THE WEST NEEDS TO ACKNOWLEDGE RUSSIAN HISTORY

For Russia, the main terrain on which World War II was fought was Ukraine. Let us remember that 3.5 million soviet soldiers died liberating Ukraine, and they were not exclusively Ukrainians.

President Putin explains the history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other as follows:

“Everything in Crimea speaks of our shared history and pride. This is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptised. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilisation and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The graves of Russian soldiers whose bravery brought Crimea into the Russian empire are also in Crimea. This is also Sevastopol – a legendary city with an outstanding history, a fortress that serves as the birthplace of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Crimea is Balaklava and Kerch, Malakhov Kurgan and Sapun Ridge. Each one of these places is dear to our hearts, symbolising Russian military glory and outstanding valour. Crimea is a unique blend of different peoples’ cultures and traditions. This makes it similar to Russia as a whole, where not a single ethnic group has been lost over the centuries. Russians and Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and people of other ethnic groups have lived side by side in Crimea, retaining their own identity, traditions, languages and faith. Incidentally, the total population of the Crimean Peninsula today is 2.2 million people, of whom almost 1.5 million are Russians, 350,000 are Ukrainians who predominantly consider Russian their native language, and about 290,000-300,000 are Crimean Tatars.

In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia. This firm conviction is based on truth and justice and was passed from generation to generation, over time, under any circumstances, despite all the dramatic changes our country went through during the entire 20th century.

After the revolution, the Bolsheviks, for a number of reasons – may God judge them – added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine. This was done with no consideration for the ethnic make-up of the population, and today these areas form the southeast of Ukraine. Then, in 1954, a decision was made to transfer Crimean Region to Ukraine, along with Sevastopol, despite the fact that it was a city of union subordination. This was the personal initiative of the Communist Party head Nikita Khrushchev. What stood behind this decision of his – a desire to win the support of the Ukrainian political establishment or to atone for the mass repressions of the 1930’s in Ukraine – is for historians to figure out. What matters now is that this decision was made in clear violation of the constitutional norms that were in place even then. The decision was made behind the scenes. Naturally, in a totalitarian state nobody bothered to ask the citizens of Crimea and Sevastopol. They were faced with the fact. People, of course, wondered why all of a sudden Crimea became part of Ukraine. But on the whole – and we must state this clearly, we all know it – this decision was treated as a formality of sorts because the territory was transferred within the boundaries of a single state. Back then, it was impossible to imagine that Ukraine and Russia may split up and become two separate states. However, this has happened. Unfortunately, what seemed impossible became a reality. The USSR fell apart. Things developed so swiftly that few people realised how truly dramatic those events and their consequences would be. Many people both in Russia and in Ukraine, as well as in other republics hoped that the Commonwealth of Independent States that was created at the time would become the new common form of statehood. They were told that there would be a single currency, a single economic space, joint armed forces; however, all this remained empty promises, while the big country was gone. It was only when Crimea ended up as part of a different country that Russia realised that it was not simply robbed, it was plundered. At the same time, we have to admit that by launching the sovereignty parade Russia itself aided in the collapse of the Soviet Union. And as this collapse was legalised, everyone forgot about Crimea and Sevastopol ­– the main base of the Black Sea Fleet. Millions of people went to bed in one country and awoke in different ones, overnight becoming ethnic minorities in former Union republics, while the Russian nation became one of the biggest, if not the biggest ethnic group in the world to be divided by borders."

The best way for the United States to constructively engage both Ukraine and Russia is through acknowledging this history. This should have been done when the U.S.S.R. collapsed, but it wasn’t. If the U.S. and the E.U. want Russian cooperation in Ukraine, they must make clear that NATO’s expansion is over. President George H.W. Bush promised Mikhail Gorbachev that if the Soviets let the Warsaw Pact go, Russia would not have to worry about NATO expansion. The U.S. responded to this deal by immediately taking the former Warsaw Pact states into NATO and then moving into former Soviet territory in the Baltics. Nobody could blame new entrants for wanting NATO entry, given their past of Soviet occupation. But, neither could anyone blame Russians for feeling betrayed by the U.S. breaking its word.

Russia sees the U.S. State Department as pursuing the "great game," wishing to break up Russia and its "near abroad" and remaking it as a "neoliberal periphery." For Russia, the game has an existential character. Russians saw NATO’s moves toward Georgia as cutting too close to the bone, and they responded. The prospects of NATO assimilating Ukraine represents taking Russia’s "heart": the very ancestral home where Russia was founded and on which it repelled the fascist invasion in the Great Patriotic War.

Thus, the United States and the European Union must make clear NATO’s expansion is done. Do this, and perhaps the U.S., the E.U. and Russia can cooperate in Ukraine.

What the West says it wants is for Russia to withdraw from Crimea and turn away from the rest of the country too, so Ukraine can fall  under the West’s wing. But Russian sentiment over the Crimea runs deep: deeper than some idle pretext for a power grab, and rooted in the Russian imagination. As is often remarked, Russia’s loss of this territory happened as late as 1954 and at the time was neither intended nor interpreted as a ceding of sovereignty, because Ukraine was then so firmly under the Soviet heel as to be essentially a Russian possession. It was really only after the dissolution of the USSR, when Ukraine began to drift (marginally) away from Moscow’s control, that the full significance of the redrawing of boundaries (for essentially administrative reasons) was brought home to Russians within and outside Ukraine.

The Russian response to Crimea — has been proportionate and understandable. For external powers like America and the EU to try to thwart this and pressure Moscow into a retreat looks from a Russian viewpoint like an intolerable interference.