Russia’s president is known for his ability to wax eloquent on historical subjects, penning a piece in 2021 on the eve of the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” In the piece, Putin wrote at length about the causes of the Donbass crisis and NATO’s role in destabilizing Ukraine and launching a coup d’état which ripped apart peoples who have shared a common culture, faith and language going back many centuries.
Putin returned to these themes during Thursday’s press conference.
“How did the conflict in Ukraine begin? Let us look back… It began with the state coup in 2014. Before that, we did our best for decades, I repeat, for decades, to develop normal relations with Ukraine, even after the events that amounted to a state coup, when Viktor Yanukovych was prevented from assuming office after he won the [presidential] election in the second round. But they decided to hold a third round. What was it if not a state coup?” Putin said, referring to the first Maidan color revolution of 2004-2005.
“What happened next? He won the next election, and what did our so-called opponents do? They staged a state coup. Do you see the core of the problem?” Putin asked.
“The problem is, as I have always said and as I am saying today, is that despite the current tragic developments, Russians and Ukrainians are essentially one people. What is happening now is an immense tragedy; it is like a civil war between brothers who stand on different sides. But overall, they are not, to a large extent, responsible for this,” the Russian president said.
Pointing to the historically pro-Russian attitudes in southeastern Ukraine, owing to the regions’ historical status as a part of the Russian Empire, and part of the Ukrainian republic of the Soviet Union during the 20th century, Putin said that after the 2014 coup, “it became clear to” Moscow that the West “would use force to prevent us from developing normal relations with Ukraine. They spent $5 billion on that state coup, as the Americans openly admitted, without any hesitation,” Putin said, referring to perennial State Department official Victoria Nuland’s admission in a speech in 2013, on the eve of the Euromaidan coup of the $5 billion “investment” in Ukraine’s “democratic institutions.”
“In 2014,” Putin recalled, “three foreign ministers from Europe (from Poland, Germany and France) went [to Ukraine] to sign off as guarantors of agreements between the government – President Yanukovych – and the opposition. They agreed to resolve their disagreements peacefully. Two days later, they carried out a coup d’état. Why did they do it? They could have run and won the next election. But no. They wanted it straight away, and they wanted to create a conflict – that is why. Who did it? Our American ‘buddies’. And the Europeans, who signed the agreements between the government and the opposition as guarantors, pretended they did not know anything about it. Today, if you ask them in Europe if anyone remembers this – no, they do not. But we have not forgotten and we will not forget.”
“That, combined with a burning urge to creep up to our borders and drag Ukraine into NATO – all of this has led to the tragedy. In addition, there has been bloodshed in the Donbass for eight years. All of this taken together has led to the tragedy that we are now experiencing. They forced us to take these actions,” Putin said, referring to Russia’s special military operation.
Asking how Moscow could ever rebuild relations with the West on good faith in such circumstances, given not just the violent 2014 coup in Kiev, but the West’s rejection of the Minsk peace deal, Putin stressed that Russia will be ready to work with the West, including the United States, if and when the country gives up on its imperial ambitions, and is ready to build ties based on compromise “instead of addressing their problems using sanctions and military force.”
Key Themes
Tony Kevin, a veteran Australian diplomat, former ambassador to Poland and Cambodia, and author of two books on Russia, says Putin’s deep dive into the recent history of the Ukrainian crisis, and his characterization of that crisis, struck him as one of the key themes of Thursday’s event.
“The themes that most struck me about President Putin’s highly symbolic and content-rich international press conference in Moscow [included]: his clear characterization of the Ukraine conflict as a civil war in which the Kiev regime, urged on and supported financially by the US, is throwing away Ukrainian soldiers’ lives on the front. The West used Ukraine as a weapon to try to undermine and weaken Russian sovereignty: it failed. Ukrainians have been the main victims,” Kevin said.
“That Russia, having almost completed the second stage of its Ukraine campaign in which it is destroying all the Western-supplied military equipment, is now steadily advancing all along the front and preparing to complete its task of denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. That US imperial policy is at the root of all problems in east-west relations, but that Russia is ready to engage constructively with any Western leaders when the latter come to their senses. For so long as the West behaves arrogantly and imperiously, Russia can manage well in the world without them,” Kevin continued.
Putin, the veteran diplomat said, made clear that Russia “is making satisfactory progress at home, in social cohesion and political stability, in the economy and in military strength,” while simultaneously “playing an important role in the rebalancing of the global economy to give greater weight and voice to the Global East and Global South,” with “the excellent Russia-China relationship” being “fundamental to this.”