Both the population and the elites of Ukraine want a lasting peace with Russia more than anyone else in the world. So why is Kyiv not at the forefront of finding a compromise with Moscow? What is the reason for Ukraine’s apparent refusal to cooperate or even reckless obstructionism?

From Ukraine’s perspective, Russia’s current war against Ukraine is both too typical and too extraordinary to end simply through negotiations. It is typical of the Russian war that it fits into a long historical and regional broad pattern of behavior of Russia in its border territories. The extraordinary thing about Russia’s war is that it concerns not only Ukrainian territory. Oddly enough, from Moscow’s point of view, Ukraine is also a Russian identity. Both the typicality and the exceptional character of the Russian war — that is, the continuation of a broader pathology and the special significance for Russia itself — mean that a quick and stable peace with Moscow is impossible. The majority of Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans, at least now, do not believe in a lasting truce.

Russia, recidivist

The current Russian war is not Moscow’s first attack on the Ukrainian people, and it is not the Kremlin’s only current expansionist operation in the former Russian Empire. From their own past, as well as from the history and present of their neighbors, Ukrainians have learned that Moscow cannot be trusted. As long as the Russian state exists in its current state, according to Ukrainian historical experience and comparative analysis, it will not go to honest negotiations and will not sign a truly strong peace treaty.

Imperial aspirations in the traditions of the Russian state are too strong to allow for a meaningful and lasting ceasefire. The centuries-old expansionist impulse in Moscow’s strategic culture may also survive a democratic change in the Russian political regime. This happened, for example, after the First Russian Republic in February-October 1917 and the Second Russian Republic in 1991-1999.

Unlike many outside observers, most Ukrainian and other Central and Eastern European politicians, experts and diplomats do not consider the current Russian-Ukrainian war to be Putin’s obsession. Instead, the war is seen by elites in Central and Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, and to some extent in Central Asia, as just the latest episode in a long series of conventional military conquests and Russian hybrids spanning centuries. Ukrainians and other peoples formerly subject to the Russian empires—the Moscow, Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet—were subjected to similar invasions, sometimes with similar justifications. Russia’s current aggression is the latest manifestation of Moscow’s centuries-old colonial policy and imperial expansion.

In February 2022, many outside observers were puzzled by Putin’s claim that Moscow’s large-scale attack on the Ukrainian state—with its Jewish president—was motivated by Russia’s concern about fascism in Kyiv and was aimed at “denazifying” Ukraine. On the contrary, many residents of Eastern and Central Europe were already familiar with Russian claims that their governments or even entire elites were fascist. For example, almost exactly thirty years before the escalation in Ukraine, in 1992, the Russian 14th Army intervened militarily in the internal Moldovan conflict.

The commander of the 14th Army at the time, the legendary and now deceased Russian general Oleksandr Lebid, justified the illegal intervention of his troops in a foreign country with a statement that preceded Putin’s 2022 lie. Lebid told a press conference in 1992 reports that the new government of the young Republic of Moldova in Chisinau had behaved worse than the German SS 50 years earlier. The open military intervention of the Russian regular troops of Lebed led to the final split in Moldova.

The remnants of the Russian 14th Army, the so-called operational group of the Russian Federation, are still on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, recognized by Moscow as uninvited guests. The Russian-Moldovan treaty on the withdrawal of troops in 1994 did not change anything in this regard. The fact that in 1994 the Republic of Moldova declared itself non-aligned in Article 11 of its new constitution did not help Chisinau either, thereby ruling out NATO membership. Despite Russia’s promise to withdraw its troops and the neutral status of the Republic of Moldova since then, Moscow’s unwanted deployment of troops and state division of the Republic of Moldova continue to this day.

Colonialism before and after Putin

This Moldovan episode in 1992-1994—a relatively pro-Western and liberal period in recent Russian history when Vladimir Putin was a political nobody in St. Petersburg—illustrates a larger problem. It does not matter – at least from the perspective of Central and Eastern Europe – whether Putin will be in power in the future. Nor does it matter whether the Russian regime is democratic, totalitarian, monarchical, oligarchic, or whatever: Moscow’s expansionist streak is likely to continue. Many Western analysts would reject such ethnohistorical determinism as unscientific. However, this gloomy assessment is common to the nations surrounding the Russian Federation, and even to some within the Russian Federation.

Russian colonialism and expansionism were repeatedly demonstrated to the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia in dozens of often bloody invasions in different historical periods. This happened under different circumstances and with different justifications and results. Moscow’s armed interventions were mostly aimed at asserting or securing Russian imperial power. In the period leading up to 2022, Russian so-called “special operations” (special operations) or “clearances” (clearances) suppressed and sometimes destroyed local groups fighting for independence. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is the latest manifestation of a longer and broader trend.

Such historical memories exist not only in Ukraine, but also in the entire post-communist world. Against this background, the desire for a significant ceasefire with Moscow looks not only unstrategic, but even senseless. Of course, Putin and Co. or their successors may at some point decide to engage in political dialogue and make a mockery of constructive negotiations. The Kremlin may even be interested in signing a cease-fire agreement and implementing confidence-building measures.

However, such behavior on the part of Russia, which will be widely suspected in the post-Soviet world, would serve only instrumental purposes. It would be a temporary tactical retreat to regroup and rearm the troops. Over time, Moscow will assert its cross-border dominance, power and hegemony with new strength. If necessary, the Kremlin will do so again with military force and mass terror against the civilian population.

Psychopathology of Russia vis-a-vis Ukraine

Regarding Ukraine, Russian aggression is particularly brutal and uncompromising. Mainstream Russian nationalism does not recognize Ukrainian identity and culture as truly and independently national. He considers Ukrainian traditions and the Ukrainian language as a kind of local folklore — not equal, but subordinate to the Russian people and high culture. This obvious disregard has its roots not only and not so much in the arrogance of Moscow. Rather, it is an expression of Russia’s inferiority complex in relation to Ukrainians as an older — more deeply Christian-Orthodox, more clearly defined and distinctly European — “sister nation” of the Eastern Slavs.

Ukrainian nationalism and Ukrainian statehood have no right to exist in the opinion of a significant part of the Russian elite and population. Their simple tolerance is blasphemy. Ukrainian territories, with the partial exception of Western Ukraine, are “Malorossiysk Krai” or “Novorossiysk Krai”, in Russian “Malorossiya” and “Novorossiya”. Moscow’s war in Ukraine cannot be a real war. This is only a special operation within Great Russia.

Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans know about this and other similar Russian pathologies. Even if Russian Ukrainophobia falls short of the liquidating anti-Semitism of the Nazis, Moscow’s agenda is ultimately genocidal, leaving little room for compromise. Even if Kyiv is so interested in ending the war in the future that it is ready to make appropriate concessions, it is unclear what long-term compromise can be reached with Moscow. Ukraine will probably have to submit to Russia’s demands with many consequences, as was the case with the infamous Minsk Agreements of 2014-2015. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro.ro