DIGGING DEEPER INTO
THE CONFLICT
BETWEEN RUSSIA AND
UKRAINE

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia's potential to continue it's past history of imperialism and global power suffered a deep and damaging blow. Thirty years ago, experts in global politics were already focusing attention on the importance of Ukraine as a pivotal nation in the struggle between the east and the west.

In a 1997 book titled, "The Grand Chessboard" Zbigniew K. Brzezinski writes:

There are many questions surrounding the Russian War on Ukraine, the evolving relationship between the two countries, and how they ended up in a major military conflict in 2022.

In the days ahead, Eye On Ukraine will begin to explore a few of the most frequently asked questions:

• Why did Russia invade Ukraine, the 2nd largest nation in Europe?

• Why is Ukraine such a geopolitical pivot point and so important to Putin's hope's of restoring and expanding the Russian Empire?

• Why now? Why did Putin decide to invade Ukraine at this particular point in history?

• If Russia desired to return to it's expansionist imperialism; Why not start with smaller nations along it's border like Estonia or Latvia? Why is Ukraine such a crucial nation?

• If Putin is successful in removing the elected government of Ukraine, then what? How long can Russia hold Ukraine and subdue the people of Ukraine?

• How many resources will Putin expend to hold and defend his gains in Ukraine and what will be the cost to the citizens of Russia?

• Is Russia's population expanding or contracting, and more specifically is the number of men and women available for military service increasing or decreasing in Russia?

• The economies of both Ukraine and Russia are being severely damaged as the war goes on. Why was Putin willing to risk hurting his own people and their economic well-being and risk losing the support of increasing numbers of Russian citizens by conducting a costly war?

• To what degree is this War On Ukraine, a result of Putin's inability to adapt to a new and changing world?

• Why did Putin invade and capture the Crimean Peninsula in 2014?

• Why does Ukraine want to regain control of the Crimean Peninsula?

• Why does Ukraine fear having Russia expand control of the territories along Ukraine's southern coast, rendering Ukraine a land-locked country with no access to the Sea of Azov, and more importantly no access to the Black Sea?

• Why is control of the Black Sea extremely important to Russia?

• Why did Putin focus on taking control cities along the southern Dnieper River in early days of the war?

• Why was Putin concerned over the increasing interest shown to Ukraine by major oil companies in the United States?

• Why does Putin consider it essential to have a pro-Russian leader in charge of Ukraine?

• Is Putin primarily concerned with having a Pro-Russia Ukraine as a buffer separating his country from Europe (and NATO).... or are there other factors involved?

• Why did Donald Trump want to weaken NATO (and US relations with NATO) and strengthen US relations with Putin and Russia?

• What is the role of Oligarchs.... within Russia and also within Ukraine?

• Why now? Why did Putin decide to invade Ukraine at this particular point in history?

Allan Little of BBC News writes:

"Putin believed the West was in chronic decline, weakened by internal division and ideological rancour. The election of Donald Trump and Brexit he saw as proof of this. The rise of right-wing authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary was further evidence of the disintegration of liberal values and institutions. The US's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan was proof of a waning power withdrawing from the world stage.

Second, he misread what was happening on his borders. He refused to believe that a series of democratic uprisings in former Soviet Republics - Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-5) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) - could possibly be authentic expressions of the popular will. Because each was aimed at removing corrupt and unpopular pro-Moscow governments, it seemed self-evident to the Kremlin that these were the work of foreign intelligence agencies, the Americans and the British in particular - Western imperialism's forward march into territory that was rightfully and historically Russia's.

Third, he has failed to understand his own armed forces. It is clear now that he expected this "special military operation" to be over in a few days. Russia's military incompetence has astonished many Western security experts. It brings echoes for me of a smaller, more containable, but nonetheless devastating war, in former Yugoslavia. In 1992, Serb nationalists launched a war to strangle the newly independent state of Bosnia at birth. They argued that Bosnian identity was bogus, that Bosnian statehood had no historical legitimacy, that it was really part of Serbia. It is exactly Putin's view of Ukraine."

• One of Russia's first acts after launching the war was to blow up a concrete dam along the Dneiper River. Why?

In 1954, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Soon after, preparations began to build a canal which would divert water from the Dneiper River southward to the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine.

When the North Crimean Canal was completed, what was once a largely infertile peninsula soon blossomed into a hub of irrigated agriculture.

In 2014, Russia invaded Crimea and took over the country and subsequently took over canal operations within Crimea. Ukraine continued to bill Crimea for the water flowing from Ukraine into Crimea but claims that Russia was delinquent in paying for the water.

As a result, Ukrainian authorities greatly cut the volume of water flowing into Crimea via the canal, causing the peninsula's agricultural harvest which is heavily dependent on irrigation to fail. Further non-payments resulted in Ukrainian officials constructing a concrete dam across the canal, completely blocking off water flow to Crimea and causing great expense to Russia to find other ways of getting water to Crimea.

Russia and Crimea disputed the situation for several years and after multiple attempts at negotiation no resolution was found. Russia launched appeals to the OHCHR, claiming that “Ukraine has deprived millions of people of a basic and inalienable right to drinking water.” But these went without a response. Russia brought forth an interstate complaint requesting that European Court of Human Rights “suspend the blockade of the North Crimean Canal,” but the body dismissed the request two days later.

Ukrainian officials continued their claim that they decided to dam the canal only after Russian authorities failed to pay for water delivery,

On 24 February 2022, the first day of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops advancing from Crimea established control over the North Crimean Canal. On 26 February 2022, Russian forces destroyed the concrete dam by an explosion and the water supply to Crimea was resumed.

• We are now starting to hear the phrase "Iron Curtain' being used for the first time in decades. What does the "Iron Curtain" refer to?
  Who were the members of the former so-called "Eastern Bloc" who were behind the Iron Curtain?
  How has Eastern Europe changed since the fall of the Soviet Union and to what degree does Putin (and Russia) feel threatened by the changes?

The Iron Curtain is a Western term made famous by Winston Churchill referring to the boundary which symbolically, ideologically, and physically divided Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II, until the end of the Cold War, roughly 1945 to 1990. After the end of the World War II , spheres of influence were determined by the Allied powers at Potsdam and Yalta, and the divisions between the wartime allies soon reappeared as the struggle between capitalism and communism heated up. These tensions were felt as, one by one, communist governments were installed in the Eastern European states under the Soviet sphere of influence. Many of the countries of the "Eastern bloc" were ruled by pro-Soviet governments, kept in place by the threat of military force.

The term, Iron Curtain, symbolized the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and its allied states as well as the efforts by the countries of Western Europe and the United States to isolate the countries of Eastern Europe.

The Iron Curtain served to keep information out of the Eastern Bloc countries. It also served to keep the people of Eastern Europe in Eastern Europe. Travel to and from the countries of Eastern Europe was severely curtailed throughout the Cold War. The Iron Curtain also impacted economic trade relationships between the western allied countries and those of the Eastern Bloc and the Eastern Bloc countries thus remained dependent upon Russia and only had limited trade opportunities with other Eastern European countries. Growth and prosperity were stifled and the lower and middle classes were particularly hard hit economically.

The Eastern Europe of today shows little resemblance to the Eastern Bloc of 40 years ago. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 redrew the map. The possessions and political and military influence of control of Russia among nations of the Eastern Bloc shrank suddenly as nation after nation after nation declared themselves independent and sovereign nations.

With the exception of Belarus, none of the nations on this map are dependent upon Russia today. Many of them are now members of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The "iron curtain" became the symbol of the division between two competing ideologies and systems as the competition for world dominance of these two systems dominated the last half of the twentieth century. The fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the end of the iron curtain, as communism collapsed and freedom and democracy came to the Eastern bloc.

The West finally prevailed, demonstrating that ideals cannot be artificially kept behind walls and boundaries.

Dominated throughout the twentieth century by the Soviet Union, politics in Eastern Europe has changed significantly since that nation's collapse in 1991. When Mikhail Gorbachev instituted a number of socialist reforms in the 1980's, included was glasnost, which allowed for a limited amount of freedom of expression. The people of Eastern Europe (and Russia) began open criticism of the Russian regime and demanded increased political and economic freedom.

In 1989 government after government collapsed in Eastern Europe and political transformation began. The Belavezha Accords of December 1991 declared the Soviet Union officially dissolved and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. This loose confederation attempted to assume some control and create stability during the period of transition.

Many of the newly independent republics aligned themselves with the capitalist democracies of Western Europe and individual republics assumed the central government's role.

It has been recommended that there are six core concepts that must be understood by citizens in a democratic society in order for them to function most effectively in their respective societies. These concepts include

• • • representative democracy,

    • constitutionalism (rule of law),

    • rights within the parameters of liberalism,

    • citizenship,

    • civil society based on a free and open social system, and

    • the market economy of a free and open economic system.

The people of Ukraine have increasingly embraced these concepts and increasingly distanced themselves from the past and the domination by Russia since declaring themselves an sovereign nation in 1991. The pace of change and movement toward western democratic values increased dramatically since 2014. Putin saw his neighbor and former member of the Soviet Union becoming more and more westernized and less and less dependent upon economic (and political) ties to Russia.

The "Iron Curtain" is being raised once again as Putin desires to relive the "glory days" of the Russian Empire and the USSR and shut his country off from the western world. The sanctions against Russia by Western allied countries are also helping recreate a new Iron Curtain.

Putin's Iron Curtain" is now in a different location than the Iron Curtain of the Cold War. Putin's Iron Curtain today, is much further east than in the past. Putin's Iron Curtain is being erected along Russia's own western border as Russia becomes increasingly alone and isolated and shrinking in power and influence.

The world continues to change and all nations who wish to retain their influence on the world stage must adapt to those changes and look forward to the future rather than backward to the past.

• To what degree is the War On Ukraine, a result of Putin's inability to adapt to a new and changing world?
  And will economic sanctions increase domestic problems within Russia to the degree that
  the war forces Putin to eventually make domestic changes, re-opening Russia to the outside world?

Robert Orttung, research professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University argues that Russia is a declining power, that it suffers from what he calls “the resource curse,” and that its days are numbered as an extraction economy. Further, he sees that the country’s lack of premier academic institutions and media freedom make any kind of brainpower, tech, or creative economy impossible. As the world continues it's shift to alternative energy sources, Russian oil and gas resources are losing their value. The world is changing and the global leaders of tomorrow's world will have to adapt to these changes. Orttung writes:

"............there’s no sense that Putin wants to make any kind of change. And even though he has concentrated extensive political power in his own hands, he hasn’t made any kind of economic reforms in the last 15 years or so. So, he’s very much wedded to keeping the current system. There might be some demand for change from below, like a middle class that gets most of its income from private business. But unfortunately, in the Russian case, most of the middle class is actually government employees,......."

Putin's authoritarian approach to political power was becoming increasingly difficult as the young people of his country were increasingly exposed to the 'outside" world, the world of freedom, the world of choices, the world of ideas, the world of technology, ....the world of an increasingly connected global population where knowledge and freedom of expression are powerful motivating forces.

Putin's ability to adapt to this changing world is limited. Thus, his craving for power requires a return to the world he knows, a return to the past, a return to a time when the Russian people could be controlled through fear and through being cut off from the outside world.

• If Putin is unable to conquer and control Ukraine, how would that impact the domestic issues within Russia and how would it effect his popularity among Russians?

"We’re already seeing shortages in grocery stores and things like that, as people start to panic. It’s only going to accelerate over time and these sanctions are pretty comprehensive. We’ve never done anything like this to Russia before, especially if we cut off purchases of oil and natural gas. The Europeans, they’re probably not going to cut off those purchases, but they’re going to try and reduce them significantly. That’s going to have a major impact on Putin’s income and the Kremlin budget. There’s a lot of room for disaster in the Russian economy. So, it really matters how long this goes on. If it’s going to go on for months and months, they’re in real serious economic trouble."

Robert Orttung

Putin has a lot invested in the outcome of the war on Ukraine.

If total victory becomes unachievable, Putin must find a way to at least "proclaim victory" and bring his troops home. He must convince the people of Russia that he defeated Ukraine and achieved everything he set out to do. That's another reason for restricting access to anything but state-owned media for his Russian citizens.... they can't know the truth regarding the lack of Russian progress in the war nor the eventual outcome of the war. The Russian people MUST believe they have won, they MUST see Putin as a hero and savior of the country.

Robert Orttung speculates on the impact of a Putin defeat in Ukraine:"

Putin was expecting a big victory, a quick and easy victory in Ukraine, and then that would boost his power. That’s clearly not happening. The Ukrainians look like they’re dug in, and they’re going to fight until victory – and people are starting to think that that might potentially be possible, even though Russia has much more firepower than the Ukrainian military. If Putin loses the war, and I think this is the big problem for this whole situation, he would likely lose power. But it’s not clear what the scenario would be. So, he would certainly be in a very paranoid situation where he’s afraid of a popular uprising, he’s afraid of some internal revolt. Although, it’s very hard to predict how that could happen. But the general sense among Russia watchers is that Putin can lose the war. "

The current negotiations center on how both Zelenskyy and Putin can claim victory for their respective countries.

• Was Putin driven by internal issues within Russia or was he solely focused on foreign affairs when he made the decision to invade Ukraine?

"I think the invasion of Ukraine was in a small attempt in his mind to deflect attention away from the domestic difficulties and create a rapid victory. And he obviously wanted to have a rapid victory, but that didn’t happen.....

......He’s been in power for more than 20 years now and, even though he has a solid grip on power at the moment, he needs to constantly be watching his back, figuring out what’s going on in society, and what ideas might be circulating among the top elite in the military and the police forces that prop up his power.

So Russia’s economy has been only growing very slowly, maybe 1% or 2% a year, over the last six or seven years. And when he first came into power in 2000, it was growing at a much faster rate, thanks to rapidly rising oil prices. So the people in Russia haven’t seen their lives improve that much over the last decade, compared to their first decade with Putin.

And I think that’s very worrying to him. I think that means that people are losing their strong support for Putin. They don’t see him as someone who can provide stability and economic benefit to them going forward."

Robert Orttung

• What role did control of (and Access to) Oil, and Gas Resources and the financial benefits associated with that control and access impact Putin's decision to invade Ukraine at this point in history?

Global media sources have given extensive coverage to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and what led up to the war.
Much has been said and written concerning Putin's paranoia over Ukraine eventually joining NATO..... and rightfully so.
An equally important but less discussed factor leading to war, is a factor present in many global conflicts throughout history; namely Water, Oil, and Gas

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