1.
The war was not an
ideological one of liberalism on one side and robber capitalism on the other,
nor of nice democratic people versus evil Russian mafia, nor of any blueprint
for a Greater Russia.
Rather, the war started due to NATO / EU blunders, Russian-speaking peoples' opportunism, and the balance of power. Putin was a traditional European statesman wanting a little respect for his country, he "simply leaned on the door hoping to gain entrance and the whole house fell in". Putin's homophobia was not unique, he merely took advantage of the mood throughout Eastern Europe.
Russia had always been an element in European politics since 1812. It was perhaps the richest country in the world for all sorts of natural resources. The Cold War that ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union was also started due to blunders, opportunism and misperceptions emanating from the security and defence dilemmas. Putin's revanchism had constant and large majority support in Russia.
Merkel and Hollande who negotiated Minsk-Munich pursued their own national interests. Ukraine's constitution was not popular in its Eastern regions. Kiev was weak, corrupt, and elitist, and Ukraine itself was an artificial construct. The pervading religions of "democracy" and "national self-determination" over-ruled diplomatic contracts like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the April 2014 Geneva Accord, the Minsk Protocol of September 2014, and later Article 5 of the NATO Constitution in favour of the Russian-speakers in first Crimea, then Eastern Ukraine and finally the Baltics who dog-whistled "discrimination" and "racism" and "human rights" against their governments.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Postscript post-bellum: the war trials in Kiev in October 2021 that convicted Putin’s oligarchs were convenient for the victors and hid the blame for the war, let Russian-speakers avoid any responsibility, and created a situation whereby West Russia was rehabilitated as a respectable Third Cold War ally against a China wanting revenge for the Western Imperialism of the 1800s.
Rather, the war started due to NATO / EU blunders, Russian-speaking peoples' opportunism, and the balance of power. Putin was a traditional European statesman wanting a little respect for his country, he "simply leaned on the door hoping to gain entrance and the whole house fell in". Putin's homophobia was not unique, he merely took advantage of the mood throughout Eastern Europe.
Russia had always been an element in European politics since 1812. It was perhaps the richest country in the world for all sorts of natural resources. The Cold War that ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union was also started due to blunders, opportunism and misperceptions emanating from the security and defence dilemmas. Putin's revanchism had constant and large majority support in Russia.
Merkel and Hollande who negotiated Minsk-Munich pursued their own national interests. Ukraine's constitution was not popular in its Eastern regions. Kiev was weak, corrupt, and elitist, and Ukraine itself was an artificial construct. The pervading religions of "democracy" and "national self-determination" over-ruled diplomatic contracts like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the April 2014 Geneva Accord, the Minsk Protocol of September 2014, and later Article 5 of the NATO Constitution in favour of the Russian-speakers in first Crimea, then Eastern Ukraine and finally the Baltics who dog-whistled "discrimination" and "racism" and "human rights" against their governments.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Postscript post-bellum: the war trials in Kiev in October 2021 that convicted Putin’s oligarchs were convenient for the victors and hid the blame for the war, let Russian-speakers avoid any responsibility, and created a situation whereby West Russia was rehabilitated as a respectable Third Cold War ally against a China wanting revenge for the Western Imperialism of the 1800s.
2.
After the annexation of
Crimea and the creation of the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples' Republics, EU
countries resisted calls to put industry on a war footing, convinced that such
an action would persuade Putin that Europe had decided to abandon negotiations.
Despite Putin's relative quietness as Russia shored up the former provinces of Ukraine, NATO leaders made trips to the capitals of Europe hoping to incite the EU to stronger sanctions while also to relaunch negotiations, to which Russia agreed. However, public revulsion over “Pogrom Noch” of gays in Russia during the negotiations while the Western world were celebrating numerous gay pride events made any attempt at a rapprochement with Putin publicly unacceptable.
This was followed soon after when Russia intervened in the other provinces of Ukraine to quell the violence that had broken out between pro- and anti-Russian Ukrainians from Kharkiv in the North (where 63.1% of the population were Russian-speaking), through Kirovohrad in the Centre of Ukraine (34.64%) to Mykolaiv (66.33%), Kherson (47.21%), Melitopol (42.8%), Dnipropetrovsk, (41.78%) in the East, and Odessa in the South-West (49.09%). The British Prime Minister wondered publicly whether this move into half of all Ukraine was "the end of an old adventure, or the beginning of a new".
NATO nations then reasserted the interlocking series of defence pacts with the Baltic States aswell as with Kiev as a means of deterring Putin from war, that they would lend Ukraine all possible aid in the event of any action which threatened Kiev’s independence.
Merkel and Hollande then accepted an offer of negotiations with Chairman of the Lugansk Supreme Soviet Aleksey Karyakin and Chairman of the Donetsk People's Soviet Andrei Purgin, who offered not to aid Russia in any further annexation of Ukraine. Although Merkel and Hollande themselves were reluctant to seek a military alliance with Lugansk and Donetsk, distrusting Karyakin and Purgin ideologically, much of their governments favoured negotiations. The talks dragged on and eventually foundered on 14 August.
A week after the failure of these talks Lugansk, Russia, Crimea and Donetsk signed the Karyakin-Lavrov-Aksenov-Purgin (KLAP) Pact which committed the countries to non-aggression toward each other. A secret agreement divided up Western Ukraine and the Baltics in the event of war. Merkel and Hollande had dismissed rumours of such a deal, and pooh-poohed the publicly announced pact stating that it in no way affected EU (and NATO) obligations toward Ukraine and the Baltics. To this end, on 23 August the NATO Secretary General and EU Commissioner jointly delivered a letter to Putin telling him that the EU and NATO were fully prepared to live up to their obligations to Ukraine and the Baltics. Putin straightway instructed his generals to prepare for an assault on Kiev, telling them, "Our enemies are small worms. I saw them at Minsk-Munich."
In the early hours of 1 September 2015 Russia marched into Western Ukraine and the Baltics. By nightfall T-90 tanks were trundling down the tree-lined avenues of Talinn, Riga and Vilnius, and had the outskirts of Kiev in their scopes.
On the third day of the Russian campaign, a Special BBC Outside Broadcast relayed live at 11.15am to the world these words of a Special Convention of NATO and EU Heads of State held in Number 10 Downing Street: “We are speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. This morning we handed the Russian Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Ukraine, a state of war would exist between us. We have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently the EU and NATO are at war with Russia.”
Despite Putin's relative quietness as Russia shored up the former provinces of Ukraine, NATO leaders made trips to the capitals of Europe hoping to incite the EU to stronger sanctions while also to relaunch negotiations, to which Russia agreed. However, public revulsion over “Pogrom Noch” of gays in Russia during the negotiations while the Western world were celebrating numerous gay pride events made any attempt at a rapprochement with Putin publicly unacceptable.
This was followed soon after when Russia intervened in the other provinces of Ukraine to quell the violence that had broken out between pro- and anti-Russian Ukrainians from Kharkiv in the North (where 63.1% of the population were Russian-speaking), through Kirovohrad in the Centre of Ukraine (34.64%) to Mykolaiv (66.33%), Kherson (47.21%), Melitopol (42.8%), Dnipropetrovsk, (41.78%) in the East, and Odessa in the South-West (49.09%). The British Prime Minister wondered publicly whether this move into half of all Ukraine was "the end of an old adventure, or the beginning of a new".
NATO nations then reasserted the interlocking series of defence pacts with the Baltic States aswell as with Kiev as a means of deterring Putin from war, that they would lend Ukraine all possible aid in the event of any action which threatened Kiev’s independence.
Merkel and Hollande then accepted an offer of negotiations with Chairman of the Lugansk Supreme Soviet Aleksey Karyakin and Chairman of the Donetsk People's Soviet Andrei Purgin, who offered not to aid Russia in any further annexation of Ukraine. Although Merkel and Hollande themselves were reluctant to seek a military alliance with Lugansk and Donetsk, distrusting Karyakin and Purgin ideologically, much of their governments favoured negotiations. The talks dragged on and eventually foundered on 14 August.
A week after the failure of these talks Lugansk, Russia, Crimea and Donetsk signed the Karyakin-Lavrov-Aksenov-Purgin (KLAP) Pact which committed the countries to non-aggression toward each other. A secret agreement divided up Western Ukraine and the Baltics in the event of war. Merkel and Hollande had dismissed rumours of such a deal, and pooh-poohed the publicly announced pact stating that it in no way affected EU (and NATO) obligations toward Ukraine and the Baltics. To this end, on 23 August the NATO Secretary General and EU Commissioner jointly delivered a letter to Putin telling him that the EU and NATO were fully prepared to live up to their obligations to Ukraine and the Baltics. Putin straightway instructed his generals to prepare for an assault on Kiev, telling them, "Our enemies are small worms. I saw them at Minsk-Munich."
In the early hours of 1 September 2015 Russia marched into Western Ukraine and the Baltics. By nightfall T-90 tanks were trundling down the tree-lined avenues of Talinn, Riga and Vilnius, and had the outskirts of Kiev in their scopes.
On the third day of the Russian campaign, a Special BBC Outside Broadcast relayed live at 11.15am to the world these words of a Special Convention of NATO and EU Heads of State held in Number 10 Downing Street: “We are speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. This morning we handed the Russian Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Ukraine, a state of war would exist between us. We have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently the EU and NATO are at war with Russia.”
3.
After Ukraine was put to
the sword, cut off completely from the Black Sea and severed of its Eastern and
Southern regions, Merkel and Hollande felt that Putin's word could not be
trusted. They decided to change tack, and would meet any further unilateral
Russian expansion with force. They feared that the next target for Russia’s
further expansion would naturally be the Baltic States. Their populations were
a quarter Russian-speaking settled there from the Soviet era, and their agitations
for human rights had been growing ever since the global financial crisis.
Especially vulnerable was Lithuania, whose territory blocked access to the
headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet and economic powerhouse Kaliningrad.
During Putin’s era, Kaliningrad had become Russia's best performing regional economy and "the Russian Hong Kong", supplying finance, technology and manufacturing for the rest of the Russian economy. For two decades Kaliningrad had led the "We are Russians" programme, and had been the home town for many top Russian footballers, Olympic athletes, media personalities, and pop stars. But it was cut off from the rest of Russia, like Danzig an exclave and completely surrounded by Poland and Lithuania, and accessible through them by road, rail and air by costly visas, transit taxes and tolls, or too slowly by lumbering ferry via the Baltic Sea to St Petersburg.
Kaliningrad was to become the Third World War's immediate trigger.
After taking power, the Putin government made efforts to establish friendly relations with Lithuania and the Baltics. Because of the Soviet era legacy of a unified industrial and governmental infrastructure and of ethnic, linguistic and cultural ties of the Baltics with Belarus and Russia, Putin made constant and regular overtures to each of the Baltics to join an extended Commonwealth of Independent States. There were regular summits and conferences, and in early 2015, because of the tumult in nearby Ukraine, they started negotiations for a Non Aggression Pact also sponsored by Germany and France though not by the EU or NATO. When these talks foundered in mutual recriminations, Presidents Putin and Lukashenko signed the P&L Pact of Non Aggression. Secretly they also agreed to parcel up the Baltics between them in the event of war.
In April 2015, Russia and Belarus jointly claimed extra-territoriality for “The Kaliningrad Corridor” of road, rail and air routes from Minsk through Southern Lithuania (where most of the Lithuanian Russian speakers lived) and through North Eastern Poland and on into Kaliningrad, in exchange for giving territory from Belarus to both Lithuania and Poland, Favoured Trading Nation Status with Russia and Belarus and a 25-year non-aggression pact. Both Poland and Lithuania refused, fearing subjugation as Russian client states, and further Russian demands in the future. Lukashenko then withdrew the claim on Poland’s territory in exchange for Polish support of his demand on Lithuania. On the 23rd of August 2015, Putin delivered an ultimatum to Lithuania on extra-territoriality to be accepted by the 31st,, citing in addition the humanitarian need to "liberate" the Russian minority still in the Corridor, as well as Kaliningrad from its exclave status and economic stranglehold that both Poland and especially Lithuania had over the Oblast. T90 tanks rolled into Lithuania at 4.45am the next day.
During Putin’s era, Kaliningrad had become Russia's best performing regional economy and "the Russian Hong Kong", supplying finance, technology and manufacturing for the rest of the Russian economy. For two decades Kaliningrad had led the "We are Russians" programme, and had been the home town for many top Russian footballers, Olympic athletes, media personalities, and pop stars. But it was cut off from the rest of Russia, like Danzig an exclave and completely surrounded by Poland and Lithuania, and accessible through them by road, rail and air by costly visas, transit taxes and tolls, or too slowly by lumbering ferry via the Baltic Sea to St Petersburg.
Kaliningrad was to become the Third World War's immediate trigger.
After taking power, the Putin government made efforts to establish friendly relations with Lithuania and the Baltics. Because of the Soviet era legacy of a unified industrial and governmental infrastructure and of ethnic, linguistic and cultural ties of the Baltics with Belarus and Russia, Putin made constant and regular overtures to each of the Baltics to join an extended Commonwealth of Independent States. There were regular summits and conferences, and in early 2015, because of the tumult in nearby Ukraine, they started negotiations for a Non Aggression Pact also sponsored by Germany and France though not by the EU or NATO. When these talks foundered in mutual recriminations, Presidents Putin and Lukashenko signed the P&L Pact of Non Aggression. Secretly they also agreed to parcel up the Baltics between them in the event of war.
In April 2015, Russia and Belarus jointly claimed extra-territoriality for “The Kaliningrad Corridor” of road, rail and air routes from Minsk through Southern Lithuania (where most of the Lithuanian Russian speakers lived) and through North Eastern Poland and on into Kaliningrad, in exchange for giving territory from Belarus to both Lithuania and Poland, Favoured Trading Nation Status with Russia and Belarus and a 25-year non-aggression pact. Both Poland and Lithuania refused, fearing subjugation as Russian client states, and further Russian demands in the future. Lukashenko then withdrew the claim on Poland’s territory in exchange for Polish support of his demand on Lithuania. On the 23rd of August 2015, Putin delivered an ultimatum to Lithuania on extra-territoriality to be accepted by the 31st,, citing in addition the humanitarian need to "liberate" the Russian minority still in the Corridor, as well as Kaliningrad from its exclave status and economic stranglehold that both Poland and especially Lithuania had over the Oblast. T90 tanks rolled into Lithuania at 4.45am the next day.
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