What do the Russians Believe About the War in Ukraine?
Vladimir Putin is crazy right? He’s nuts, bonkers, off his rocker entirely and intentionally making the most self destructive decisions possible, is he not? Maybe to us his actions look like the machinations of a madman, but within Russia and to Russians across the world his actions are not only justified and necessary, but admirable. That is why, if we are to understand the war in Ukraine, we cannot just view the actions of Russia as nonsensical and ignore the factors which contributed to this major escalation in violence. As Sun Tzu said in his book The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles”, and what better way to know the Russian menace than to examine media they wish for their populations to see (with a heaped tablespoon of salt of course).
The justification offered by the Kremlin at the outset of the invasion of Ukraine was that they aimed to “Denazify” and “Demilitarize” the Ukrainian state. The latter of these goals is self-explanatory: the removal of armed groups within and the national military of the country. However, the former requires a bit more explanation. Putin’s government decided to use the justification of ‘Denazification’ as it is obviously more difficult to well public sentiment against a war aimed to remove Nazis from power. Nazisim and Hitler’s regime are rightfully demonized in the west, but we often forget that the Soviets, and by extension Russia, bore most of the human toll of the Second World War. Numbers are disputed, but estimates put the death toll of the USSR between 20 and 30 million people. The most shocking statistic is that only 20% of Soviet men born in 1923 survived the war. Patriotism for their countries’ actions during the war was a staple of soviet propaganda with the conflict being called the ‘Great Patriotic War’ to this day. Putin’s speeches before the invasion were tinged with nostalgia for this time and the days when Russia was a strong player on the world stage (Read: before the collapse of the USSR).
Much like any good propaganda, the denazification goal contains a grain of truth. When the Ukrainian revolution occurred in early 2014, separatists in the east seized the opportunity to declare independence while Russia seized the opportunity to annex the Crimean peninsula. All of these regions have a population of majority ethnic Russians, and while Crimea contained (and continues to contain) a Russian military installation, the other seperatist regions did not. This meant that while the annexation of Crimea was conducted by regular Russian troops (it’s more complicated than that, as with everything in history), much of the fighting in the other regions was conducted by civilians and militias who took up arms. The Russian military provided equipment and some soldiers who were not in uniform (which is a war crime) as the conflict progressed, but the Ukrainian side did not fare much better. Ukraine, at the time of the revolution, had a small and poorly equipped military, so the fighting for the defense of Ukraine fell to civilians who quickly organized militias in the area. One such militia, and probably the most well known, was the Azov Battalion. While the group has a long history under different names, it is notable that they were formed in their current state in early 2014 by a white nationalist called Andriy Biletsky. Many of its early recruits were members of the political party Patriots of Ukraine, an ultranationalist group which has been described as having Neo-Nazi and racist beliefs. This group, along with other lesser known ones, formed part of the defense of Ukraine during the fighting in 2014 and beyond and thus were eventually folded into the national guard toward the end of the year.
You can see now why Putin would seize on the fact that the Ukrainian state has folded extreme right elements into the military, and would extrapolate upon that to claim the Ukrainian government is a cabal of Nazis. However, there are some glaring issues in this view. For one, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is jewish. It is hard to imagine that someone whose ancestors were persecuted by the real Nazis would be supportive of a revival of the ideology. There is also the fact that while these extreme right ideologies do exist in Ukraine, they have very little political legitimacy, and the militias which openly espouse such ideologies have negligible membership. The extreme right party in Ukraine, Svoboda, only got around 2% of the vote in the 2019 election and the estimated membership of such organizations is a fraction of a percent of the 44 million people who live in the country. That being said, it is important to analyze these groups and their histories in a critical light, something that the western media has been doing since they were formed, even though Putin conveniently ignores this in his chastisement of the west for supporting the ‘Nazi regime in Ukraine’.
Another justification for the war is the defense of the regions which declared autonomy in early 2014, known as the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. After initial fighting in which the Ukrainian forces took back a significant portion of the regions, a ceasefire agreement was signed towards the end of that year, and the war turned into a frozen conflict. There was little movement on the frontlines as each side dug trenches and settled down for the long haul. It is clear that both sides violated the ceasefire agreement, but who did so more often depends on if you believe Russian or western media.
The Russian media, since the conflict began, has aimed to blame all violations of the ceasefire as coming from the Ukrainian side but as Putin positioned his troops around the Ukraine earlier this year, their reports began to take a different flavor. They frequently published claims of the Ukrainian side shelling civilian areas, causing deaths and reports of mass graves of civilians that the Ukrianians had killed being discovered started to filter in. A few days before they started the invasion, which we must remember was called a special military operation intending to protect the seperatist republics, the Russian government officially recognised the breakaway states, becoming the only nation to do so. This recognition, the aforementioned ethnic composition of these regions, the alleged mass graves and ceasefire violations which killed civilians all work together to paint a narrative that these nations, which culturally are very similar to Russia, need their big brother’s help. Video which was later proven to be false was circulated online of Ukrainian militia attacking positions in the seperatist republics which helped to increase the perceived urgency and necessity of Russia taking military action. The Russian narrative was, at the time, that Ukraine was doing to the seperatist republics the same thing that Russia was doing to Ukraine, namely building up a military presence on their borders with the intention to invade. This was compounded with the added possibility, helped by the alleged evidence of mass graves (Which almost certainly dont exist, but it is hard for western journalists to access these areas so there is a miniscule chance that they do) that if the Ukraininas did invade, there would be a form of ethnic cleansing. One must give the Russians credit for this pillar of their propaganda efforts, it forms a compelling justification, if you were to believe the evidence. However, there is little evidence from reliable sources of any of the previously mentioned things occurring, and the only outlets which reported on these things were either controlled by the Russian state, or heavily censored by it.
Another aspect, although far smaller than the others mentioned here, is the alleged intention of Ukraine to re-acquire nuclear weapons. After the collapse of the USSR many of the former nation’s nuclear weapons were based in Ukraine and after signing a treaty with Russia that their territorial integrity would be upheld (Google the Budapest Memorandum, which explicitly forbids Russia from doing what they are today) some were returned them to Russia and some were decommissioned. As with everything it is more complicated than that, with Ukraine having physical but not operational control of most of the weapons and as they had no nuclear weapons program, not being able to maintain or replenish their stockpiles. However it is notable that they are only one of four nations on earth to give up a nuclear arsenal. The Russian narrative is that Zelensky had intentions of producing nuclear weapons and as this posed an existential threat to the Russian state, they were justified in invading (WMD’s in Iraq anyone?). This piece of propaganda is not often used, as it no longer has much use, but the broken promises aspect leads nicely into the third big justification that the Russian’s use for their invasion.
Putin, and by extension the Russian state, is scared of eastward expansion by both the cultural and military arms of the western world. Before the 2014 revolution and subsequent Russian invasion, the political establishment of Ukraine favored closer ties with Russia over the west, the main structures being the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However as the political climate shifted in the country the establishment came more in line with public opinion and started to shift towards closer association with these organizations. The Russian aggression in the east and the liberalization of the political process, helped by the election of Zelensky in 2019, contributed to this shift, and this appears to have worried the Kremlin. To understand why, we must first examine what these organizations are, and what membership entails. Joining the EU is a long, arduous process which involves reworking a country’s legal, political and economic systems to align with existing members and the principles laid out in the EU charter. This includes a free and fair judicial system, along with transparent elections and a democratic political process. Such reforms would have made it harder for Russia to exert influence over the country and the collective bargaining power of the EU block would have further strengthened Ukraine against any future Russian aggression, however by most this is not considered the main issue for Putin. The main issue was the Ukrainian intentions which were in reality still mostly theoretical but were overblown by the Russian media, of joining NATO. NATO membership requires a reorganization of the joining countries military but most importantly means that the member is protected by article 5 of the NATO treaty which states that an attack on one is an attack on all. This means that most of Europe and North America are obligated to defend any NATO member, a clause which has only been invoked once by the United States, after the 9/11 attacks. Ukraine joining the alliance would also allow for NATO troops, air defenses and first strike missiles to be positioned right on the border of Russia, with their area of effect reaching far into the country, in some cases right to Moscow. Even after other ex-soviet republics joined the alliance in the late 90’s and early 2000’s NATO refrained from stationing many international troops in the region for this exact reason.
The Russian media exaggerated the likelihood of either of these alignment shifts happening to a large degree with NATO membership especially being impossible due to the frozen war in the east. NATO rules state that nations with border disputes are not allowed to join the alliance. The degree of corruption and lack of transparency in many of the Ukrainian political and legal institutions would have made joining the European Union a complex and time consuming process also. However it is important to note that from the Russian point of view these fears are justified and we must view this issue in a historical context. In a hotly debated incident during discussions around the reunification of Germany then US secretary of state, James Baker, told Mikhail Gorbachev, then leader of the Soviet Union, that after German reunification the alliance would “Not shift 1 inch eastward”. As we have seen since the 90’s, the alliance has shifted a lot more than 1 inch eastward, coming to incorporate many of the old Warsaw Pact members. Using this statement, which was never formalized into any kind of treaty or officially recognised, the Russian government claims that the west has broken its promises and it is therefore justified in invading Ukraine for, once again, its own self defense.
Looking at the above map it is easy to see why Russia is nervous, feels boxed in and fears western influence both within its borders and without. An often not mentioned aspect of these fears is the westernization of the eastern cultures, something which has followed both NATO and EU expansion. Russia is and has been for most of their history a nation proud of their culture, and to someone like Putin who grew up in the Soviet Union, the globalization of western culture is an affront to what it means to be a Russian. However the material factors, such as missiles on the Russian border and the lack of ability to influence their neighbors politics, are of much higher relevance.
I hope after reading this you have a better understanding of why this war is being fought, and what the population of the aggressor believes. As with any conflict, both hot and cold, information is used as a weapon and it is important to critically analyze not just the propaganda from the enemy, but also that of one’s own side. As the international community no longer recognises expansion as a legitimate justification for an invasion the Russian state has had to come up with evidence for their war, which boils down to the need for self defense. While from an outside point of view it is clear that the reasons and evidence given are false and misleading, it would be harder to know what to believe if one lived in Russia and was fed this narrative by trusted media sources. Noone is immune to propaganda and you could just as easily believe the Russian narrative if the circumstances of your birth were different, but hopefully now you have the tools to engage with those who believe it in a constructive way.
While the war in Ukraine is far away from us here in New Zealand, there are members of our society who have families directly impacted by the war. If you want to help them, please have a read of and sign this petition calling for refugees to be allowed to come to New Zealand’s shores — https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/petitions/document/PET_119825/petition-of-inga-tokarenko-new-zealand-should-take-in
