1945 under the rule of Stalin. It was an important driver of its westward territorial expansion into Central Europe, south across the Black Sea and into the Caucasus, and east all the way to the Pacific, in search of strategic depth. This has been a persistent theme throughout its history. Russia perceives itself as a country surrounded by enemies. The same goes for the steps the United States and its allies need to take to counter it successfully in the future. This reluctant response, not least by the Obama Administration, makes a broad-based understanding of what appears to be a new Russian politico-military doctrine essential. No attempt has been made to supply Ukraine with the arms it needs to expel the Russian-backed forces from its territory. The principal Western response has been economic: the imposition of a very limited range of sanctions on Russian individuals and corporations which, although they have inflicted quite possibly greater economic pain than is realized or yet apparent, has not made Russia’s leadership re-think its aggression or restore the status quo ante. The belief appears widespread that, while the West seeks a negotiated settlement to the eastern Ukraine invasion, it will acquiesce to the seizure of Crimea. This illegal act, and the subsequent Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine, has sparked shamefully little international outrage. Russia’s claims that it has acted legally in response to appeals by the ousted Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych, and the region’s majority Russian-speaking population, were manifestly bogus. Moreover, when Russia subsequently absorbed Crimea, it was the first forced transfer of territory in Europe since 1945. Russia’s invasion was an act of war in contravention of the United Nations Charter and international law. The transfer was reaffirmed in a further treaty in 2003. It remained so when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine emerged as an independent state. Shorn of its disguise it was a Russian invasion and occupation pure and simple.Ĭrimea is a peninsula extension of Ukraine that, while incorporated into Russia in Tsarist times, had been part of Ukraine since 1954. Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, later admitted the denials made at the time about Russian involvement were untrue, and that the entire operation had been planned and conducted by Russia’s armed forces. They corralled Ukrainian forces in their bases, making it plain that any attempt to leave would be met with violence they took over communications masts and studios, ensuring that the only messages accessible to the Crimean population were those they sent out they took over government offices, ensuring that no decisions other than those they approved could be made and eventually, at the point of a gun, ensured that the Crimean assembly voted to approve a plebiscite, which would eventually return a near-Soviet-era approval rating of 93 percent for the (re)-unification of Crimea with Mother Russia. In the night of February 26 to 27, 2014, small groups of armed men, who later acquired the labels “little green men,” and even “polite green men” (which were anything but), appeared across Crimea.
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