What is happening in Ukraine? Why is Russia invading its neighbor?
Although I am not an expert on international relations, I want to share a few resources I found. (Click on the links for more information.)
Since Putin is known for giving lengthy historical talks, it’s important to understand the recent history between Russia and Ukraine. Here’s a helpful timeline.
Independence
From that timeline, note especially that Ukraine voted for independence in 1991 with 92% of Ukrainians supporting independence. Ukraine had been one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union founded in 1922. In 1989 Gorbachev refused to interfere in the internal affairs of Soviet satellite states, opening the door for the revolutions that followed. From the beginning, then, this was about the self-determination of the Ukrainian people—being able to decide their own future. (For the complicated history of the dissolution of the Soviet states along with their rights to sovereignty and succession to the USSR read here.)
Budapest Memorandum
Additionally, note the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, signed by Ukraine, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S. The terms of this agreement involved Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal in return for the promise of protection by the other signatory countries. In particular, this commitment was made to Ukraine:
The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.
According to this statement, Russia officially recognized the national sovereignty of Ukraine and promised to respect the “existing borders of Ukraine.”
However, twenty years later, Russia annexed Crimea, which led to several countries condemning Russia for breaching the Budapest Memorandum. In 2014, when Putin was asked about this violation, he responded, “a new state arises, but with this state and in respect to this state, we have not signed any obligatory documents.” Unfortunately, Ukraine’s brief history contains much political turmoil, including two revolutions—the Orange Revolution (2004) and the Maidan Revolution (2013-2014). Putin was saying that Russia had not made any promises to the revolutionary government in Ukraine. In 2016 Sergei Lavrov used a different argument: “Russia never violated Budapest memorandum. It contained only one obligation, not to attack Ukraine with nukes.”
Declassified Documents
While Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton signed the Budapest Memorandum, declassified documents posted on George Washington University’s National Security Archive reveal considerable strain between the two. Yeltsin was facing intense domestic pressure regarding NATO’s intention to expand. Consequently, leading up to the summit on December 5, 1994, Clinton had to reassure Yeltsin that NATO expansion would be slow and in partnership with Russia.
Since Ukraine is approximately the size of Texas think of it this way: Texas secedes from the United States. A couple years later it seeks to join an alliance led by a foreign power, giving that alliance the right to station troops and military equipment on the Texan border. Now you get an idea of the pressure Yeltsin was facing. Of course, my analogy is not perfect. Ukraine, for example, was not the only state to break away from the Soviet Union; the entire union collapsed.
Despite Clinton’s reassurances, during the summit in front of other heads of state, Yeltsin accused the U.S. of being domineering and “trying to split [the] continent again.” One week after the summit, Clinton sent a letter to Yeltsin in which he stated, “I was puzzled and disappointed that you chose, without advance word and consultation, to criticize publicly NATO’s decisions on its future and the role of the United States in Europe.” (Here is Yeltsin’s letter to Clinton two days before the summit. And here is Clinton’s letter to Yeltsin one week after their meeting.)
NATO Expansion
If nothing else, this behind-the-scenes look, shows that NATO has been an extremely sensitive topic in Russia for decades. In fact, the history goes back to 1954 when the Soviet Union’s request to join NATO was denied. Why? NATO was formed in 1949 to guard against Soviet aggression. However, in 1990, after the Soviet Union had begun to disintegrate, Gorbachev’s proposal to join NATO was also rejected.
Some claim that prior to the Budapest summit NATO had promised Russia it would not expand. NATO, however, calls this claim “one of Russia’s top five myths about NATO” and responds:
NATO Allies take decisions by consensus and these are recorded. There is no record of any such decision having been taken by NATO. Personal assurances from individual leaders cannot replace Alliance consensus and do not constitute formal NATO agreement.
NATO’s “Open Door Policy” is based on Article 10 of the Alliance’s founding document, the North Atlantic Treaty (1949). The Treaty states that NATO membership is open to any “European state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area”. It states that any decision on enlargement must be made “by unanimous agreement”. NATO has never revoked Article 10, nor limited the potential for enlargement. Over the past 65 years, 29 countries have chosen freely, and in accordance with their domestic democratic processes, to join NATO. This is their sovereign choice.
In addition, at the time of the alleged promise, the Warsaw Pact still existed. Its members did not agree on its dissolution until 1991. The idea of their accession to NATO was not on the agenda in 1989. This was confirmed by Mikhail Gorbachev himself in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Russia Beyond the Headlines in an interview in 2014: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up, either.”
While NATO’s claim may be true, National Security Archive asserts that verbal promises were made to Russia by the U.S.
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous ‘not one inch eastward’ assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents . . .
The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.
The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.“
Later in the post more details are revealed about Baker’s assurances to Gorbachev:
Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”
How many Americans know these details?
Expert Opinions
What do scholars and political experts think about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
First of all, many of them were surprised by it. They had mistakenly predicted that Putin would not invade. If nothing else, this should make us wary of trusting experts who make predictions about the future.
Regarding responsibility, John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago, makes a bold claim: “the West bears primary responsibility for what is happening today.” This is not a new accusation for Mearsheimer. In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, he said, “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.”
In particular, Mearsheimer traces the blame to the NATO Summit in Bucharest in April, 2008, “where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand.”
Mearsheimer knows he is in the minority on this issue within U.S. academic circles, but his concern about NATO corresponds with significant thinkers, such as George Kennan (1904-2005). Kennan described NATO enlargement as a “strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions.” He also “called the expansion of NATO into Central Europe ‘the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.’” Noam Chomsky also puts most of the blame for the current crisis in Ukraine on the U.S. He says, “A large part of the conflict goes back to the decision of the United States, first by George W. Bush in 2008 then reaffirmed by Obama, to invite Ukraine to enter NATO.” Along these lines, Peter Hitchens points to the United States support of the 2014 revolution in Ukraine in which the pro-Russian Ukrainian government was overthrown.
There are certainly points worth considering here, but primarily blaming a third-party for the evil acts of an aggressor seems unjust. Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. And the West is to blame? Suppose while you were out shopping a man took a rocket launcher, walked toward your home, aimed it at your house, then fired. Would it be right to blame that person’s dad for the devastation? Even if the destroyer was mistreated by his father, would we place the blame primarily on his dad? I understand that Russia could say it was provoked for decades so actually the West started the aggression. But the Kremlin is still responsible for driving its tanks into Ukraine and opening fire.
Mearsheimer is aware that we are leaving the realm of normal morality with his line of thinking. He argues that great power politics is not an international order based on rules. The great powers behave according to their interests by constantly seeking to expand their sphere of influence. Ultimately, at this level, there is only anarchy and the thirst for power. (For more on Mearsheimer’s views read this article or watch this video.)
On the other hand, Stephen Kotkin, professor at Princeton, and Yuval Noah Harari at Hebrew University, accuse Putin and his brutality for what is happening today. Here is an insightful interview on Putin’s upbringing. And here is a must-see interview with Vladimir Kara-Murza on Putin’s politics and character.
Kotkin adds the important historical point that long before NATO existed, Russia looked like it does today with an authoritarian leader. Thus, forces within Russia going back centuries, not NATO, have led to the rise of current events.
Kara-Murza argues that Putin’s primary motivation for aggression against Ukraine, which started in 2014, was not geopolitical or foreign-policy driven. It was domestic. He did not like the precedent of the pro-Russian president of Ukraine being driven out of power by crowds of protestors during the Maidan Revolution. And he wanted to make sure the same thing did not occur in Russia. This thesis fits closely with the timeline of events.
Regarding NATO expansion, Not One Inch by Mary Sarotte at Harvard, appears to be one of the definitive books on the topic. Sarotte and other scholars talk about the current events in Ukraine here. Sarotte does not agree with Mearsheimer’s monocausality thesis, i.e., this is the result of the West’s encouragement of NATO’s expansion, because in the real world of international relations things are always more complex than one cause leading to one effect.
In terms of responsibility, Ted Galen Carpenter has probably struck the right balance:
Vladimir Putin bears primary responsibility for this latest development, but Nato’s arrogant, tone‐deaf policy toward Russia over the past quarter‐century deserves a large share as well. Analysts committed to a US foreign policy of realism and restraint have warned for more than a quarter‐century that continuing to expand the most powerful military alliance in history toward another major power would not end well. The war in Ukraine provides definitive confirmation that it did not.
Less than thirty years ago, Russia had promised to respect Ukraine as a sovereign country. But that promise has been broken. Since Putin is the leader of Russia, “Putin bears primary responsibility” for the devastation in Ukraine.
We should not, however, fall into a false dichotomy.
It is also true that current events are the result of a failure of diplomacy. The Ukraine-NATO issue could have been resolved decades ago. Since NATO is led in large part by the U.S., the U.S. bears responsibility for this failure.
Additional Resources
There is a religious dimension to Putin’s language and thinking. In his thinking Russia’s boundaries are sacred.
Russian POWs have claimed that they believed their mission was to save Ukraine from Nazis. Regarding Putin’s argument that neo-Nazi’s are running Ukraine, see the refutation here.
Many Russians have been protesting against Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. (See here and here.)
Finally, instead of invading other countries, here is an excellent speech on the need for nations to move forward peacefully even while acknowledging that they are not fully satisfied with the borders that have been drawn for them by other powers.
After graduating from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I served as a high school Bible teacher in Asia. I enjoy traveling, writing, and playing the drums. For a deep dive into church history and the character of God, see my book Surprised by Hell.
Have to chew on this one for a bit!