There is war in Europe, and for the first time since the Second World War, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has spilled over from a regional conflict into a major international crisis that may yet develop into full-scale war between the west and Russia. The western political class and media have presented a carefully curated narrative of unprovoked Russian aggression in what is portrayed as a war driven by the political ambition of President Vladimir Putin, and the global outrage reflects this depiction of Ukrainian heroes and Russian villains. It is an alluringly simple narrative, and it has enraged and engaged the public against Putin and Russia in a way that rivals the darkest days of the Cold War. But it is perhaps surprising that this simplistic portrayal of right and wrong in the conflict has prevailed so easily, because deep down we all know that the world is more complicated than that. And indeed, the events that have led up to the war are both numerous and complex.
Maybe the first thing to understand is that Ukraine is a country whose geography has changed a lot over the years. Almost half of its territory was added in the 20th century, mostly by decisions made by the Soviet government in Moscow. As a result, Ukraine is plagued by internal strife, and while a clear nationalist identity dominates in the west, which was historically part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the east is majority ethnic and culturally Russian. In the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan revolution, which ousted Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovych, Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea vital for Russian naval presence and which was added to Ukraine SSR in 1954, was annexed by Russia and its adoption into Russia was ratified in a referendum. A separatist war broke out in two other majority Russian eastern regions, Donbass and Luhantsk, which had been incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR in 1922. Despite international efforts to end the conflict with the signing of the so-called Minsk agreements which were to allow for significant autonomy for Donbass and Luhantsk within Ukraine, the tensions remained, and these were the two regions Russia recognised as independent in the days before the invasion.
As the east therefore felt allegiance towards Moscow, Kiev has recently been firmly focussed on coalition with the west. The governments that came to power after the revolution in 2014 were supported by America and western Europe and Ukraine gained ambition to become a member of both the EU and NATO. In 2016, NATO began deploying battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland in a clearly defiant move against Putin’s Russia and in January 2018 America sanctioned several Russian individuals and companies over links to the conflict in Donbass. A few months later, the US approved weapons sales to Ukraine for the first time, and later that year, after the largest post-USSR military exercises in Russia’s history, eight NATO countries held several major air exercises in western Ukraine.
So, tensions have been mounting ever since the pro-Russian government was ousted in 2014, and lately those tensions have intensified. Russia has postured, building an ever-increasing military presence at the Ukrainian border since early 2021 and in October, starting to move armour, missiles, and heave weaponry towards Ukraine. By December, more than 100,000 troops had taken up positions. In this tense environment, President Zelensky threatened to leave the Budapest Memorandum, which Ukraine signed in 1994 when giving up her nuclear weapons. Mr Zelensky clashed with the west over the whether an obligation exists to ensuring Ukraine’s independence and alluded to the possibility that he might seek to become a nuclear power once again. Putin, on the other hand, spoke of the need for the “demilitarisation and de-Nazification” of Ukraine. The cards had been dealt. On 21 February 2022, Putin recognised the independence of Donbass and Luhantsk and sent what he called a “peacekeeping mission” across the Ukrainian border. Three days later, Russia invaded.
While the above is surely a superficial summary, it is based on facts. But to gain a theory of exactly why the conflict ended in war and who is to blame, one must interpret those facts. The geopolitical plans of the west are aligned with Ukraine, and it is certainly convenient that they can narrate a story of the conflict in which moral actions are in step with those ambitions. Conversely, Russia’s state-controlled media can paint NATO as the aggressor and Ukraine simply as a pawn in the west’s plan to encroach far into the Russian sphere of interest. Under this narrative, the war is necessary in order to preserve Russian interest and even her long-term existence. Ukraine does have a problem with neo-Nazis, but it is not clear why it should be of particular worry to Moscow. However, the idea of a nuclear armed NATO ally on her doorstep will unquestionably have been seen by Russia as a line in the sand and given Putin a justification for war.
The main protagonist in the story, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is also more complicated than western media let on, and so is the villain, Vladimir Putin. Former comedian Mr Zelensky built his political career as something close to a western progressive, but in government his Servant of the People party has been more populist, and he has disappointed many of his backers with slow progress on issues like LGBT rights and the fight against domestic violence. When President Putin mentioned Nazis in Ukraine, he was among other things referring to the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi unit of Ukraine’s National Guard to which Mr Zelensky (a jew) is tied. Despite his modest background before entering politics, Mr Zelensky is rumoured to be worth hundreds of million USD and has been revealed to have hidden funds in offshore accounts. He is of course also a fervent nationalist, something the western left usually frown upon. The war in Donbas dragged on to a large extent because the Minsk agreement was never properly implemented and regional autonomy remained elusive. Mr Zelensky is not one for yielding Ukrainian territory, despite the lack of historical and cultural cohesion in a country whose borders are largely drawn as a result of 20th century imperialism and war.
Mr Putin is an authoritarian leader of what can be described as a corporatist economy. He presides over what is nominally a democracy, but which resorts to repression of his political opponents and censorship of the media. He has engaged in military action before, to suppress separatists in Chechnya and wage war against Georgia. He undoubtedly supported the separatists in Donbas and kept the conflict going. His view of Russia’s entitlement to regional supremacy and status as an international super-power is certainly that of an imperialist, but it one that is shared by many Russians. Writing him off as a mad-man misses the point; he faces withering criticism abroad and even at home for the Ukraine war, but so did America and Britain over Iraq. Perhaps Mr Putin is not as different from western leaders as they would like us to think.
Here is one interpretation of the facts that shouldn’t be in dispute: what has clashed in Ukraine are the incompatible geo-political ambitions of Russia and the west. America and her allies invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, and bombed Libya and Syria, when they saw what they deemed to be a direct threat to their security and political influence. Russia has now done the same in Ukraine, although it is arguable that Putin has had designs on it for a long time, security threat or not. Our hearts break for Ukraine, because the bloodshed happens on her territory, it is her cities that are being destroyed and her civilians who suffer in a way we thought we’d never see again on European soil. But it is the political significance of Ukraine that means this war has elicited a much more visceral reaction in the west than has similar conflicts in less important regions. Russia’s army is not just invading Ukraine, it is pushing back against NATO and the west. The west’s foray eastwards in the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain has seen the Baltic states and Poland entering NATO and American-backed revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, among others. In 2020, an attempt to oust the Moscow-friendly government in Belarus narrowly failed. Needless to say, this has all been seen by Russia as a clear challenge to her interests.
A complex situation like Ukraine can’t be boiled down to a one-dimensional good vs evil narrative, as prevails in the western psyche today. Surely, in a war of aggression, the brunt of responsibility lies with the aggressor. That is Russia. Ukraine is the victim, though her government can’t be exculpated for having stoked the fire by cosying up to the west and alienating Russia in the process. But in the background, America and NATO are also important players, and like Russia they are imperialist, interventionist, and driven by geo-political ambitions. The truth is certainly more complex even than that, but it is deliberate folly to fail to recognise that many actors can be argued to carry at least some of the blame for the disaster that is unfolding.