History’s Echoes

The Ukrainians I spoke with generally understood that history. They pointed to long simmering grievances among many Russians with the way their nation was duped by the West after the fall of the Soviet Union. In this rendering, promises regarding NATO’s eastward expansion were broken as almost all the former Soviet republics to Russia’s west chose to point their new nations toward Europe. Many are now EU members and almost all are part of NATO. (…The exceptions are Bosnia-Hercegovina, Belarus, Serbia and Ukraine…) This brought the NATO alliance right up to Russia’s doorstep in places like the Baltics. Further south, Ukraine and Belarus were all that stood between Russia’s borders and NATO. And in Mr. Putin’s view, they would never become part of NATO.

Whatever truths might be extracted concerning promises kept and not kept, it’s useful to keep in mind the longer history behind the Russian obsession with NATO’s expansion. For starters, there’s still a long memory in Russia of betrayal and sacrifice during the Second World War. Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin believed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact would insulate him from Hitler’s territorial ambitions. Unfortunately, ‘Uncle Joe’ underestimated the Fuhrer’s madness and overestimated his word. As the Nazis took much of Eastern Europe, the way was cleared for grabbing the biggest prize of all, the Soviet Union, where the Wehrmacht could find all the oil it needed, much like the Japanese had done in occupying Borneo. Operation Barbarossa began in June of 1941 as German forces invaded Soviet territory and stalled in December as winter bogged Nazi forces down, allowing Stalin to launch a counter-offensive.

It could be argued that the seeds of eternal distrust and conflict were planted here, resulting in the long-memory that in many ways, still exercises the Russian soul. Let’s not forget that, by far, the Russians suffered the greatest losses in WWII — almost 24 million dead, either from starvation or actual war. By comparison, US losses were under a million while Germany lost just under 8 million. Little wonder then, that Stalin was reluctant to relinquish the Soviet Union’s territorial gains at the conclusion of the war. He felt Russians had paid the biggest price in the conflict and deserved to get something out of it. After all, he had to wait almost two years for the Allies to open up a western front in the war.

To Stalin and many other Russians, the US and England had chosen to let them ‘wear’ the Germans down before opening up the Western Front. This too became part of that ‘long-memory’ and added to the Russian sense that a bigger buffer was needed in their west to prevent any future invasions from Germany. As the Cold War came into play, that fear was transferred to NATO. All the while, resentment of The West became a guiding philosophy for men like Putin. When the Soviet Union finally dissolved in 1991, Putin and his ilk, found themselves at sea. They saw it as a final humiliation of what had once been a great empire and NATO expansion was like salt in the gaping wound.

Nursing these grudges has been like oxygen for men like Putin — Russian nationalists who stew in this deep and bitter resentment, using it to justify all sorts of chicanery, from the Caucasus to the Crimea. Now we can add Ukraine to that list.