On December 25, 1991, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev finished up his resignation speech in the Kremlin in Moscow. Gorbachev declared that the Soviet Union would dissolve into 15 distinct countries after 74 years as one of the world's most powerful nations. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Estonia, Georgia, The Girl in Kherson Kazakhstan, Latvia, Tajikistan, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan replaced the former superpower. However, tensions between former Soviet countries are common, as evidenced by the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
3.1 Friction From 1991 Until Today
Russia and Ukraine have a 1,000-year history of shared—and often tumultuous—history. And they've never completely untangled that history and parted ways.
The origins of Ukrainian-Russian animosity may be traced all the way back to the Soviet Union's abrupt and unexpected collapse. Thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons were dispersed among four newly established states, including Russia and Ukraine, as a consequence of the collapse. Russia preserved its nuclear weapons.
In exchange for a pledge from Russia and others that its borders would not be crossed, Ukraine gave up its weapons in 1994. It appeared to be a win-win situation, but the truth was far more difficult. When large states' empires fall apart unexpectedly, history leaves behind a lot of flotsam and jetsam, a lot of debris that obstructs not only good ties but also understanding between countries.
In 2014, the Russian military captured the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and had already been there since. On December 14, 2021, Russian forces participated in the training near the Ukrainian border in southern Russia. A total of 100,000 Russian troops are stationed near the Ukrainian border, stoking fears of another Russian invasion.
3.2 Russia and Ukraine Strained Relations
Ukraine and Russia have had no formal kind of diplomatic relations since February 24, 2022. Ukraine and Russian Federation are now at odds—The Russo-Ukrainian War erupted in 2014 after Russia took Crimea from Ukraine. In February 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine on a broad front.
The succeeding governments' bilateral ties have been defined by ties, tensions, and open antagonism since the fall of the Soviet Union in the year 1991. Into the early 1990s, Ukraine's strategy was defined by goals for independence and sovereignty, as well as a foreign affair that balanced its partnership with Russia, the EU, and other major powers.
The relationship between the two nations has been tense since the 2014 Revolution of the Dignity, which dethroned Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych and his supporters because he refused to sign a political association and free trade contract with the EU that had majority approval in Ukraine's parliament. Rather than choose to play the delicate diplomatic game of aligning its own security and economic goals with those of the EU, Russia, and NATO allies, Ukraine's post-revolutionary administration committed the country to a future in the EU and NATO.
The Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Latvia, and Slovakia joined the EU in 2004, followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. The Russian government was anxious that Ukraine's membership in the EU and NATO would create a western wall of friends, denying Russia entrance to the Black Sea.
Because Japan and South Korea were US allies, the Russian government was concerned that Russia was becoming ring-fenced by possibly hostile powers; following Russian-backed separatist militias, Revolution of Dignity, within the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in a fight in the economically significant Donbas region of Ukraine, which borders Russia to the east. Russians make up the majority of the population in this area.
By early 2022, the Russo-Ukrainian war had killed more than 13,000 people, prompting Western sanctions against Russia. In 2019, the Charter of Ukraine was amended, which made the country's geopolitical path to EU and NATO membership irrevocable.
Russia's military buildup near Ukraine's borders in 2021/22 increased tensions and soured bilateral ties, with the US sending a clear warning that an invasion would have dire economic consequences for Russia.
3.3 Putin's Mindset and Strategy Post-Dissolution of the Soviet Union
During the time of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was one of two global power centers for over half a century. When it was disbanded in the year 1991, Russia discovered that it had lost relevance. Vladimir Putin Russian President was a youthful KGB officer at the period, and the occurrences of the time influenced most of the decisions he made early in his government, with the aim of recovering the global prominence that the Soviet Union had kept and restoring the pride of Russia. Putin has referred to the fall of the Soviet Union as the “biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
In 2014, the Russian military captured the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, and they still hold it. Last summer, Putin claimed that Russia and Ukraine are truly one country, which they have been for ages.
Putin declared he was not contemplating an invasion at a recent Kremlin press conference. He reiterated, as he has many times before, that the true threat is NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe, as well as the potential of Ukraine joining the alliance in the future.
In relation to NATO, Putin stated that it was the United States that sent missiles to their doorstep. Putin stated that rather than demanding promises from Russia, the West should provide guarantees to Russia.
NATO today has 30 members, including 14 European nations that have joined in the last two decades. The Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are among them, as are three former Soviet republics.
In a press conference at the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia has no plans to invade Ukraine. He blamed NATO for the region's unrest, saying the organization should provide assurances that it will not expand in Eastern Europe and will never admit Ukraine.
3.4 Putin's Personal Trauma Subsequent to the Fall of the Berlin Wall
For the majority of the Russian population, the transition following the breakup of the Soviet Union was difficult. While Putin climbed quickly through the political rankings in the aftermath, he actually did experience personal pain as a consequence of the fall.
Just a few days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, signifying the end of Soviet dominance in Europe, Putin, then the 37-year-older lieutenant KGB colonel based in Dresden, East Germany, watched carefully as enraged masses attacked the city's large Stasi base. The protesters marched onto the inner sanctum of KGB after taking over the East German secret police's offices.
Putin sought armed assistance to secure the staff and vital files on the premises but was informed that no help will be available. “Moscow is almost silent,” stated the voice on the other end of the telephone. He had no option but to come out into the street and deceive people, stating that he had heavily armed soldiers awaiting inside, prepared to anyone attempting to enter should be shot. The deception worked, the crowd scattered, and the KGB's informants and agent files were not compromised.
Putin believes he was witnessing the saddest and most humiliating collapse of among the globe's biggest and strongest civilizations. He had the sensation that the nation had vanished and was no longer there. More than the cost of lives or material problems, he actually seemed to be lamenting the national disgrace of the mighty state suddenly collapsing. He later stated that he had long anticipated that the power of the Soviet Union within Europe would crumble. However, he wanted to replace it with something new. However, no choice was offered and everything disappeared without a trace.
3.5 Putin Invoked History for Restoration of Russia’s Status
In the era of 1990s, Putin rose through the KGB ranks, becoming the St. Petersburg deputy mayor, and in 1996, he was summoned to serve for President Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin in Moscow. He saw how fragile emerging Russia had already become firsthand.
In 1998, when Bill Clinton contacted Yeltsin to inform him that the United States was thinking about air strikes in Serbia, he was furious. “This isn't fair,” he snapped at Clinton before hanging up. Nevertheless, the bombing missions were carried out. Putin was aware that this might not continue, and indeed it was clear from the start that he would adopt a different strategy than Yeltsin.
When Bill Clinton's key person in Russia, Strobe Talbott, first met Putin in the late 1990s, he was stunned by the lack of drama or sermons from him, something Yeltsin and other Russian officials were accustomed to. Talbott was taken aback by Putin's ability to communicate self-restraint and confidence in a reduced and smooth way. And the future president used a variety of KGB-style measures to demonstrate his authority, such as citing poets Talbott had actually learned in college to show that he had read Talbott's file.
Putin wrote an essay for the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta just days before taking office in late 1999, describing his work as he really saw it. “Russia faces the real risk of being demoted to the second, if not the third, level of global powers for the first time in 200 or 300 years,” Putin said. He called on the Russians to unite to keep the country on the list of “tier one” nations. Putin was able to achieve this by using history.
Despite Russia's recent contradictory, harsh, and deadly history, Putin insisted that Russians should be proud of their own heritage. The victory in the Second World War, in Russia, called the Great Patriotic War, gave rise to a kind of national creation myth for modern Russia.
On his first Victory Day, two days after taking office in 2000, Putin told veterans: “Through you, we learned to get used to being winners.” The story of triumph became more pronounced with each passing year, questioning the most atrocious components of the Soviet war story, such as the deportation of 2 million Soviets during the conflict, or the terrible actions of Stalin's regime on the brink of combat. Putin insisted that the Russians should not be blamed for their country's past.
3.6 Putin’s Image Transformation
Putin's self-image has changed to support the myth of a resurgent nation. He earned over Russians with his laid-back, no-nonsense demeanor and strong words. Putin in a race vehicle as well as a fighter plane, Putin bare-chested on the horse, Putin operating the microlight with such a flock of endangered cranes. Over time, Kremlin spin doctors emphasized his machismo credentials, culminating in a series of progressively bizarre photo opportunities—Putin was even said to want to be launched into space and the earth's orbit. Security at the Kremlin reportedly rejected the scheme because it was regarded too hazardous.
As his manufactured persona mirrored that of an actual superhero, Putin's ruling style changed. The sphere of professional decision-makers surrounding Putin has shrunk, with a preference for people with a security background. Many of Putin's associates stretch back to the days of KGB—or, at the very least, towards the 1990s in St Petersburg. These officials almost never speak to reporters, making it difficult to obtain accurate information regarding the Kremlin's inner workings.
Putin is just a solitary ruler who rarely utilizes the internet and instead depends on briefing notes from Kremlin officials kept in the red folders. While creating a picture as a man of people, he actually has come into the contact with actual Russians. In a rare 2005 interview with the Russian media, Ludmila, his then-wife, painted a picture of a taciturn but dictatorial householder. She claimed that when he came home late at night and drank a cup of kefir before bed, he could be questioned (never about work). Ludmila also mentioned that she had stopped cooking because her husband did not like her cooking. Putin, according to her wife, had tested her during her marriage. The couple made an official announcement of their divorce in 2013.
Over the decades, Putin has become synonymous with the newer state, and his presidency has spanned more than two decades. Putin has endeavored to weave the story of Russian majesty beginning with Prince Vladimir, the builder of Kievan Rus' in the tenth century, and ending with Vladimir, who now resides in the Kremlin. By mixing World War II with other victories and supporting historical figures, he has been effective.