LA GUERRA DEI GIGANTI – RUSSIA CONTRO UCRAINA

It was 11:00 in the morning; I was chatting happily with a friend. Unlike me, she is a professional reader. A true authority on fiction. As a great classic of the dystopian genre, one of the most successful of the 20th century, to which it owes no small amount of material, 1984 is certainly not a book that requires any introduction. Winston's pale London, devoid of color and full of decay, its streets animated only by the rustling of paper in the wind and the scars of war clearly visible on the facades of every building, sounded almost like a prophecy. Those mutilated streets would soon become familiar to us all.

The Russians were on their second day of offensive in Ukraine, and the gruesome casualty counts certainly didn't intend to wait until the operations themselves, which turned out to be far more extensive than anyone had anticipated. Rather than simply invading eastern Ukraine, home to the two breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, Putin launched an all-out offensive, attacking the country from every possible direction, apparently with the intent of rapidly seizing the country's nerve centers. War had returned to Europe, and the Russians had brought it there, like in a B-movie from the 1980s.

With the lure of virology having faded, at least temporarily, the world is rediscovering the relevance of political science and military strategy. Since they are certainly not lacking, either in numbers or in capabilities, we will leave the relevant sources to address the number of casualties and the numbers of displaced persons. However, we hope that, once their hunger for numbers has quenched their hunger for facts, they can stop forgetting that the Ukrainians also have an army, one that is fighting well, albeit from increasingly precarious positions.
Putin's speech

On February 23, dishonoring his country before history and the entire world, shamelessly lying for days on end about a withdrawal that never even began, Putin announced to the rest of the planet the reasons behind his decision to bloodily usher in a new era in international relations, a era in which the right to self-determination of a country whose sole misfortune was to build its capital less than half a continent away from Red Square must once again be decided by the Kremlin and its throne. If, in addition to the vagaries of geography, the country in question also finds itself suffering from some cultural continuity, past or present, with Mother Russia, and, regardless of this, dares to decide, albeit not without contradictions, to belong to the democratic camp on the political map, there can only be one solution, in the eyes of the Moscow Gendarme.

In a chilling speech that failed to fully convince even Russian citizens of the merits of a military intervention that is entirely devoid of the humanitarian and defensive motivations advanced by its proponent, Putin declared the beginning of a special military expedition, directed not against Ukraine, but against its government, guilty of neo-Nazism and genocide against Russian-speaking citizens for eight years.

With statements that only the clarity of the imagery allows us to distinguish from the histrionics of the 20th century, Putin asserted that Russia had been betrayed in its good faith; that the treaties of friendship signed with Washington in the aftermath of the collapse of communism served no purpose other than to allow the West to take advantage of the Russian people; that when Russia was weakened, NATO reneged on its own claims, advancing on Russia's borders with no regard for its security; that the Kremlin's desire to respect the sovereignty of the states that emerged from the disintegration of the USSR had been thwarted by the West's thirst for power.

Throwing one thrust after another, Putin accuses the West of disloyalty, double-dealing, and violence even against its European allies. With a final blow, he finally brings Washington down to the level of Nazi Germany; in both cases, Moscow sought to avoid war at all costs, in both cases the proposals came from the West, and in both cases betrayal followed, and the price of victory was colossal. Every nation has its totem, the historical event around which the national community manages to unite, overcoming its divisions; France has the Great Revolution, Russia the Great Patriotic War, Italy the 1982 World Cup (or the Renaissance, when it remembers it, or the Resistance, when it really tries).

With every Russian reminded of their sacred nationalism, the reason for the invasion finally comes. Submerged in this sea of half-truths, dragged along by lies and fabrications, it is stated hastily, almost implicitly, as is often done with obvious or inconvenient facts. Ukraine is not directly mentioned, but Putin speaks first of adjacent territories, and immediately afterward of our historic territories to be brought back under Russian control to prevent the creation of an anti-Russia, controlled by Washington, armed to the teeth and ready to strike the Russian people.

Ukraine, therefore, belongs to Russia, like a toenail from the glorious motherland. Ukraine is ruled by a dictatorial, illegitimate, ultranationalist, militarist, and neo-Nazi government, which seized power from the people with a coup in 2014 and maintained it through plunder and genocide—genocide of millions of people, who can only hope for help in Russia, says Putin. These genuine terrorists are actively supported by NATO, which seeks to control the country, and above all, they are preparing to strike the Russian people, including with nuclear weapons, of course.

Surprisingly, what threatens to be the most consequential debate of our time ends rather uneventfully. Far from fanning the ever-warming embers of Russian nationalism, Putin takes refuge in a mix of internationalist idealism and political gambles, asserting that even the Donbass separatists have the right to self-determination, and that war is still avoidable if the Ukrainian armed forces agree not to obstruct the special military operation, whose sole purpose is to restore order and harmony between Russians and Ukrainians and bring the criminals of the Kiev government to justice (Russian, of course). It's a shame that it is precisely among the ranks of the military that the ultranationalists and neo-Nazis whom Putin claims are the sole target of his operation are strongest and most influential...
So Putin lied across the board?

Certainly not, but that doesn't mean we can contradict Aeschylus. In war, truth is always the first casualty. And not even in the most calm discussions do we ever have the luxury of seeing only reasons on one side and only wrongs on the other; the one who is most right is the one who is right. It's true that following the fall of the USSR, Russia and the West signed treaties in which the US committed not to include Eastern European states in NATO, and it's undeniable that these commitments have not been kept, since, with the exception of Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine, all former Soviet satellites have joined the Alliance. Since NATO has always had an anti-Russian function, even Moscow's concerns about its own security cannot be said to be completely misplaced.

However, NATO has existed since 1949, and in all these years it has never attempted to offend Russia. And whatever its fears regarding the numerous exercises conducted by NATO countries close to their borders, Russia's behavior was no different as long as the Warsaw Pact existed, which, moreover, exhibited the same limitations as NATO when faced with initiatives that were not purely defensive. In the wake of September 11, in 2001 the European allies agreed to take part in the military expedition to Afghanistan, although they did not hide their skepticism towards the war on terror, which they would have preferred to conduct as an intelligence operation; however, with the sole exception of the British, they refused to support Bush Jr again in Iraq in 2003. NATO troops only set foot in Iraq after the official end of the war, as peacekeeping forces, and under a UN mandate, not Alliance resolutions. After 2003, no one can honestly say or believe that NATO can truly serve as America's armed wing. Nor, given the military budget cuts implemented by governments of all stripes in Europe over the past thirty years, is it likely that a man who has been in power for as long could truly believe that it poses an existential threat to Russia.

Regarding NATO expansion, it is true that it was initially excluded by mutual consent, through direct agreements between Russia and the United States, and that this commitment was subsequently disregarded. However, this did not occur under any imperialistic guise on the part of Washington, which would have greatly preferred not to have to undertake further military commitments in the Old Continent. If NATO expansion occurred despite the treaties, it is because the former satellites themselves requested membership in the anti-Russian alliance, fearing they had every reason to be wary of their treacherous neighbor. And if Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine did not join the Alliance, it is because they spent most of the 1990s and 2000s under the aegis of pro-Russian oligarchies who had everything to lose from their countries' entry into the Western democratic system.

And can we really believe that a consummate politician like Putin could ignore the fact that pragmatism, that is, acceptance of reality, is the only inviolable law in relations between nations? In October 1944, in Moscow, Churchill managed to negotiate with Stalin what is perhaps the most bizarre agreement in the history of international treaties. The agreement, later known as the Percentage Agreement, aimed to determine the spheres of influence of Great Britain and the Soviet Union in the Balkans by quantifying them in percentages. Romania: 90% Russia, 10% England; Greece: 10% Russia, 90% England; Yugoslavia and Hungary: 50-50; Bulgaria: 75-25. Although Stalin showed no hesitation in accepting Churchill's proposals, the agreement had no practical value because it took no account of the internal forces within the Balkan states and because it claimed to quantify an inherently abstract concept like political influence, which could be determined simply by writing it in numbers. Stalin, it is true, refrained from intervening to aid the communists in the Greek civil war, but it is also true that London was unable to exercise any real control over the country, that Hungary fell under Soviet control some time later, and that Yugoslavia seceded on its own initiative.

International treaties can influence the course of events, but they certainly cannot shape them on their own, when the political reality they are called upon to address is moving in an entirely different direction. It is difficult to truly believe that Putin could ignore the limits of treaties on NATO expansion, while his country was unable to maintain the political and military control that alone had allowed it to keep its empire afloat, or was intent on terrorizing neighboring countries with ever-expanding rearmament campaigns.

The flag flying atop the Kremlin may not have returned to its former state, but all of Putin's claims about the existence of a New Russia, intent on operating on equal footing with the states that emerged in the 1990s, can no longer confuse anyone. It's clear that the political climate within Moscow's secret chambers hasn't changed much over the past thirty years. The national anthem may have changed its verses and rhymes, but the same motifs of classic Muscovite nationalism resonate in the hearts of the old Soviet guard: any territory whose border is in any way traceable to the Russian one, whether past or present, cannot, willingly or not, call itself Russia by surname.

And so, in the space of a few hours, with a speech painstakingly prepared for months—enough to make the sheer scale of the operation clear—Putin managed to restore the right to war in Europe, accuse the attacked party of fascist imperialism, and shove in the European Union's face yet another demonstration of its political insignificance in every context other than the economy. Nice twist, tavarish. With the curtain now drawn (at least temporarily) on the pandemic, the tragedy of our time truly felt the need for a new dramatic climax, now that the old one was waning in intensity. Impeccable sense of timing.

Why did the Moscow government deem it acceptable to even embark on the unpredictable waters of war to impose its will on its former satellite? Can two rebel provinces now reduced to rubble really be of such great value to the Kremlin?

In this entire confusing affair, this is definitely the first point to clarify. Whether economic reasons, alone or in part, lie behind Putin's decision is actually of little importance. The Ukrainian economy, while overall (and despite everything) expanding, does not possess any resource that Russia lacks, especially after being deprived of Crimea.

The only thing in the vast expanses of Ukraine that could have tempted Moscow was Sevastopol, which the Kremlin promptly snapped up, not coincidentally, back in 2014. Sevastopol is a fully equipped port, with significant incoming and outgoing tonnage and, not to be underestimated, it overlooks waters accessible year-round, unlike other major ports in European Russia (St. Petersburg and Archangel). Its advanced position also allows its control to intercept most of the merchant convoys traversing the Black Sea, thereby reducing the volume of those able to flow into the ports of surrounding countries, located further back, and thus reducing not only the supply of resources to neighboring states but also the volume of taxes they collect.
Crimea's importance for trade and fiscal resources of the Black Sea countries

Not to mention the fact that Sevastopol is also a large naval base and, through Kerch, Krasnodar and Novorossiysk, is also well connected to the Caucasus, the eternal open front of Russian national security.

Aside from Crimea, of which Kiev has no longer controlled even a millimeter for years, the Ukrainian economy is practically a smaller version of the Russian one. Its leading sectors were mining and metallurgy, major construction engineering, chemicals, and agriculture, the historic flagship of Ukraine's balance of payments since ancient times. However, since the country's main economic partner was none other than dear Mother Russia, Ukrainian industry was unable to compete with that of EU countries. The events of 2014, with the occupation of Crimea and the Donbas uprising, triggered a complex economic crisis, the effects of which persist to this day.

To a shadow economy that already, in its heyday, accounted for approximately 40% of the national GDP, the Donbas rebellion added a roughly 40% drop in industrial production and exports. Donetsk and Lugansk, in fact, were key hubs of Ukrainian trade routes, as well as two of the country's main manufacturing centers. Thus, after a period of at times rapid growth, beginning in 2000, largely due to the low price of Russian gas, the 2008 financial crisis and then the 2014 political crisis pushed Ukraine back into a severe recession.
Ukraine's GDP in millions of euros between 1996 and 2019

So, even if we wanted to, there's very little left to steal. All that remains is considerable political capital, the realization of a vision. In Putin's eyes, and certainly in those of many other Russians, even within Ukraine's borders, Ukraine, though distinct from Russia, belongs to it, because it shares a common Orthodox and pan-Slavic destiny. This is what is commonly understood when referring to Russian nationalism: the firm belief of Russians that they are the chosen people to lead the Slavs and Eurasian peoples to conquer a leading place among the world's great nations. In short, Putin wants Ukraine's reunification with Russia, simply because, in his view, that's where Ukraine belongs. All other strategic considerations, while necessary, take second place to this idealism, which we can certainly define as imperialistic. The Tsarist and Soviet past have certainly provided concrete precedents for this vision, but ultimately it draws its own justification from itself; it is, in fact, a belief rooted in Russian culture since its very beginnings, and certainly also encouraged by Russia's geography itself, with its vast expanses devoid of clear borders and secure shelters.

Rather than political relations between the two nations, which for centuries have been filtered by the interests of foreign powers (such as the Mongol Khanates and the Grand Duchy of Poland-Lithuania), the curious should focus their attention on the evolution of Russian culture. They would discover, for example, that Gogol, despite being born and raised in Ukraine, wrote all of his works in Russian, and for this reason has always been considered a Russian writer. And anyone traveling through Ukrainian cities would quickly realize that very often there is no continuity between the spoken language and feelings of national belonging; east of the Dnieper, the Russian language and culture are very strong, yet only half the citizens of the oblasts (provinces) of Donetsk and Lugansk rebelled against Kiev, demanding annexation to Russia. Not to mention that the majority of the population speaks both Russian and Ukrainian fluently from a very young age, often having relatives of both languages. Therefore, drawing a clear distinction between the two nationalities is not at all simple; what can be said is only that there is a Ukraine more similar to Central Europe and another more similar to Russia—that is, differences exist, but, outside of strictly political issues, it is not really possible to discuss borders and perimeters.

These cultural motivations, however, risk obscuring another, equally present, and specifically political one: Putin's personal dream of putting his signature to the restoration of the national imperial system; his desire to carve out a place for himself in the pantheon of Russian history alongside Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, and Stalin as the restorer of his country's international power.

Despite freeing itself from Russian political control following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukrainian independence never established itself on solid foundations. Russia's state of disarray in the 1990s was such that it prevented any real projection of influence, even over states very close to it in terms of geography, culture, and economic interests. The internal affairs of Russia and Ukraine remained extremely similar even after 1991. Just as had occurred in Russia, the collapse of the communist power system in the 1990s—centered on the banning of all other political parties, the superimposition of party institutions over those of the state, and the iron grip of the economy by the political establishment—came almost overnight, wreaking havoc across the country. As in Russia, Ukraine was forced to privatize its major enterprises, all previously managed by the state, which was no longer able to control them or guarantee the funds necessary for their continued operation. Since no real market had ever existed in socialist countries, no one in Ukraine possessed the capital necessary to gain control of the old state-owned industries, which would then fall under the control of foreigners (or of the criminal underworld, which, operating outside the legal economy, had long since created its own market system). Corruption, endemic in every socialist regime (as in every system in which appointments and favors are the only ways out of precariousness), and the need to ensure some form of continuity for the national economic system, completely incapable of withstanding the penetration of Western economies but deemed indispensable to guarantee the satisfaction of the basic needs of a population too poor to rely on Western products, pushed Ukraine to adopt the same choice as Russia: the oligarchic system.

The absence of Russian influence was not, in fact, a situation destined to last. As soon as Putin consolidated his power and restored order in Russia, the Kremlin's eyes turned again toward Ukraine, rapacious as ever. With Russia returning to the international stage after a decade of chaos, the question of independence from Moscow only truly arose for Kiev in the 2000s.
Viktor Yushchenko

The improving economic situation resulting from the reforms of previous years, and the example of other former Soviet satellites, which were rapidly gaining acceptance within the EU, also pushed Ukraine toward a determined Westernization. Although the economy and politics were only partially liberalized, the polls confirmed the pro-European perspective in 2010, when they elected the pro-Western Yushchenko, a former senior official at the country's central bank, as president.

The economic difficulties that began to grip Ukraine in 2008, when the international financial crisis erupted in the country, pushed the electorate, especially those culturally most tied to Russia, towards more conservative positions. Thus, in 2010, the pro-Russian Yanukovych won acclaim at the polls, with a theoretically pro-European program that, however, the new president denied in practice, day after day, tying the Ukrainian economy ever more closely to Russia.
The results of the 2010 presidential election. The constituencies where the pro-Western candidate prevailed are in orange, those won by the pro-Russian candidate are in blue. The results closely reflect the country's ethnic divisions.

In January 2014, dissent from the population, impoverished and completely ignored by the government, erupted in a series of street protests that quickly degenerated into open revolt. Yanukovych fled to Russia, and power passed to Poroshenko, a well-established businessman and staunch Euro-Atlanticist.

The de facto deposition of Yanukovych, who had obtained a legitimately democratic political mandate from the country's Russian-speaking minorities, and the decidedly anti-Russian stance taken by the new government in power spread demonstrations of discontent throughout southern and eastern Ukraine, where Russian-speaking minorities are most numerous. In March, Crimea, a predominantly Russian-speaking country, decided to secede from Ukraine.

Putin was not caught unprepared and within a few weeks took military control of the peninsula, allowing it to vote in a controversial referendum (the results of which were recognized only by Moscow) on its secession from Ukraine and unification with the Russian Federation.
A few months later, encouraged by the success of Crimea and the weapons promised by the Kremlin, the Russian-speaking people of Donbass also declared independence. This time, Kiev was able to react promptly; however, the government's attempt to quell the rebellion failed, and Ukraine's eastern districts plunged into a bloody civil war, which, thanks to the Kremlin's active participation, dragged on until last February.