What actually Vladimir Putin wants from Ukraine?
For the last few days, Russian forces are in Ukraine and Ukraine has declared an emergency in country, the youths in Kyiv city the capital of Ukraine are not allowed to leave the city but to take weapons and stand against Russians and force them to retreat. The civilians are to take shelter underground in the subway stations etc.
On February 24, 2022 morning, the Russian president Putin declared war against Ukraine and started full-scale military attacks. Putin has clearly said that until Ukraine doesn’t drop its arms we won’t stop and Ukrainian president Volodimer Zelensky has said that they won’t give up on their independence. However, the question is what Putin wants, to get this let’s explore the history of Ukraine.
In the first millennium, some nomadic tribes emerged in eastern Europe sharing similar language, culture, and polytheistic religion. In the same era, they were attacked by the Vikings from the north who were warlike people but they revolted and recover their sovereignty causing disunity between themselves due to which Vikings were called to rule and reunite them.
Later in the 9th century, the Kievan Rus state was made. After another power emerged from the east conquering Moscow and from Moscow emerged the ‘Pocchr’ empire later known as the Russian empire. The empire was populated by Slavic people (today Russians and Ukrainians), ruled by Vikings, and taught by Greeks. However, Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire until World War I (WW1) but in 1918 Ukraine got its independence. Unfortunately, they couldn’t hold it and Lenin with its red army invade Ukraine.
After WW1 the west part of Ukraine was annexed by Poland and east by the Soviet Union but with the start of WW2 Poland couldn’t hold west and the USSR (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic) gained control over all of Ukraine.
Finally, in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine got its independence and moved toward a democratic government but suffer through a big economic crisis.
Well, with this brief history we can know that in history Ukraine and Russia had been one state but not one nation, and Ukraine has always wanted separation which they got in 1991 but Russia didn’t want that. Russia had been a colonizer in history and we can say that she wants to colonize Ukraine and impose its imperialism on it.
Ukraine had been a part of Russia before 1991 and after its independence, USSR still had access to Ukraine but now Russia fears losing its accessibility in Ukraine. After Ukraine’s independence it was in a huge economic crisis and it was completely broke so, in 2008 to increase its political, social power and economy Ukraine applied to begin NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) membership applied action plan (MAP) and Ukraine have had a relationship with NATO since 1992.
In fear of Russia, the later government of Yatseniuk of Ukraine said clearly that they won’t join Ukraine but in 2014 Russia annexed Crimea (a peninsula in the black sea of Ukraine) and the upcoming government made joining NATO priority to expand its political power and get rid of Russia.
MAP of Ukraine was supported by a low ratio of Ukrainians but after the annexation of Crimea, the ratio rose from 28% to 69% for joining NATO.
In 2021 June Brussel Summit said that Ukraine would become a part of NATO and Ukraine has full-scale right to determine its own future and foreign policy. Furthermore, NATO’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg also said that Russia won’t be able to veto Ukraine’s accession to NATO, “no large country has right to decide what smaller ones do.”
Keeping this all in mind many say that Russia fears NATO because it may attack USSR from the Ukraine border but why would NATO do that as NATO was made to stop the bloodshed in Europe and conflict with power like USSR will lead to global and nuclear war which NATO doesn’t want. Russia doesn’t fear NATO but fears losing its accession to Ukraine and wants to impose its imperial power on it.
Ukraine, after receiving the package from IMF of 14-18 billion USD in 2014 brought Ukraine out of economic crises and later Ukraine was growing economically, politically, socially, and militarily and now if Ukraine joins NATO so, Russia would lose its access to Ukraine completely.
President Vladimir Putin objected that Ukraine is violating human rights but these objections were proved false. The pro-separatists captured Donetsk and Luhansk with the annexation of Crimea but were recovered later. Till today in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian forces are fighting against pro-separatists who want to be a part of Russia but Ukraine can’t leave the areas as it has fertile lands, irons, and several other natural resources.
Vladimir Putin said that the pro-separatists had sought support from Russia and Ukraine is violating their basic rights but this point isn’t proven yet. Considering the two Cities Donetsk and Luhansk we can say that Russia may want to expand in those lands of Ukraine as it did in 2014 in Crimea.
Well, the biggest fear of this conflict is that, will it lead to nuclear war? because Russia is the 4th largest nuclear power country. According to President Vladimir Putin’s speech “US, EU, and NATO are incomparable with Russia but they must remember that Russia is one of the leading nuclear power countries.” If we analyze this point then of course there are some chances of nuclear war if western countries join the war but there is also many chances of no nuclear war because as Yuval Noal Harari said in his book “today no country wants war because of how much money they spend on invading a country, never gets that much back from the invaded country as money is digitalized in today’s world”. Nuclear war leads all involved countries to a deep economic crisis so, no country wants that.
However, we can’t say that this war isn’t based on today’s issues between Ukraine and Russia but it’s a shared history behind this. Ukraine and Russia had been conflicting with each other since history and Russia has always wanted Ukraine to be its colony and had full access to its liberty whereas Ukraine has always been trying to get rid of Russia. In 2014 they signed the MINSK agreement which declared that they wouldn’t conflict with each other but broke that after a few weeks and again signed that in 2015. In simple words president Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to be under its sovereignty indirectly and if Ukraine joins NATO Russia would be unable to access Ukraine. We can also say that Russia wants a treaty of its own to be signed by Ukraine where Russia could keep its demands.