Russia Will Not Stop Unless It is Stopped

          

           Let me be clear about the consequences of allowing Vladimir Putin to set the international relations agenda for Europe, and by extension, for the world.  Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has revived the historical aspirations of Russian leaders since Ivan IV “The Terrible” (1530-1584): territorial expansion and the subjugation of conquered peoples.  While students of western history know about and are sometimes dismayed at the remarkable growth from 1492 to 1939 of Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and England into globe spanning maritime empires, the history of Russia through this period is just as worthy of knowing and being dismayed at.  From a large-ish regional power centred on Moscow at the start of the 16^thcentury, the Grand Duchy of Muscovy grew into the Russian Empire by continuous expansion and subjugation over that same period to become the country with the largest territory on the planet.  A common mistake of perception is that Siberia and the Russian Far East have always been Russian.  They have not.  This vast region is home to many indigenous groups who were brought under Russian colonial domination much as the Americas were brought under Spanish, Portuguese, French, English/British, and Dutch colonial control.  In the same way indigenous languages and culture have been suppressed and eroded.  However, unlike the empires out of western Europe who were all forced to let go of most of their real estate by local aspirations for independence or self-government, Russia has held on tightly.

            It must also be pointed out that unlike those western European colonial powers who controlled other parts of the globe (South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa) but let go of most of it after 1945, Russia, in its iteration as the Soviet Union, actually expanded their territorial control.  While the western victors over Hitler’s Germany (and Imperial Japan) worked to create new, democratic, self-governing versions of the defeated Axis Powers without pulling territory to themselves, Stalin’s Soviet Union (i.e., the Russian Empire with a Stalinist-Leninist-Marxist ideology) used the opportunity to reincorporate former subject peoples that had become independent after World War 1 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), or—in the case of Poland—to place a puppet regime at its helm.  Further to the case of Poland, the creation of Stalin’s version of that country was brought about by ordering the largest forced mass movement of people in history (12 million +), annexing the eastern third of Poland, the Poles there being made to move west into land that Stalin took from Germany and gave to Poland.  The Germans of those regions were, in turn, forced west into what remained of their country.  The Russian Empire has always been willing to sacrifice large numbers of people for its political and strategic ends.

            Russian efforts at re-subjugating Finland having failed (Winter War, 1939-1940), the Soviet Russian Empire compensated itself after 1945 by extending its “sphere of influence” to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, while slicing Moldavia off the last of these and incorporating it directly into its own empire.  To round out the picture, Stalin began hostilities against Japan late in the war, just in time to occupy Karafuto Island (known in Russian as Sakhalin), an island still claimed by Japan.

            Consider the shape of this post-World War 2 Europe.  Not only had the Soviet Union reincorporated former Russian vassals, but it had gone even further and brought under its control many regions that had always been outside their control (Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany).  Stalin also intimidated other countries into neutrality (Finland, Sweden, Austria, and Communist Yugoslavia).  When Putin praises Stalin as one of the greatest leaders of Russian history, it is not merely because he admires the man’s absolutist control of the state, but also because Stalin brought Russia to the peak of its imperial control of others.  Just as the old colonial powers were relinquishing control and embracing the new world order of sovereign, independent nation states of the United Nations Charter, the Soviet Union was making more vassals and colonies.

            I say colonies because the Russian Empire in all its iterations has used Russification by suppressing local identities and by resettling and dispersing non-Russian populations (Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, etc.) in Siberia, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere, and replacing them with Russians.  For example, when Russia first annexed Crimea in 1783, the population was about 85% Crimean Tartar and less than 5% Russian.  By 1897 Crimean Tartars made up 35% and Russians 33%.  By 1959, Soviet deportations of Tartars had reduced their population to 1.8%, while Russian in-migration had increased their proportion to 71.4%. Similarly, when Russia took control of Crimea, there was still a notable Greek population descended from ancient Greek colonists whose settlements had been sustained through the Middle Ages as outposts of the Byzantine Empire.  Catherine the Great had them forcibly resettled to the area around what came to be named Mariupol (“the city of Mary”).  Stalin, in turn, deported many of their descendants.  After his death some managed to drift back.  Given that Mariupol was the focus of such fierce fighting in 2021, one wonders what has become of the vestiges of this ancient community since the Russian occupation of that city, which, characteristically, includes deportation as mechanism of suppression.

            The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 allowed several of the peoples who were fully subjugated by the Russian imperialist program to free themselves and achieve self-determination.  It also freed the client states of the Warsaw Pact zone to determine their own political courses.  For this reason, Putin calls this event, “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century”.  Yet, for the freed peoples, it was the greatest geopolitical gift and opportunity of the previous two centuries.

            Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has decided that the catastrophe of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and Russia’s consequent loss of power, influence, and status, must be reversed.  He has been working at it slowly, in pieces, since coming to power (Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Wagner Group activities in Africa, Crimea and the Donbas, Belarus), but his February 24, 2022, full-scale invasion of Ukraine marks a turning point for him and for us.  The failure of his initial plan for swift victory in the vein of Crimea means that by political necessity he has committed himself to achieve his goals or, potentially, be killed in a “palace coup” for failing.  We, on the other hand, are faced with needing to stop him or, if Ukraine should fall, face further aggression and invasion of other former Russian territories and client states, not to mention stand by as Putin implements a harsh program of arrest, torture, and cultural genocide for the glory of his vision of Russia.  Know this: Putin will not stop with Ukraine!

            His operatives and “useful idiots” (people in the west who, by pursuing their own agendas conveniently play into Russian policy goals) are hard at work undermining support for Ukraine.  Even such an innocuous statement like, “Putin and Zelensky should be talking instead of fighting,” is “useful idiocy” for the Kremlin’s goals.  After all, any mutually agreed upon peace settlement that leaves Russia with Ukrainian territory is a win for Putin and a loss for Ukraine and its allies.  Such an agreement would also signal to Putin, that after rebuilding his military, he can have another stab at territorial expansion, perhaps gobbling up some smaller targets along the way, such as Moldova or even the Baltic states.

            The threat is existential for both Vladimir Putin and for a free Ukraine.  However, to be clear: the threat is not existential for Russia.  No one is trying to eliminate Russia or absorb it into another polity.  That is disingenuous nonsense coming from Kremlin backed propagandists.  Blaming others for the very thing that Russia is doing has been a hallmark of Putinist propaganda all along.  Putin is trying to eliminate Ukraine and absorb it into Russia.  His dismissal of Ukraine as a nation and Ukrainian as a language is of a piece with the longstanding Russian colonial policies.

            Russia will not stop unless it is stopped.  Putin will not stop unless he is stopped.  We have been put into this unenviable position by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and his greed for power, glory, and empire.  We dare not fail.