What Putin Really Wants

The real threat Russia faces today, in other words, is the threat of decisively losing its empire. NATO enlargement, and Western policy more generally, has taken the sovereignty of countries in Eastern Europe as an unabashed goal. Today s diplomatic haggling over missile placements, troop limits, nuclear postures, and security guarantees have made little progress because there s no agreement on the fundamental issue. At stake is whether Russia has the right to be surrounded by a belt of countries that it can bully.

Last summer, Putin published a high-profile article titled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians. The first sentence of the piece reiterated Putin s view that Russians and Ukrainians were a single whole. The conclusion of the article warns true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. At stake today is whether the Kremlin will impose militarily the regime of partial sovereignty on its neighbors that Russian leaders have pursued since the day of Tsar Peter. Alternatively, the Kremlin could accept its territorial limits and agree to the security guarantees that it says it wants. The country most in need of a credible security guarantee isn t Russia. It’s Ukraine.

via quillette.com