Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
It is impossible to be an emperor – a czar – without an empire. Therefore, it has been impossible for Russian President Vladimir Putin to imagine himself an emperor – a czar, a Russian ruler in the tradition of Peter the Great – without suborning and then subordinating Ukraine to Russia.
Here two testimonies to the importance of Ukraine to Russia – if you believe that Russia is, or should be, an empire. The first is the statement immediately above, by Brzezinski, the recently mentioned (see my post of March 16), highly esteemed writer and presidential security advisor.
The second is by Putin himself. In a long (5,000-words) article written by him last summer, tellingly titled, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” he declared his conviction and telegraphed his intention.
Putin’s conviction is that “Russians and Ukrainians were one people.” Therefore, “the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy.” Putin justified the “historical unity” of Russians and Ukrainians by invoking the distant and recent history of the two peoples, going all the way back to the 9th century. His conclusion, then, was inevitable. “I am confident,” he wrote, “that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia…. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood dies that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.”
It is exceedingly unusual for a sitting president to pen an article of this length and depth. But by all accounts, Putin, because of his extreme fear of catching Covid, during the last two years spent much of his time alone, presumably ruminating about his place in the pantheon of Russian history. Moreover, those people to whom Putin did talk during the last two years were few in numbers, and uniformly like-minded. According to Anatol Lieven writing in the Financial Times, recently the number of people with access to Putin has “narrowed to a handful of close associates [who are] servants of the autocrat.” No wonder then that they are all committed to the idea that for “deep historical, cultural, professional and personal reasons,” Russia is a great power of which Ukraine is an inextricable, irrevocable part.
I emphasize the idea that Putin has imagined himself an emperor on a mission to reconstitute the Russian empire not to diminish the importance of other components of context. These include: the expansion of NATO; the larger global struggle between democracy and autocracy; Putin’s recent “agreement” with China’s President Xi Jinping; and Russia’s chronic inability to establish an identity beyond that of a “gas station masquerading as a country.” (This is John McCain’s still apt phrase.)
Instead, it is to stress that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was driven by a single individual, an all-powerful leader, powered by his ambition to be a leader who rules supreme. Putin will emerge from this ghastly fiasco with something he believes he can boast about. But he will never realize his dream. He will never unite Ukraine with Russia. He will never make Ukrainians and Russians “one people.” He will never have an empire. He will never be an emperor – another Russian czar.