‘I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. . . We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way.”
These wise words were spoken on May 2nd, 1998, by George Kennan, veteran diplomat and architect of American policy on the Soviet Union, when asked his opinion on Nato’s rush to expand into Eastern Europe. It was quoted on Tuesday by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, as Russian tanks rolled into eastern Ukraine. The current disaster in Ukraine has long been foretold.
Ten years ago, my wife was trying to bring a Ukrainian student over to work with her. This student was a permanent resident in another EU country, but her visa application was turned down by the Irish Embassy in that country. When I phoned a contact in the Department of Foreign Affairs about this, he told me: “Look, we all know Ukraine is a potential disaster. It’s only a matter of time before the Russians make their move, and we’ll be flooded with millions of refugees. So we’re taking a cautious approach.”
The Russians did indeed make their move: they annexed Crimea, their proxy forces took control of parts of Ukraine, and a Dutch airliner was shot down. Sanctions were applied, but Putin is still in power.
It is easy to understand why countries like Latvia and Lithuania wanted to join Nato. One of the saddest things I’ve ever seen was a small, handmade notebook in a museum in Lithuania. The museum was displaying artefacts related to the nationalist partisans who had fought the Germans during the second World War, and then went on to fight the Soviets. The notebook contained lists of English words and phrases that the partisans were trying to teach themselves in their forest hideouts. Cut off by the Iron Curtain, hunted down by specialist units of the Soviet Army, they still hoped that the West would come to join them in their fight against communism and restore freedom and democracy to Lithuania.
Spheres of influence
However, in Tehran and Yalta, the European Allies and the USA had come to an agreement with Soviet Russia, carving up Europe into spheres of influence, with the borders between countries often arbitrary, involving horrific ethnic cleansing and dislocation of populations. These agreements are commonly known in Eastern European history as “The Great Betrayal”. Incredibly, some partisans kept fighting until the 1960s, but the cavalry never came.
They annexed Crimea, their proxy forces took control of parts of Ukraine and a Dutch airliner was shot down. Sanctions were applied, but Putin is still in power
It was a harsh lesson in what to expect from the West. Inevitably, when the Soviet system collapsed, these countries rushed to join the EU and Nato, as futureproofing against Russian dominance, and the EU and Nato rashly embraced them. The new members wanted the cavalry permanently stationed on the Russian border.
But there was a huge elephant in the room. Stalin’s policy of moving people around within the Soviet Union in an effort to undermine nationalism and create the new “Homo Sovieticus” has had a lasting impact on these countries, leaving them with large Russian-speaking minorities, who have not always found a place in the revived nationalist narratives.
Western media routinely refers to “Russian separatists” in the Donetsk region, but in the eyes of those Russian-speakers, the Ukrainian government in Kyiv may well be the separatists. It’s easy to envisage a situation where the Russian minority feels discriminated against and appeals for help to Russia. No one is watching the Ukraine showdown with more trepidation than the Baltic States. They have little historical reason to trust western Europe in these situations.
Historical context
Ukraine, however, is a special case, and it’s disturbing to see how many commentators are ignoring the historical context. Everyone now knows that Ukraine means “Borderland”, but a more trenchant description was perhaps Timothy Snyder’s characterisation, in his famous book, of the area which includes Ukraine, western Russia, parts of Poland and the Baltic States, as the “Bloodlands”, where in the 1930s and 1940s, 14 million civilians were killed by Hitler and Stalin.
When Scholz recently visited Ukraine, he was certainly aware that millions of German soldiers lie in its soil
This is the context, and it’s still fresh in the minds of many. The Germans have been accused of being lukewarm in their support of Ukraine, but perhaps they have reason to be realistic. As a young man and leader of the youth wing of the SDP, German chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote articles condemning “imperialist-aggressive Nato”. When Scholz recently visited Ukraine, he was certainly aware that millions of German soldiers lie in its soil, along with millions of their Soviet counterparts.
This may well weigh on his mind. What is certain, however, is that many political leaders and policymakers have seen this coming for a long time, and have done nothing about it. It is hard to see them doing very much now. If I were a Ukrainian, I wouldn’t wait for the cavalry.