Why Russia will never let go of Ukraine

Hitler’s War on Russia by Paul Carrel (1967) in two volumes describes the German offensive, ‘Operation Barbarossa’ against the erstwhile Soviet Union during the 2^nd World War. One of the fatal decisions taken by Hitler during the course of this campaign was to divert Army Group Centre (AGC), initially poised towards Moscow, later towards Kiev in Ukraine. The almost month-long diversion is said to be critical to the German campaign, as the approaching winter upset German timeframe and plans.

Historians to this day debate the sagacity of this decision being central to the loss of German Wehrmacht at the gates of Moscow. Hitler cited Ukrainian grains and Romanian oil, both central to German war economy, for the diversion. He is famously quoted as lamenting his generals’ inability to comprehend this; as they mostly and unsuccessfully opposed the diversion.

Ukraine, then a Soviet Socialist Republic, under its vastness had imposed a ‘strategic overstretch’ on Wehrmacht, the most efficient war machine on planet earth, sapping its energies in battles of encirclement. Hitler, having lost faith in encirclement battles, as more Soviet soldiers managed to escape the encircling pincers, decided to defeat the Soviet Union by economic means. So, he aimed for the industrial centre of Kharkov and the Donbas Region in Ukraine and the oil fields of Romania and Caucasus. Hence, the fateful decision of swinging half of AGC to the south towards Kiev. In 1812, Napoleon’s Grande Armée had also floundered on the vast Ukrainian steppe, west of Moscow. In retrospect, geo-militarily speaking, Ukraine has traditionally provided the proverbial ‘strategic depth’ to the Russian state.

On geo-economic matrices, Ukraine has traditionally been breadbasket to mainland Russia, which had historically struggled with food shortages. Most recently, Russia was Ukraine’s largest trading partner. In 2020, Ukrainian exports were at $2.71 billion and its imports from Russia stood at $4.55 billion, even after the slump induced by fighting in Donbas. Both Russia and Ukraine provide a quarter of global wheat exports. However, since 2015, Ukrainian exports were declining.

Natural gas is Ukraine’s biggest import and mainly responsible for country’s trade deficit. And through a complex network of trunk and branch pipelines into three transit corridors, Ukraine imports gas from Russia and Belarus for local consumption, as well as export to Europe, in return for $3 billion annually in royalty.

Prior to the 2014 war in Donbas, Ukrainian defence industry was the 4^th largest arms exporter globally (2012), providing Pakistan with its latest tank, T-80 UD; India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey being other principal clients. In Soviet times, Ukraine accounted for 30% of Soviet defence production and 40% R&D in some 1,840 industrial centres. Most Soviet ICBMs were built in Dnipro Plant in Ukraine, besides its only aircraft carrier. At independence in 1991, Ukraine inherited the 3^rd largest nuclear arsenal after the US and Russia, with 176 missiles (with thousands of tactical and around 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads) deployed across the Country. Ukraine later agreed to remove them in exchange for security assurances.

Russia has historic claims over Kiev as the birthplace of Rus, the first modern Russian state in 9^th century. Ukraine has been part of Soviet Russia and, thereafter, the Russian Commonwealth (CIS). Today “one in six Ukrainians is actually an ethnic Russian; one in three speaks Russian as their native language”. Others speak Ukrainian. Most Ukrainian media is in Russian.

While, eastern Donbas Region is mainly Russian speaking and pro Russia; the western part bordering Eastern Europe is more pro-West/pro-NATO, creating internal fissures. Russia is accused of historical subjugation by western Ukraine, and loved for shared heritage and history by the eastern half. Ukraine, in Russian imagination is Rusi with centuries-old linguistic, demographic, cultural, historic and economic ties; despite the somewhat rebellious behaviour of its western half, led astray by allure of US/Europe. And Russia accuses genocide/war crimes in Donbas, ever since Ukrainian government troops started fighting the Russian-backed rebels.

Political situation in Ukraine came to a boil point in 2013 in the “Euromaidan” anti-government protests in Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square). The ostensible reason was rejection of a deal to integrate Ukraine economically with EU by pro-Moscow President Yanukovych, considered corrupt, autocratic and Russian protégé. He instead opted for a $15 billion bailout from Russia to salvage Ukraine’s deeply troubled economy. President Yanukovych was forced to step down.

In Russia’s security calculus, NATO had assimilated most erstwhile Soviet-era satellite states/socialist republics, from Baltics to Finland to Poland to Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia. Moscow had been uncomfortable by NATO’s chokehold around Russia proper. Since 2016, NATO maintains four fully operational multinational battlegroups — called “enhanced forward presence” — in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. And over 5,000 US/European troops work closely with the Baltic nations’ defence forces.

The deployment of ‘Aegis’ ballistic missile defence in Romania is another contentious issue. NATO claims it to be defensive (to intercept missiles from outside the Euro-Atlantic region i.e Iran, etc); citing technical parameters, that Russia claims can be altered to make the system offensive. Moreover, the US since 2009 continues to deploy nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands under NATO-sharing policy, directed solely at Russia. Putin has also accused Ukraine of trying to go nuclear.

Some analysts argue that NATO, established explicitly for containment of Soviet Union, should have, technically speaking, disbanded like Warsaw Pact, after the collapse of the USSR. It did not, finding new life in the war on terrorism, by overstretching the threat to Europe. It instead expanded towards Eastern Europe despite commitments to Russia and against France and Germany’s muted reservations. George W Bush Administrations ignored such provocations to Russia.

As Nancy Qian correctly points, there is an ‘asymmetry’ between the cost Russia is willing/able to pay to prevent the collapse of Russia’s western buffer (Ukraine and Belarus) versus the cost that NATO can endure. And Putin’s level of motivation to prevent this should by now be clear to the US/West. He consistently made his ‘security concerns’ clear to those willing to listen.

So, realistically if unfortunately, Mr Zelensky, the Jewish President of Ukraine, needs to read the situation correctly, to save his nation from unnecessary destruction, rather than regurgitating his pro-West, anti-Russia defiance. America, with ‘no’ appetite for another foreign war, has a history of abandonment.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2022.

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