In the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, senior US intelligence officials warned of imminent advancement into Ukrainian territory as Russian forces continued to assemble along its border with Ukraine. Many closest to the conflict, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saw the possibility of an imminent invasion as unlikely. In late January, Zelenskyy encouraged the public to remain calm, offering reassurance that the military build-up was not any more alarming than what had been witnessed in the past eight years due to ongoing border tensions with Russia. However, on February 24, in spite of Zelenskyy’s optimism, US intelligence was proven correct as Russian troops advanced into Ukraine, creating the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
Only a few months following initial reports of explosions in major Ukrainian cities such as Kiyv and Kharkiv, Putin’s invasion has forced an estimated 7 million Ukrainians to flee the country and has left millions more internally displaced. Because of his brisk success in annexing and reclaiming Crimea and due to Russia having one of the strongest militaries in the world, Putin likely expected his siege of Ukrainian territory to be a quick and easy victory. However, days have turned into weeks and weeks have now turned into months with no end in sight. Despite many expensive losses and miscalculations, Putin is still relentless but has narrowed his focus primarily on the Donbas region. Now, dozens of countries, including the US, UK, and Canada, have sent billions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine, making Russian forces face even more unanticipated resistance. The initial skepticism surrounding an invasion was rooted in the implausibility that Putin would initiate a conflict that would clearly result in an immense number of economic sanctions, the severing of Russia’s relations with most of the world, and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. In addition to these consequences, the military occupation will likely result in less evident outcomes that have dire implications on future geopolitics between Russia and the Global North.
One of Russia’s major justification for the invasion of Ukraine is the spread of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into Eastern European countries. In the months leading up to the military advancement, in December 2021, Putin laid out a list of demands to NATO. His conditions included a written agreement for NATO to rule out membership for Ukraine and for the cessation of all military activity in Eastern Europe. Originally created during the Cold War to deter the Soviet Union from Western expansion, NATO has continued to expand further and further east, accepting members from Eastern European and former Soviet nations. With the presence of NATO troops throughout Eastern Europe, Russia claims that the eastward expansion of NATO threatens the country’s security. The draft treaty was quickly turned down by NATO officials, citing the alliance’s “open-door policy”, which extends membership to any nation that gains unanimous consent from the 30 member states and meets a strict set of criteria. While NATO refuses to definitively bar Ukraine from the alliance, Ukraine does not have a clear path to joining NATO. While Ukraine has expressed strong interest in joining the military alliance and applied for membership in 2008, several NATO member states rejected their request due to fears of escalation from Russia. In addition, in March 2022, Zelenskyy expressed that he is no longer pushing for NATO membership for Ukraine in efforts to slow down or halt the destruction of Ukraine, marking a major concession to Putin. Despite this concession, Putin’s military occupation continued to expand into nearly three sides of Ukraine. With the country’s past failure to enter NATO and Zelenskyy’s admission that joining the alliance is out of the picture in the near future, it becomes increasingly apparent that Putin’s fear of the eastward expansion of NATO is only a minor impetus for the invasion. Because Putin likely knew that his rigid set of demands to NATO would never be fully met, his insistence acts as a diversion from the Russian leader’s true intentions. While NATO’s expansion has contributed towards undermining the power and influence of Russia in Eastern Europe, Putin’s continued attack on Ukraine is to reassert Russia’s former political and military dominance in the region. Unfortunately for Putin, although Ukraine is not protected by NATO’s collective defense and has a significantly smaller military than Russia, the Russian leader’s objective to reclaim authority is looking bleak as the country has faced expensive losses and high casualties. And now, any chance at NATO’s presence retreating from Eastern Europe is lost because of the invasion.
Despite Russia’s supposed desire to impede NATO influence on neighboring countries, the violent conflict is having the exact opposite effect. Finland and Sweden, countries that have largely remained neutral in international conflicts, are now seeking NATO membership. The countries’ leaders point to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as undermining European security and leaving them in a vulnerable position. If admitted into NATO, Finland would double NATO’s borders with Russia, inevitably furthering the tensions between NATO and Russia. Upon witnessing an unprovoked invasion of an independent nation, neighboring countries are seeking the military security and protection that NATO provides. Only a few years ago, the strength of the military alliance was being called into question by world leaders, with Emmanuel Macron asserting that NATO was experiencing “brain death” as President Trump rolled back US financial support to the alliance and threatened to withdraw. However, Putin’s military intervention has given the alliance increased international support and possibly two new members. Regardless of Putin’s desire for NATO troops to withdraw from Eastern Europe, member states have promptly deployed more troops into Russia’s sphere of influence and upgraded their military weapon supply, making the alliance more unified than it was only a few years ago when its strength was questioned.
Putin has also justified the invasion on the basis of “demilitarizing” and “denazifying” Ukraine. In a television address on February 24, Putin announced the commencement of a “special military operation” that would protect and defend Russian aligned separatists that he claims are facing genocide and violence in the Donbas region of Ukraine: “I decided to launch a special military operation. Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the regime in Kyiv for eight years. And for this we will pursue the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.” Tensions and violence between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatists emerged in Donbas following the Euromaidan Uprising. The uprising was sparked by Russian aligned Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych refusing to sign an agreement associating the country with the European Union, prompting mass demonstrations and his removal from the presidency. However, Putin’s allegations of genocide committed against the Russian speaking residents of the breakaway regions of Eastern Ukraine have been called into question. Since the start of the conflict in 2014, human rights violations have been attributed to both sides, and the accusations surrounding targeted violence towards Russian speakers in the breakaway regions has been found to be baseless. Because of his inability to produce any evidence for a genocide against Russian speakers in the Donbas region, Putin’s assertion of genocide only acts as a rallying cry to gain Russian support to openly send military forces into Ukraine in order to capture more territory from a nation he beleives inherently belongs to Russia.
In the same vein as most other European nations, extreme right-wing political movements have experienced a resurgence in recent decades in both Ukraine and Russia. However, far-right extremism in Ukraine has been thrown into the limelight in recent years. For instance, the Azov Battalion, is an often-cited far-right extremist faction of the Ukrainian national guard that became incorporated into the Ukrainian military following their success in recapturing Mariupol from Russian-backed separatists in 2014. Although a spokesperson of the regiment has claimed that only between 10% and 20% of the Azov militia hold far-right views in 2015, the group has used symbols associated with fascism such as the black sun and the SS symbol. Because of the Azov battalion’s notoriety from defending Ukrainian territory from pro-Russia rebels, the regiment serves as more than just a volunteer militia. The nationalist group has branched off into a far-right political party called the National Corp, has a summer training camp for children, organizes MMA tournaments, and even puts on music festivals. The reach of the battalion has also transcended national borders, as they have fostered ties with other extremist groups in Europe, the United States, and New Zealand. According to former FBI agent Ali Soufan, over the past seven years, the battalion has recruited over 17,000 foreign fighters primarily through websites such as Facebook, where they share racist and anti-semetic conspiracies to rally support from the far-right international community. Now, Russia’s assault on Ukraine may result in even more radicalization and recruitment efforts. Just as the rise of Russian-backed separatists in Donbas created a necessary condition for increased far-right nationalist sentiments due to a clear external threat to the country, Putin’s attack on Ukraine results in a similar condition. In almost parallel circumstances, the battalion and other right-wing nationalist militias may experience a resurgence as Russia’s attack on Ukraine is likely to galvanize both Ukrainian nationalists seeking to defend their homeland and the international far-right community who view the war as an opportunity to gain combat skills to bring back to their countries.
While the presence of far-right extremist groups undeniably exist, Ukrainian public support for these groups is often overstated. Unlike many other European countries, extremist parties in Ukraine have not experienced consistent political representation, as far-right political parties have failed to reach the 5% threshold for gaining parliamentary seats during every election cycle with the exception of the Svoboda party in 2012. As a result, Putin’s false insinuation that Ukraine has a disproportionately rampant far-right extremism problem compared to other nations is to contrive a justification for invasion that is difficult to challenge. The leader frames his position as a fascist versus anti-fascist issue, or, to Putin, a Ukraine versus Russia issue where the entirety of Ukraine and its citizens are being charactarized as fascists. This simplification creates a false dichotomy that makes it seem as though those who object to the invasion are right-wing sympathizers. However, the chances that an invasion of Ukraine will diminish the influence of right-wing ideology in Ukraine is very slim. The destruction of residential homes, theaters, hospitals, and other urban infrastructure as well as the damaging of the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial, which commemorates the nealy 100,000 Ukrainian Jews that were massacred under Nazi Germany, is more than likely doing very little to “denazify” Ukraine and instead targets the average civilian. Regardless of whether Putin actually intends for the invasion to “denazify” Ukraine, the occupation is more likely to further radicalize and embolden the very extremists he claims to want to suppress, just as his seizure of Crimea and the pro-Russian separtist movement gave rise to the Azov regiment.
While much of the world was in disbelief and horror as Russian troops advanced into Ukraine, in retrospect, the possibility of a Russia’s invasion appears even more high-stakes after evaluating the drastic consequences of launching a full-scale attack. With the probable strengthening of NATO and the possibility of emboldening the ultranationalist minority in Ukraine, the consequences of the war are likely to have an exceptionally higher cost to Russia than the supposed justifications that Putin put forth.
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