Why is Russia Flexing On Ukraine? What Does It Want?
February 23, 2022
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10:48Now PlayingWhy is Russia Flexing On Ukraine? What Does It Want?
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Why has Russia been attacking Eastern Ukraine? What are their interests in Ukraine, and how does their recent action serve their interests? According to our guest on this week’s episode of The Bitchuation Room, the possibility of Ukraine joining an explicitly anti-Russian alliance is absolutely unacceptable to Russian leadership, and with good reason.
Russian interests are fairly limited in scope. As Putin once said (and we paraphrase), “anyone who does not regret the fall of the Soviet Union has no heart, but anyone who wants to put it back together has no brain.” They are not interested in total dominion over Ukraine, instead they want to ensure a place for ethnic Russian and Russian speakers in Ukraine, and also wish to ensure that Ukraine maintains its place as a buffer zone between Russia and the West. But they've done this before in Chechnya and Georgia, and played pretty dirty (ie. killed thousands) to get their way.
Yet more generally, when compared to American demands on our own spheres of influence (which is obviously most of the world), Russia's demands are pretty reasonable. The United States foreign policy establishment lost its mind when China was in discussions with Equatorial Guinea, which is all the way over in West Africa, because according to the Wall Street Journal, it’s “America’s backyard.” Meanwhile, Ukraine is directly a neighbor of Russia and therefore a major security concern for a country that has been invaded by Europeans many times over the past two centuries.
Anatol Lieven is senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Lieven is author of several books on Russia and its neighbors, his most recent book 'Climate Change and the Nation State' is out with Oxford University Press. Follow him on Twitter
Recorded February 20th, 2022
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