As the tension mounts to the point of making the possibility of a partial Russian attack on Ukraine credible, what does Vladimir Putin really want, beyond his explicit and maximalist demands?
He knows very well that the Atlantic Alliance is not going to sign a commitment to retreat from its positions won (without fighting) in the 1990s and 2000s, at the time of Russia’s great weakness under Boris Yeltsin – the an alcoholic “traitor” who said yes with a smile to all requests from Westerners.
It was also the time when the peoples of Poland and the Baltic countries — to name but a few — dreamed of turning their backs once and for all on a hated past, of anchoring themselves officially and definitively to the West, and to become full members of the military or political “clubs” such as NATO and the European Union as soon as possible.
What was done quickly, even expeditiously, to the great displeasure of Russia, which today, taking advantage of the weakening of Western democracies and the rise of China, would like to reverse the course of events, erect new security barriers around it. Russia, which remained the largest country in the world despite the loss of the former Soviet republics.
Moscow is therefore seeking – this is the official and explicit request – to redesign the global architecture of security in Europe. In mid-December, Vladimir Putin released two documents claiming to be nothing less than “treaty proposals”, with the United States and with NATO, full of very demanding, even unrealistic conditions. Among them: the Western Alliance should pledge never to expand further; its states bordering Russia to withdraw or reduce their military deployments; Ukraine to renounce its Western dreams and all military cooperation with the United States.
Ironically, nothing in particular has happened in 2021 to justify the sudden sense of urgency that has emerged in Moscow since last April. But a series of gestures, spectacular and effective statements have resulted in bringing the case to the top of Western concerns at the start of 2022.
What could be the undeclared objectives of the Kremlin?
In the West there is a widespread opinion that Putin not only wants to avoid the drift of Ukraine or other countries of the former USSR towards the West, but that he also wants to prevent them from achieving democratization successful.
Long uncertain nation, having lived a good part of its existence in the shadow of Russia, born with it a millennium ago, Ukraine has taken since the end of the USSR a divergent path … perceived in the Kremlin as threatening , even intolerable.
The rumor spread on Saturday by Boris Johnson’s government in London, according to which Moscow already has its men to place in power in Kiev, to replace the current anti-Russian “renegades”, may or may not be true.
But we can say that the alignment sought by Putin, on the part of Ukraine, is not just a question of state sovereignty. It is also a question of political regime, calling into question the very idea of pluralist democracy.
The head of the Kremlin does not want to be content with a strategically or militarily neutral Ukraine: he wants to keep it within his sphere of influence, with a view to “loyalty”. Hence this temptation, not so absurd seen from the Kremlin, of a “regime change” in Kiev.
The democratic question is not explicit in Putin’s demands, but is present in terms of motivations.
Moscow has always argued that pro-democracy movements in its former sphere of influence — Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003), Orange Revolution in Kyiv (2004), Maidan protests (2013-2014), post-election protests in Belarus (2020) — could never, ever be authentic and come from a civil society mobilized for change. They were necessarily foreign manipulations, seen exclusively through a geopolitical prism.
On January 19, at a press conference, Joe Biden, thinking aloud, candidly and without filter, distinguished a possible “small incursion” by the Russian army from a total invasion of Ukraine, linking the first to the certain divisions that it would not fail to cause between Western allies… Almost an invitation!
Having stepped forward as he did, and aware of these divisions, can Putin back down? But by the way, hasn’t he gotten a lot out of all the fuss already? The whole of Europe bowed to his priorities; she discusses this affair with anguish at the moment chosen by him. The United States promised him, yes sir, to respond in writing to the Kremlin’s requests.
A downgraded, second-class power is now back at the top of the stage. The idea of incorporating Ukraine into NATO? Completely taboo bet, postponed indefinitely: ask the French or the Germans what they think.
It remains to find a way for the Russians to save face and declare “victory”, and for the Europeans to maintain a fragile peace in the face of the capricious growling of the Russian bear.
François Brousseau is an international affairs columnist at Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]