The Root Cause of the War, or Power Instead of Law

35 years ago, in 1990, the perestroika-era RSFSR proclaimed its state sovereignty, as well as recognized the sovereignties of all then-union republics and even autonomies within its composition. This opened opportunities for transforming the entire post-Soviet space on an equal and contractual basis, comparable to the one on which the European Union was later built.

The signatories of the Belovezh Accords of December 1991 stated: “The High Contracting Parties recognize and respect each other's territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders within the Commonwealth,” and also clarified it with the formulation of “non-interference in internal affairs, renunciation of the use of force.” And at that time, no one could have imagined that just over twenty years later one participant of these agreements would annex an entire region of another (Crimea), and within thirty years would launch a full-scale war against it, the largest in Europe since World War II.

The first warning sign of the shift from the language of law to the language of power was President Yeltsin’s dissolution in 1993 of the Ural Republic. Although its democratically elected authorities demanded not political separation from the Russian Federation, but merely the elevation of economic self-governance of Sverdlovsk Oblast to the level of neighboring republics — Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. But unlike republics, territories and regions were then “not entitled” to sovereignty. This was a fundamental inequality flaw of the 1992 Federal Treaty.

The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria did not sign this treaty at all and did not vote for the 1993 Russian Constitution. Therefore, de jure it was an independent state. However, in 1994 the Kremlin sent tanks there under the slogan of “restoring constitutional order.” The Khasavyurt Agreements of 1996 ended the first Chechen war, but just three years later Yeltsin’s “successor” violated them.

Under Putin, Kremlin aggression spilled beyond the RSFSR borders. In 2008, there was an invasion of Georgia and the de facto annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Instead of contractual relations, the old imperial logic finally triumphed, according to which the only “sovereign” in the post-Soviet spaces is the Moscow metropolis, and around it — submissive colonies. And those who do not recognize this logic automatically become “enemies” and “Russophobes” (a term that replaced the former “anti-Soviet” label).

Historical Myths Instead of Contemporary Reality

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently reasonably noted: “By root causes of the war, Putin means long historical grievances, which we have heard many times. This is not a new argument, he has been saying this for a long time, and it is an argument about the West’s aggression. I don’t want to talk about it, it’s too long. We will not focus on this.”

Indeed, instead of modern international law, Putin relies on old imperial myths, composing articles like “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” It is impossible to imagine Friedrich Merz suddenly writing an article “On the Historical Unity of Germans and Austrians” or Keir Starmer — “On the Historical Unity of the English and Americans,” justifying with these works the necessity of returning to a single empire.

The imperial evolution of post-Soviet Russia has one fundamental explanation. In an empire, there is no free change of power — the principle of succession operates, or the constitution is simply rewritten for the “eternal” ruler. And every “federation” becomes merely a paper formality — all regions are governed by Kremlin appointees. Therefore, those who insist on the Western principle of regular democratic elections at all levels inevitably appear to the imperial regime as “undesirable foreign agents,” or even “terrorists and extremists.” And the state of Ukraine is a complete nonsense: since 1991, it has had six presidents, each of whom was not a successor but an opponent of the previous one.

In the first post-Soviet decade, Russia repeatedly confirmed its recognition of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This includes not only the Belovezh Accords but also the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and the “major” Russian-Ukrainian treaty of 1997. Even the figure of Viktor Chernomyrdin, who served as Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine from 2001 to 2009, was a sign of good neighborliness, although it already reflected Gazprom’s economic pressure (methods of economic pressure by one country on another were explicitly prohibited by the Belovezh Accords). And by the way, it is notable that in Putin’s 2001 decree, Chernomyrdin was appointed ambassador “to Ukraine,“ whereas later the Kremlin itself began to use and demand obedient media to use the preposition ”on.“ In relation to continental states, the Russian language usually uses ”to,“ but there is a nuance. The phrase ”to Ukraine“ emphasizes recognition of its state independence, while ”on“ reduces the level to that of a ”province“ (like on Kuban, on the Urals, etc.)

The Prophecy of Zbigniew Brzezinski

One of the main “root causes” of the war that Putin considers is Ukraine’s desire to join NATO. But this looks like a completely dictatorial and unlawful ban on another country conducting its own sovereign policy and deciding which unions to join and which not to. Although, for example, previously neutral Finland, which joined NATO after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and is geographically much closer to the Russian capitals in terms of “flight time,” did not cause such panic in the Kremlin. Probably, Zbigniew Brzezinski was right when he asserted that without controlling Ukraine, Russia loses its imperial self-awareness.

The immediate cause of the start of Russian aggression (first Crimea and Donbass, then the full-scale invasion) was Kyiv’s Revolution of Dignity in 2014, when Ukrainian citizens defended their right to be a European country. But from the Kremlin’s point of view, these events appear as an “anti-constitutional coup.” Putin generally fears civil revolutions very much. It is even surprising that in August 1991 in Saint Petersburg he supported democrat Sobchak, although by his current worldview Sobchak would be an unconditional supporter of the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP).

The elimination of the root causes of what is happening can begin at the level of republics within the Russian Federation if they recall their Declarations of State Sovereignty from 1990 and focus on their own development instead of participating in the imperial war. Moreover, this “new sovereignization” will surely affect not only republics but also oblasts and territories.