Since the collapse of communism in , Russian troops have intervened in conflicts in several areas of the former Soviet Union, notably in Chechnya and other parts of the Caucasus. In April , just after Russia's annexation of Crimea, pro-Russian separatists seized a large swathe of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Earlier, months of pro-Western demonstrations in Ukraine's capital Kyiv had forced out a pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Mr Kuleba recalled that in there was a Russian plan to split Ukraine and create an entity called "Novorossiya" New Russia - a plan foiled by Ukraine's armed forces. The conflict zone, known as Donbas, is mainly Russian-speaking and now many of its residents have Russian passports.
President Putin says Russia will defend Russian citizens abroad, if they are seen to be at risk. Russia's use of special forces, cyberwarfare and propaganda in this and other conflicts is known as "hybrid warfare" - not a hot war, but not a frozen conflict either.
There was large-scale combat in , before a ceasefire in There have been some prisoner exchanges since then. More than 13, people have been killed in the conflict. Ukraine says 26 of its troops have died in Donbas so far this year, compared to 50 in all of The separatists say more than 20 of theirs have died this year.
Russia-Ukraine analysts including Pavel Felgengauer and James Sherr note several factors exacerbating tensions. Ukraine also banned broadcasts by three pro-Russian TV stations. The Minsk peace deal agreed in remains far from being fulfilled.
For example, there are still no arrangements for independently monitored elections in the separatist regions. In previous conflicts in what it calls its "near abroad", Russia has sent in troops as "peacekeepers", who have ended up staying. It happened in Moldova and South Ossetia, for example. James Sherr says it could well happen again in Ukraine.
It would freeze the position firmly in Russia's favour. Mr Putin faces parliamentary elections in September and a continuing mass movement supporting his jailed arch-critic Alexei Navalny. So the Kremlin "defending" embattled Russians in Ukraine could go down well with many voters. Navalny might also be marginalised if the Kremlin whipped up patriotic fervour over Ukraine. Not by treaty, as Ukraine is not a member.
Neither of these ostensible justifications holds up to scrutiny. Even though was the th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav, there is no connection between that treaty and the Crimean peninsula. Pereyaslav, in central Ukraine not far from Kyiv, is nowhere near Crimea, and the treaty had nothing to do with the peninsula, which did not come under Russian control until years later.
The treaty did provide an important step in that direction, but years of further struggling and warfare had to take place before full unification occurred. In the s, the population of Crimea — approximately 1.
A sizable population of Tatars had lived in Crimea for centuries until May , when they were deported en masse by the Stalinist regime to barren sites in Central Asia, where they were compelled to live for more than four decades and were prohibited from returning to their homeland. Stalin also forcibly deported smaller populations of Armenians, Bulgarians, and Greeks from Crimea, completing the ethnic cleansing of the peninsula. Although Crimea is briefly contiguous with southern Ukraine via the Isthmus of Perekop, the large eastern Kerch region of Crimea is very close to Russia.
The peninsula did have important economic and infrastructural ties with Ukraine, but cultural ties were much stronger overall with Russia than with Ukraine, and Crimea was the site of major military bases from Tsarist times on, having become a symbol of Imperial Russian military power against the Ottoman Turks. Even though the publicly enunciated rationales for the transfer of Crimea to the UkrSSR were of little credibility, some of the comments published in and other information that has come to light since then do allow us to gauge why the Soviet authorities decided on this action.
Of particular importance were the role of Nikita Khrushchev, the recent traumas inflicted on Ukraine, and the ongoing power struggle in the USSR. Khrushchev had been elevated to the post of CPSU First Secretary in September but was still consolidating his leading position in early He had earlier served as the head of the Communist Party of Ukraine from the late s through the end of apart from a year-and-a-half during World War II when he was assigned as a political commissar to the front.
The civil war was marked by high levels of casualties and gruesome atrocities on both sides. Occasional armed clashes were still occurring in the mids, but the war was over by the time Crimea was transferred in February Some , ethnic Russians would be joining the already large Russian minority in Ukraine. A somewhat similar approach was used in the three newly annexed Baltic republics, especially Latvia and Estonia, both of which had had very few Russian inhabitants prior to the s.
The Stalinist regime encouraged ethnic Russians to settle in those republics from the late s on, and this policy continued under Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev.
Proportionally, the transfer of Russians to the Baltic republics was greater than in Ukraine, but in absolute numbers the transfer of Crimea brought into Ukraine much larger numbers of Russians and a region closely identified with Russia, bolstering Soviet control.
I am certain that the Russians themselves are well aware of this. Rather than seeking to force the whole of Ukraine back into the Russian sphere of influence, Moscow will look to target individual regions of the country and specific demographics in a bid to amplify internal tensions and break up Ukraine from within.
Instead, the Kremlin's goal remains to force Ukraine into the Russian sphere of influence while depriving the country of its sovereignty. For more than seven years, Ukrainians have resisted Russian aggression and have made clear they refuse to become a Kremlin colony, so it looks likely that the conflict will continue until Russia renounces its imperial claims.
This could only happen in two scenarios: either the Putin regime is replaced by a more democratic form of government, or the Russian Federation itself collapses, as both the Czarist Empire and the Soviet Union did in the twentieth century. The emergence of a democratic Russia currently looks extremely unlikely. For Ukraine, the most pragmatic way to address the Russian threat is to focus on winning the hybrid war.
The Eurasia Center regularly convenes with regional leaders and key global figures to galvanize international support for a free, prosperous, and peaceful future in Eurasia. Explore our events, debates, and flagship discussions below. The relationship that prevailed before is no longer possible. They envision their future in Europe.
However, three factors may thwart that ambition. First, Europe is ambivalent at best about including Ukraine. Second, Russia is determined to recapture Ukraine, and is patient, cynical, and willing to devote substantial resources to do so. Third, corruption in Ukraine provides both an avenue for Russian influence and a justification for Western detachment. It is not difficult to imagine that the West, tired of supporting Ukraine and eager to strike a deal with Moscow, will pressure Ukraine to accept a deal that allows the West to move on to other concerns while Russia slowly takes over.
Ongoing Russian aggression and the occupation of Crimea make a return to earlier levels of interaction impossible. So there is no going back to the status quo that existed prior the outbreak of hostilities in At the same time, it remains entirely possible for Moscow to recapture some of the ground lost over the past seven years.
As the conflict in eastern Ukraine drags on with no end in sight, it inevitably becomes part of the landscape and loses the ability to shock. Although there is little sign of this happening yet, Ukrainian society may eventually grow more susceptible to the idea that the time has come to seek some kind of resolution with Russia. It is critical for Ukraine to maintain strong relations with the West. Ukraine must also be wary of domestic stagnation. A lack of palpable change and the persistence of corruption both serve to erode the post consensus.
This could create potentially fertile ground for pro-Kremlin forces to promote the idea of a geopolitical turn away from Euro-Atlantic integration and back towards Russia.
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