Taking Putin at his word and the lessons from history

As Russia's escalation of its war in Ukraine extends into its third year, there is a growing sense of foreboding about the direction of the conflict and Vladimir Putin's next moves – not least with the prospect of the Russian president spending another six years in office.

If past is precedent, there is reason to be alarmed.

To be sure, there has been no breakthrough on the battlefield, despite Russia’s capture last month of the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka after months of bloody fighting. The evident pressure on Ukraine’s land forces from the continued Russian onslaught in the absence of sufficient weapons supplies from the US and Europe has not prevented Ukrainian successes in destroying Russia’s Black Sea fleet and attacking Russian infrastructure.

However, Putin's recent public statements about his war aims should dissuade anyone from thinking that the current military stalemate in Ukraine is permanent or that the broader conflict is frozen -- particularly given doubts about the strength and duration of Western support for Ukraine.

Understanding Kremlin rationalism

Now, parsing Putin is not easy. He likes to play to Western expectations that he is a rational actor in our sense of what that means, when he is rational only on his terms as the leader of "a very simple resource-based kleptocratic autocracy,” as Ekatarina Schulmann, the Russian political scientist, has argued. Annexation and taking territory are just second- and third-best options to orchestrating docile, client regimes in Russia’s self-designated spheres of influence.

Tellingly, Putin goes to great lengths to justify current war aims in Ukraine through his version of history, including the events of 1939-41 when the USSR and Nazi Germany carved up central and eastern Europe between them. It is a period in the Second World War which fits uneasily with the usual narrative of Hitler’s ultimate defeat by the Allied powers and the crucial role played by the Red Army.

Yet it is that same army which attacked five European countries to the Wehrmacht’s eight in 1939-40, giving Russia, in the guise of the USSR, control over eastern Poland, the three Baltic states, a stretch of eastern Finland and what today is Belarus, Moldova and, of course, much of Ukraine. Or, to use Putin’s words: the offensives allowed Russia to regain its historical lands.

Long shadow cast by division of Europe during and after WWII

If Poland is not a target today, as Putin has said, it is plausible that the Kremlin is satisfied with the swathe of eastern Poland grabbed in 1939 by the Soviet Union and retained in the post-1945 division of Europe into Communist and non-Communist blocs.

But does the same go for the other “historical lands” of Russia, which like Ukraine, share minority populations of Russian speakers? Belarus is already in Moscow’s orbit. Before the escalation of the war in Ukraine, Putin openly suggested merging Belarus with Russia.

The fate of independent Moldova is uncertain – not least with the call on 28 February from the breakaway region of Transnistria, home to around 200,000 Russian speakers, for Moscow’s help to avoid “genocide.” That resembles calls from pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine in 2014.

As for the Baltic states, today members of the EU and NATO, around a quarter of the population of Estonia and Latvia are Russian speakers, with the figure around 5% in Lithuania. No wonder the three are among the loudest voices calling for fuller Western support for Ukraine. Finland, which fought the Red Army to a standstill in 1939-40, has abandoned its neutrality and joined NATO.

Polarisation and paralysis in US politics

Apart from history lessons, Putin has also volunteered his view on US politics, with unexpected flattery of President Joe Biden as “more experienced, predictable, an old-school politician” in comparison with Donald Trump, the Republican challenger in November’s presidential election. Putin’s remark may be a genuine assessment of the dangers of the unpredictable Trump regaining the presidency.

More likely, Putin sees in a Biden victory another four years of a US government that is as paralysed as it is polarised. Judging by the success of a minority of Trump Republicans are currently having in derailing efforts backed by most of Congress and the White House to vote more military aid to Ukraine, such paralysis may continue to assist in Russia’s war goals.

US and European war fatigue is not yet as crippling of decision-making as the fear of conflict and lack of military preparedness were in 1938-40. Then, Britain, France and US failed to respond effectively, if at all, to Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia, the Nazi-Soviet invasions of Poland and the Soviet attack on Finland.

However, the prospect of a more isolationist US government — by accident or design —and disagreements over Ukraine among NATO's European members are ominous. As we look at today’s US and European politics, it would be foolish to think Putin is not keeping his options open. It is also incumbent on US and European policy makers to take Putin at his word.

Matthew Curtin, deputy head of communications at Scope, is a former foreign correspondent with The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, reporting from Europe, Asia and Africa.