Ever since the war in Ukraine began, many of us have wondered why it’s so important to Putin and other Russian leaders that Ukraine (and Belarus) are part of the “Russian world”. In their eyes, being part of this Russian world means that Ukrainians and Belarusians feel a strong connection through Eastern Orthodox church and shared ancient Rus history. It also means that these nationalities shouldn’t feel drawn to Western culture and our liberal democracy. Ukrainians and Belarusians, as well as all national minorities inside Russia, should see the central power of Moscow as something natural, satisfactory, and unavoidable. This is how Russian leaders would want things to be.
Since this is far from reality, Putin’s government sees that Ukrainians (and others) are somehow corrupted and infected by “Alien ideas” from the West. The leaders of Kremlin view that it’s their right and historical duty to “purge” their “subordinates”, even if purging includes extreme and collective violence. Of course, this kind of worldview is sick and very narcissistic.
From Tsars to Stalinism
But, also beyond Belarus and Ukraine, leaders of Kremlin have always wanted that Russia is large and commands large amount of people and ethnicities. It’s like the Russians are a chosen people and a divine power has gifted them control over a huge portion of Eurasia stretching from Estonia to Turkmenistan and Kamchatka. And when the nations that inhabit this landmass want to independently decide about their issues, Kremlin views that they violate against a divine order of things. In Tsarist times it was seen that the Tsar received his authority from God, and Tsar’s mission was to keep the empire intact.
This argument was shattered during the Bolshevik revolution as Soviet Union turned officially to atheism. But the new ideology stated that Russians were to lead the global communist revolution, and the independence movements in Central Asia, Siberia, Caucasus, and Ukraine were crushed. Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania got their freedom only through defensive war. Lenin’s regime gave voluntarily independence only to Finland (but supported communist uprising even here). Things in Soviet Union got even worse after Stalin followed Lenin as a red dictator. Man-made famines killed millions of people in Ukraine and Kazakhstan during 1932 – 33. These events greatly reduced the proportion of ethnic Ukrainians and Kazakhs in their republics, and the proportion of ethnic Russians increased. They can be considered genocides.
After Soviet victory in World War II, Russians extended their power over larger area than ever before. But not many of us know that again in 1946 – 47 a famine killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Moldovans. Ukraine suffered much more in WW2 than Russia did, losing roughly seven million people as dead, according to typical estimate. And yet, in years 1946 – 47 the living conditions in Ukraine were worse than in the fascist countries under Stalin’s occupation. During the actual war, Belarus was the only Soviet republic that suffered more than Ukraine, losing about 2,3 million people killed, according to common estimate. This amounted to a staggering quarter of its 1940 population.
But Soviet Union didn’t want to and Putin’s Russia doesn’t want to refer to Ukrainian or Belarusian casualties of WW2. Instead, they bundle them into collective Soviet losses and suffering of the great fatherland. Sometimes you even hear that about 27 million “Russians” died in the war. In truth it’s estimated that “only” 14 million were from Russian Soviet Republic. Don’t take me wrong, this was a tremendous sacrifice for Russian people. But the remaining 13 million dead were from the other Soviet republics, based on typical estimates. Latvia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan lost roughly the same proportion of their population as Russia did in this “Great Patriotic War”.
Drug of choice
But let’s get back to the initial question: Why Russia feels the need to subjugate other countries and nations? The neighboring countries of Russia simply want to develop their own societies towards prosperity through democratically elected institutions. Their leaders don’t feel any the need to get more land and force ever more people to their subordinates. But for Russian leadership, it seems that life is not worth living if their neighbors are left to live their own lives freely and independently.
The leaders of Kremlin resemble a drug addict who can’t live sober. Their drug is the historical memory of a huge empire and the power over countless unwilling people. When Soviet Union collapsed, they tried to live without “drugs” couple of years, but the withdrawal symptoms were too bad. During the previous decades and centuries, the nations in Russian “sphere of influence” had suffered and been abused (like those close to a drug addict typically are), but Russia felt so good in it’s power that it didn’t care. Here we must of course differentiate between Russian people and the country’s leaders. Many ordinary Russians are and have been against Kremlin’s policy and just want to live in a normal and peaceful country. But there’s also a big group of those who share the imperialist aspirations of their leaders. This is unavoidable due to heavy propaganda.
The neighbors of Russia just want to have cooperative and equal relationship with Russia without any wars or annexations. But having a normal relationship with a drug addict, who doesn’t even want to get sober, is often impossible. When Ukraine got its independence in 1991 after centuries of Russian dominance, Ukrainians just wanted to build their own country and reach the prosperity levels of Western Europe. With Russia they simply wished to have peaceful and equal relationship, no scores needed to be settled for historical grievances. But Kremlin didn’t want to stop using their drugs, and one drug was continuing dominance over Ukraine. Now Ukraine is like a sober David struggling against Goliath, who wants to get his fix with the expense of others.
After everything said above I can only state: Liberal democracies must hold their lines and SLAVA UKRAYINI!
Lähde: Suomen Lämpöpumppuyhdistys SULPU ry ja Energian hinnat, Tilastokeskus
Lauri Nurro 