Why, then, did Russia launch such a catastrophic, criminal war? Let us try to understand the war’s causes from the Russian perspective. To do so is not to justify or excuse, but to try to comprehend the worldview that led to the war, in the hope that this might help us to end it. To understand Russian decision-making, we must revisit the following history:
As many as 27 million Soviet citizens died during the war, including approximately 14 million ethnic Russians. During the siege of Leningrad alone, approximately 1.1 million people died—more than the combined deaths of all U.S. and U.K. citizens during the war. (Notably, Putin’s 1-year-old brother, Viktor, also died during the siege.) Desperate hunger led many civilians to eat wallpaper, sawdust, and cats; many even resorted to cannibalism. Tens of thousands of Soviet cities, towns, and villages were also destroyed during the war, as well as thousands of churches and hundreds of synagogues. Overall, the Nazi invasion led to the Soviet Union losing up to a third of its wealth and one-eighth of its citizenry; it took eighteen years for the country to recover its pre-war population levels.
The war is not ancient history for Russians. Every year, on May 9—Russia’s “Victory Day,” a deeply emotional public holiday commemorating the Russian victory in World War Two (or the “Great Patriotic War,” as it is known in Russia)—Russians march in major cities across their country holding placards with pictures of their relatives who fought or served during the war. Hundreds of thousands of Russians still have vivid memories of what happened during the war years; the stories of their immense suffering are, in turn, faithfully transmitted from generation to generation. To give just one illustrative anecdote: when I was on holiday in St. Petersburg a few years ago, my tour guide informed me that her grandmother, who miraculously survived the siege of Leningrad, does not celebrate her own birthday. “She considers May 9 her birthday,” my tour guide said. “It is the only day which is sacred to her.”
Thus, a major event in Russia’s contemporary history—the Nazi invasion—involved the failure of its political leadership to take a security threat sufficiently seriously on its border, and this failure not only led to the deaths of tens of millions of its citizens, but almost completely obliterated the nation itself. Russia, in other words, is a country which, for perfectly comprehensible historical reasons, is extraordinarily sensitive about any potential military buildup on its borders. It is a country which is committed to never making the same mistake again.
NATO Expansion
Besides the Second World War, there are other crucial pieces of historical context that are worth mentioning. Western leaders misled Russia during the 1990s about NATO expansion after the admission of a unified Germany into the alliance (Germany, it bears repeating, is a country which had almost destroyed Russia twice in the preceding century). As declassified documents released in 2017 by the National Security Archive at George Washington University show, such promises were made on multiple occasions by various Western leaders and officials, including most famously by Secretary of State James Baker, who told president of the U.S.S.R. Mikhail Gorbachev three times that NATO would not expand “one inch to the East” of Germany. (...)
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO has added 14 members—almost doubling the alliance’s size—in five separate waves of eastward expansion: the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined in 2004; Albania and Croatia joined in 2009; Montenegro joined in 2017; and the latest member, North Macedonia, became a member just two years ago, in 2020. Furthermore, at the Bucharest Summit in 2008, NATO explicitly declared that both Georgia and Ukraine would eventually become members of the alliance. (The Summit Declaration reads: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”)
In short: Western promises of NATO non-expansion were repeatedly made, and they were repeatedly broken. In fact, it is worse than this: since these promises were made, other explicit promises to other countries (namely, Georgia and Ukraine) have been made which further contradict the original promises given to Soviet (or Russian) leaders in the 1990s. Thus, NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance whose original raison d’être was to confront and contain the Soviet presence in Central and Eastern Europe has, since the fall of the Soviet Union, expanded closer and closer to Russia’s borders. What’s more, it has issued official, explicit statements to the effect that it will come closer still. Is it any wonder the Russians are nervous? (...)
The Failure of Minsk II
Setting this tangled legal issue to one side, one should note that, in the case of Ukraine specifically, Russia had one final legalistic-diplomatic recourse to prevent NATO expansion. These were the Minsk Accords, in particular, the “Minsk II Agreement,” drawn up in February 2015 by the governments of France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia, and subsequently endorsed by the U.S, the European Union, and the United Nations. The central purpose of Minsk II was to end the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine: its crucial provisions included the demilitarization of the Donbas region (and, hence, an end to the fighting) in exchange for the region’s “autonomy”—an autonomy which, the Russians hoped, would imply its having an effective veto of major Ukrainian government foreign policy decisions including, most crucially, any decision to join NATO.
For seven years, Russia had been consistently and vociferously calling for the agreement’s implementation. Shortly after the agreement was signed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov remarked that “the agreement was supported at the highest level and we hope that all parties will honor their commitments.” In 2019, president Vladimir Putin affirmed that “our position is very simple: we stand for the implementation of the Minsk agreements.” In 2021, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized “the absolute necessity of the full, consistent, comprehensive implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures.” And just weeks before the invasion, Putin himself reiterated his “belief [that] there is simply no alternative” to the full implementation of the Minsk accords.9 Since 2015, Germany and France had also repeatedly called for Minsk II’s implementation; indeed, they were even occasionally joined, somewhat half-heartedly, by the U.S.
The Ukrainian government, however, staunchly resisted implementing the agreement. In June 2018, then Interior Minister Arsen Avakov stated: “The Minsk process has played its role and at the moment it is dead. The Minsk process in its current form does not solve the problems of Ukraine in any way.” Former President Petro Poroshenko—who had been president of the country when the original agreement was signed—echoed Avakov’s remarks: “The Minsk format of negotiations no longer exists,” he said. In early February this year, Oleksiy Danilov, the head of the National Security Council of Ukraine, repeated this point: “It’s impossible to implement [these] documents. … If they [the Russians, Germans, and French] insist on implementing the agreements as they are, it will be very dangerous for our country.” Valeriy Chaly, a member of the original Ukrainian delegation to Minsk, agreed with Danilov’s remarks: “The circumstances have changed significantly, so the Minsk agreements are no longer the political decisions that can be used. They need to be totally renegotiated.”
It is primarily for these reasons that Ukraine specialist Anatol Lieven, in addition to pointing out before the invasion that “the only basis for a settlement is that of the Minsk II Protocol” and remarking (correctly) that “the depth of Russia’s commitment to this [the Minsk II] solution would of course have to be carefully tested in practice,” blamed the failure of Minsk II squarely on “the refusal of Ukrainian governments to implement the [Minsk II-based] solution and the refusal of the United States to put pressure on them to do so.” Similar views have also been expressed by others, including fellow Ukraine expert Lev Golinkin.(Golinkin also attributes the Minsk Accords’ “continued derailment” to the influence of the Ukrainian far-right, for whom the agreements are “anathema.”
The Missing Diplomatic Solutions?
Some have argued that, in spite of more than 30 years of failed diplomacy between Russia and the West and, in particular, the failed implementation of Minsk II, there were nevertheless other diplomatic options that Russia could have pursued. Here I will address two of the more promising—but, I will argue, nonetheless very far from convincing—of such proposals.
- The Second World War.
- The history of NATO expansion and aggression, and the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from nuclear arms treaties.
- Russia’s specific concerns regarding Ukraine.
The Second World War
The war is not ancient history for Russians. Every year, on May 9—Russia’s “Victory Day,” a deeply emotional public holiday commemorating the Russian victory in World War Two (or the “Great Patriotic War,” as it is known in Russia)—Russians march in major cities across their country holding placards with pictures of their relatives who fought or served during the war. Hundreds of thousands of Russians still have vivid memories of what happened during the war years; the stories of their immense suffering are, in turn, faithfully transmitted from generation to generation. To give just one illustrative anecdote: when I was on holiday in St. Petersburg a few years ago, my tour guide informed me that her grandmother, who miraculously survived the siege of Leningrad, does not celebrate her own birthday. “She considers May 9 her birthday,” my tour guide said. “It is the only day which is sacred to her.”
Thus, a major event in Russia’s contemporary history—the Nazi invasion—involved the failure of its political leadership to take a security threat sufficiently seriously on its border, and this failure not only led to the deaths of tens of millions of its citizens, but almost completely obliterated the nation itself. Russia, in other words, is a country which, for perfectly comprehensible historical reasons, is extraordinarily sensitive about any potential military buildup on its borders. It is a country which is committed to never making the same mistake again.
NATO Expansion
Besides the Second World War, there are other crucial pieces of historical context that are worth mentioning. Western leaders misled Russia during the 1990s about NATO expansion after the admission of a unified Germany into the alliance (Germany, it bears repeating, is a country which had almost destroyed Russia twice in the preceding century). As declassified documents released in 2017 by the National Security Archive at George Washington University show, such promises were made on multiple occasions by various Western leaders and officials, including most famously by Secretary of State James Baker, who told president of the U.S.S.R. Mikhail Gorbachev three times that NATO would not expand “one inch to the East” of Germany. (...)
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO has added 14 members—almost doubling the alliance’s size—in five separate waves of eastward expansion: the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined in 2004; Albania and Croatia joined in 2009; Montenegro joined in 2017; and the latest member, North Macedonia, became a member just two years ago, in 2020. Furthermore, at the Bucharest Summit in 2008, NATO explicitly declared that both Georgia and Ukraine would eventually become members of the alliance. (The Summit Declaration reads: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”)
In short: Western promises of NATO non-expansion were repeatedly made, and they were repeatedly broken. In fact, it is worse than this: since these promises were made, other explicit promises to other countries (namely, Georgia and Ukraine) have been made which further contradict the original promises given to Soviet (or Russian) leaders in the 1990s. Thus, NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance whose original raison d’être was to confront and contain the Soviet presence in Central and Eastern Europe has, since the fall of the Soviet Union, expanded closer and closer to Russia’s borders. What’s more, it has issued official, explicit statements to the effect that it will come closer still. Is it any wonder the Russians are nervous? (...)
The Failure of Minsk II
Setting this tangled legal issue to one side, one should note that, in the case of Ukraine specifically, Russia had one final legalistic-diplomatic recourse to prevent NATO expansion. These were the Minsk Accords, in particular, the “Minsk II Agreement,” drawn up in February 2015 by the governments of France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia, and subsequently endorsed by the U.S, the European Union, and the United Nations. The central purpose of Minsk II was to end the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine: its crucial provisions included the demilitarization of the Donbas region (and, hence, an end to the fighting) in exchange for the region’s “autonomy”—an autonomy which, the Russians hoped, would imply its having an effective veto of major Ukrainian government foreign policy decisions including, most crucially, any decision to join NATO.
For seven years, Russia had been consistently and vociferously calling for the agreement’s implementation. Shortly after the agreement was signed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov remarked that “the agreement was supported at the highest level and we hope that all parties will honor their commitments.” In 2019, president Vladimir Putin affirmed that “our position is very simple: we stand for the implementation of the Minsk agreements.” In 2021, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized “the absolute necessity of the full, consistent, comprehensive implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures.” And just weeks before the invasion, Putin himself reiterated his “belief [that] there is simply no alternative” to the full implementation of the Minsk accords.9 Since 2015, Germany and France had also repeatedly called for Minsk II’s implementation; indeed, they were even occasionally joined, somewhat half-heartedly, by the U.S.
The Ukrainian government, however, staunchly resisted implementing the agreement. In June 2018, then Interior Minister Arsen Avakov stated: “The Minsk process has played its role and at the moment it is dead. The Minsk process in its current form does not solve the problems of Ukraine in any way.” Former President Petro Poroshenko—who had been president of the country when the original agreement was signed—echoed Avakov’s remarks: “The Minsk format of negotiations no longer exists,” he said. In early February this year, Oleksiy Danilov, the head of the National Security Council of Ukraine, repeated this point: “It’s impossible to implement [these] documents. … If they [the Russians, Germans, and French] insist on implementing the agreements as they are, it will be very dangerous for our country.” Valeriy Chaly, a member of the original Ukrainian delegation to Minsk, agreed with Danilov’s remarks: “The circumstances have changed significantly, so the Minsk agreements are no longer the political decisions that can be used. They need to be totally renegotiated.”
It is primarily for these reasons that Ukraine specialist Anatol Lieven, in addition to pointing out before the invasion that “the only basis for a settlement is that of the Minsk II Protocol” and remarking (correctly) that “the depth of Russia’s commitment to this [the Minsk II] solution would of course have to be carefully tested in practice,” blamed the failure of Minsk II squarely on “the refusal of Ukrainian governments to implement the [Minsk II-based] solution and the refusal of the United States to put pressure on them to do so.” Similar views have also been expressed by others, including fellow Ukraine expert Lev Golinkin.(Golinkin also attributes the Minsk Accords’ “continued derailment” to the influence of the Ukrainian far-right, for whom the agreements are “anathema.”
The Failure of Diplomacy
But why did Putin invade Ukraine rather than addressing security concerns peacefully, through negotiation and diplomacy?
A close look at the history of NATO is revealing. In particular, Russia tried for over 30 years to acquire some binding agreements on NATO non-expansion. But this effort failed largely for two reasons:
- Senior U.S. and NATO officials refused to concede that Russia could prevent Ukraine’s (or any other non-NATO country’s) accession to NATO through diplomatic channels.
- The one legal document which would have effectively guaranteed Ukraine’s permanent non-accession to NATO, Minsk II, failed to be implemented.
Over the last 30 years, multiple Russian leaders have warned about the threat NATO expansion poses to Russian security. In 1995, Russian President Boris Yeltsin informed U.S. President Bill Clinton that “the borders of NATO expanding towards those of Russia” would “constitute a betrayal” and “humiliation” of the Russian people; in 1997, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned the U.S. Congress that he believed NATO expansion was “a mistake, it is a bad mistake, and I am not persuaded by the assurances I hear that Russia has nothing to worry about”; and in a famous speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin labeled NATO expansion a “serious provocation that reduces mutual trust.” Indeed, in December last year, just two months before its invasion of Ukraine, Russia publicly published proposed draft treaties with NATO and the U.S,, demanding an end to any further eastward expansion of the alliance—a demand which NATO unanimously rebuffed, and which the U.S. in particular rejected as a “complete non-starter.”
Russian perceptions that NATO expansion was a mistake have been echoed over the years by some of the most senior members of the American political and intellectual establishment. Distinguished former statesman George Kennan, famous for his advocacy of the policy of “containment” during the Cold War, in 1998 labeled NATO expansion “a tragic mistake” for which there was “no reason whatsoever.” Influential New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in 1996 similarly described NATO expansion as “the most ill-conceived project of the post-cold-war era.” Celebrated liberal senator Daniel Moynihan in 1998 also warned that, by expanding NATO, “we [the U.S.] have no idea what we’re getting into.” Perhaps the foremost statesman warning of the perils of NATO expansion, however, has been former Ambassador to Moscow and current CIA Director William J. Burns. In his recently published memoir, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal, Burns recounts how, while working as a counselor for political affairs at the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1994, he reported back to Washington that “hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the political spectrum here.” (Burns himself was of the mind in the mid-1990s that “NATO expansion was premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst.”) (...)
Undeterred by such warnings from Russian leaders and even members of its own establishment, the U.S. pressed ahead with NATO enlargement. Moreover, Western leaders have repeatedly made it emphatically clear that their rejection of Russian demands is both principled and nonnegotiable. (...)
The Missing Diplomatic Solutions?
Some have argued that, in spite of more than 30 years of failed diplomacy between Russia and the West and, in particular, the failed implementation of Minsk II, there were nevertheless other diplomatic options that Russia could have pursued. Here I will address two of the more promising—but, I will argue, nonetheless very far from convincing—of such proposals.
