Why Putin's pov was wrong, wrong wrong from the beginning.

Sun Mar 20 12:22:21 UTC 2022

OPINION
<https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion>

GUEST ESSAY
Putin Made a Profound Miscalculation on Ukraine
March 19, 2022
Credit...Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva

   - Give this article
   -
   -
   - 577
   -

By Yaroslav Hrytsak

Dr. Hrytsak is a Ukrainian historian and a professor at the Ukrainian
Catholic University.

LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine is once again at the center of a potentially global
conflict. World War I, as the historian Dominic Lieven put it, “turned on
the fate of Ukraine.” World War II, according to the legendary journalist
Edgar Snow, was “first of all a Ukrainian war
<http://www.ucrdc.org/Film-Hitler_annotated.html#:~:text=In%201945%20American%20war%20correspondent,of%20all%20a%20Ukrainian%20war.>.”
Now the threat of a third world war hinges on what could happen in Ukraine.

It’s a striking repetition. Why has Ukraine, a midsize country of 40
million people on the eastern edge of Europe, been at the epicenter of
warfare not once, not twice, but three times?

Part of the answer, at least, is geographical. Set between Russia and
Germany, Ukraine has long been viewed as the site of struggle for the
domination of the continent. But the deeper reasons are historical in
nature. Ukraine, which has a common origin point with Russia, has developed
differently over the course of centuries, diverging in crucial ways from
its neighbor to the east.

President Vladimir Putin likes to invoke history as part of the reason for
his bloody invasion. Ukraine and Russia, he asserts
<http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181>, are in fact one
country: Ukraine, in effect, doesn’t exist. This, of course, is entirely
wrong. But he is right to think history holds a key to understanding the
present. He just doesn’t realize that far from enabling his success, it’s
what will thwart him.

ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/opinion/ukraine-russia-putin-history.html#after-story-ad-1>

In 1904 an English geographer named Halford John Mackinder
<https://www.britannica.com/biography/Halford-Mackinder>made a bold
prediction. In an article titled “The Geographical Pivot of History,” he
suggested that whoever controlled Eastern Europe would control the world.
On either side of this vast region were Russia and Germany, poised to do
battle. And in between was Ukraine, with its rich resources of grain, coal
and oil.

There’s no need to go into the finer details of Mackinder’s theory; it had
its flaws. Yet it proved extremely influential after World War I and became
something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thanks to the Nazi geopolitician
Karl Haushofer, the concept migrated
<https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-express/20061023/281754149816414> into
Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” Lenin and Stalin had not read Mackinder but acted as
if they had. For them, Ukraine was the bridge that would carry the Russian
Revolution westward into Germany, making it a world revolution. The path to
conflict again ran through Ukraine.

The war, when it came, was catastrophic: In Ukraine, around seven million
<http://www.infoukes.com/history/ww2/page-18.html> perished. In the
aftermath, Ukraine was sealed up in the Soviet Union, and the question for
a time seemed settled. With the collapse of Communism, many believed that
Mackinder’s thesis was outdated and the future belonged to independent and
sovereign states, free from the ambitions of bigger neighbors. They were
wrong.

Mackinder’s argument — that Eastern Europe and Ukraine held the key for a
contest between Russia and Germany — never went away. In fact, it took
pride of place in Mr. Putin’s mind. With one change, however: He
substituted Germany with the West in its entirety. Ukraine, to Mr. Putin,
became the battleground for a civilizational contest between Russia and the
West.

He didn’t act on it at first. In the early years of his tenure, he seemed
to expect — in line with those in Boris Yeltsin’s circle
<https://www.ng.ru/ng_politics/2008-12-16/13_stalin.html> who oversaw the
end of the Soviet Union — that Ukrainian independence wouldn’t last long.
In time, Ukraine would be begging to be taken back. It didn’t happen.
Though some Ukrainians remained under the sway of Russian culture,
politically they leaned to the West, as shown by the Orange Revolution of
2004
<https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/20050301faessay_v84n2_karatnycky.html?>,
when millions of Ukrainians protested against electoral fraud.
Editors’ Picks
U.S. News Ranked Columbia No. 2, but a Math Professor Has His Doubts
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/us/columbia-university-rank.html?action=click&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=791703766&impression_id=7e734270-a847-11ec-b7fc-73d69d4f861d&index=0&pgtype=Article&pool=editors-picks-ls&region=ccolumn&req_id=934542005&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity&action=click&module=editorContent&pgtype=Article&region=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending>
The Many Uses (and Abuses) of Shame
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/books/shame-machine-cathy-oneil.html?action=click&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=899632882&impression_id=7e734271-a847-11ec-b7fc-73d69d4f861d&index=1&pgtype=Article&pool=editors-picks-ls&region=ccolumn&req_id=934542005&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity&action=click&module=editorContent&pgtype=Article&region=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending>
Overlooked No More: Louise Little, Activist and Mother of Malcolm X
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/obituaries/louise-little-overlooked.html?action=click&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=388722181&impression_id=7e736980-a847-11ec-b7fc-73d69d4f861d&index=2&pgtype=Article&pool=editors-picks-ls&region=ccolumn&req_id=934542005&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity&action=click&module=editorContent&pgtype=Article&region=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending>
Continue reading the main story
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/opinion/ukraine-russia-putin-history.html?action=click&module=editorContent&pgtype=Article&region=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending#after-pp_edpick>

ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/opinion/ukraine-russia-putin-history.html#after-story-ad-2>

So Mr. Putin changed course. Soon after the war in Georgia in 2008, in
which the Kremlin seized control of two Georgian regions, he designed a new
strategic policy for Ukraine. According to the plan
<https://zn.ua/international/bolshoy_sosed_opredelilsya_chto_ukraine_delat_dalshe.html>,
any steps Kyiv might take in the direction of the West would be punished
with military aggression. The objective was to cleave off Ukraine’s
Russophone east and turn the rest of the country into a vassal state headed
by a Kremlin puppet.

At the time, it seemed fantastical, ludicrous. Nobody believed it could be
genuine. But by the final weeks of Ukraine’s Maidan revolution
<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/world/europe/as-his-fortunes-fell-in-ukraine-a-president-clung-to-illusions.html>
 in 2014, in which Ukrainians demanded an end to corruption and an embrace
of the West, it became horribly clear that Russia was intent on aggression.
And so it proved: In a rapid-fire operation, Mr. Putin seized Crimea and
parts of the Donbas. But crucially, the full extent of his ambition was
thwarted, in large part through the heroic resistance mounted by volunteers
in the country’s east.

Mr. Putin miscalculated in two ways. First, he was hoping that, as had been
the case with his war against Georgia, the West would tacitly swallow his
aggression against Ukraine. A unified response from the West was not
something he expected. Second, since in his mind Russians and Ukrainians
were one nation, Mr. Putin believed Russian troops needed barely to enter
Ukraine to be welcomed with flowers. This never materialized.

What happened in Ukraine in 2014 confirmed what liberal Ukrainian
historians have been saying for a long time: The chief distinction between
Ukrainians and Russians lies not in language, religion or culture — here
they are relatively close — but in political traditions. Simply put, a
victorious democratic revolution is almost impossible in Russia, whereas a
viable authoritarian government is almost impossible in Ukraine.

The reason for this divergence is historical. Up until the end of World War
I (and in the case of western Ukraine, the end of World War II), Ukrainian
lands were under the strong political and cultural influence of Poland.
This influence was not Polish per se; it was, rather, a Western influence.
As the Harvard Byzantinist Ihor Sevcenko put it, in Ukraine the West was
clad in Polish dress. Central to this influence were the ideas of
constraining centralized power, an organized civil society and some freedom
of assembly.

Mr. Putin seems to have learned nothing from his failures in 2014. He has
launched a full-scale invasion, seemingly intended to remove the Ukrainian
government from power and pacify the country. But again, Russian aggression
has been met with heroic Ukrainian resistance and united the West. Though
Mr. Putin may escalate further, he is far from the military victory he
sought. A master tactician but inept strategist, he has made his most
profound miscalculation.

Yet it’s one based on the belief that he is at war not with Ukraine but
with the West in Ukrainian lands. It’s essential to grasp this point. The
only way to defeat him is to turn his belief — that Ukraine is fighting not
alone but with the help of the West and as part of the West — into a waking
nightmare.

How this could be done, whether through humanitarian and military help,
incorporating Ukraine into the European Union or even supplying it with its
own Marshall Plan, are open questions. What matters is the political will
to answer them. After all, the struggle for Ukraine, as history tells us,
is about much more than just Ukraine or Europe. It is the struggle for the
shape of the world to come.

Yaroslav Hrytsak is a professor of history at the Ukrainian Catholic
University and the author, most recently, of a global history of Ukraine.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/opinion/letters/letters-to-editor-new-york-times-women.html>
 to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our
articles. Here are some tips
<https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014925288-How-to-submit-a-letter-to-the-editor>.
And here’s our email: letters at nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook
<https://www.facebook.com/nytopinion>, Twitter (@NYTopinion)
<http://twitter.com/NYTOpinion> and Instagram
<https://www.instagram.com/nytopinion/>.