I was born in a Jewish family in Leningrad, Russia, in 1948. Four years later, we moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine. There, I grew up, studied and worked at Kharkiv University. This year, Russian rocket fire destroyed or badly damaged my alma mater and other memorable places of my youth. If someone asked me back then what was more probable – war between Russia and Ukraine or alien invasion – I would have chosen the latter without hesitation. There can be no justification of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine, but an honest analysis of why it happened may be helpful.
Under the USSR, Soviet leaders only promoted Ukrainian culture when it served the narrative of unifying all nations against capitalism. This applied to other Soviet republics too. A handful of Ukrainians who promoted national identity ended up in the Soviet GULAG. Learning about them was only possible through samizdat (underground distribution of banned literature) and Western sources.
Soviet citizens’ nationality was assigned according to that of their parents. The population of Eastern Ukraine predominantly spoke Russian. It was generally impossible to tell who was Russian and who was Ukrainian (or other) without looking at their passports. Some belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church, but true believers were rare. In Western Ukraine, most people spoke Ukrainian and many practiced Catholicism. They were closer culturally to the neighboring European countries than to Russia. Kyiv was somewhere in between.
In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine declared independence. Overnight, Ukrainian nationalism was no longer a criminal offense. Ethnic division, which had been a nuisance before, suddenly became a powerful tool in Ukrainian politics. Some newly-emerged political parties promoted friendly ties with Ukraine’s mighty neighbor based upon common history and mutual economic interests. Others tried to attract voters by sowing hate towards Russia, portraying Russians as genetically and culturally inferior, and by glorifying Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazis during the Second World War.
For more than 20 years, the cooler heads in Ukrainian politics kept extremists at bay, but in 2014 nationalists grabbed power in a coup d’état. Russia annexed Crimea and sided with citizens of the Donbas, who denounced insurrection against the government they elected. Kyiv responded by bombing Donetsk and Luhansk, starting an eight-year war between Ukraine and self-declared independent republics assisted by Russia. Russian literature, music, and art began disappearing from Ukrainian educational institutions and cultural events.
Two factors contributed to this development. One was the American foreign policy doctrine aimed at converting Ukraine into an anti-Russian state. It was accomplished through generous financial aid, planting the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, assisting the coup d’état, supplying arms to Ukraine, and by training formations of Ukrainian militants like the Azov battalion. The other, key to continuing the war today, was the greed of Ukrainian oligarchs who pocketed a large part of Western financial aid and who hoped to pocket more if Ukraine continued its anti-Russia stance.
Enduring corruption notwithstanding, Ukraine was a young, imperfect democracy that the West rightly preferred to Russia’s dictatorship. It should have been nurtured and assisted to guarantee its survival. The development of a booming economy on the Russian border, in a country with strong cultural and historic ties to Russia, would have been the perfect counter-argument against the oppressive Russian regime.
Instead, the United States and NATO chose to use Ukraine as a tool to weaken Russia by denying its historic dominance in the Black Sea despite criticism from names like Henry Kissinger policy back in 2014. No argument can justify the bloodshed that Russia inflicted on Ukraine, regardless of the danger that Western policies presented to Russian geopolitical interests. However, the official line of NATO countries that it was unprovoked aggression is a lie. Before the invasion began, Russia desperately tried to secure President Biden’s agreement that Ukraine would remain neutral and would not become a member of NATO.
That promise to Russia would have saved tens of thousands of lives and averted the energy crisis in Europe and hunger in Africa. It would have made Ukraine a buffer between Russia and NATO. Economic and political freedoms would have helped it to become a prosperous country as several other European non-NATO countries are. Instead, President Biden told Russia that it was up to Ukraine to make that choice — another lie.
Armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine happened on Biden’s watch, first as Vice President and then as President of the United States. The time to correct mistakes is running out. Biden’s administration should immediately begin mitigation of the conflict to bring enduring peace to the region. Alternatively, either Ukraine becomes unlivable after Russia completes the demolition of its infrastructure, or the whole planet becomes unlivable after nuclear war between Russia and NATO.
Eugene M. Chudnovsky is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the City University of New York
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.