As a Ukrainian, I will correct you on this - the word Ukraine does not come from “borderland,” that’s an outdated theory that never made much sense since the word Ukraine was first mentioned in a text from 1187 during the time of the Kyivan Rus, so what was it a “borderland” of? Certanly not of Muskovy, which didn’t yet exist!
In Ukrainian “Krajina” means “country” and “u” means “in” or “into,” so the simplest interpretation is that U-krajina means “in-country” or middle country (a bit like China is Zhong-guo, Middle Country). Another version of the word “Ukraina” is “Vkrajina” (our national poet Shevchenko often used this version interchangably with “Ukraina”) and that once again points to this theory since “U” and “V” are also interchangeable in Ukranian language, both meaning “in” or “into.” Russian word “Okraina” (“borderland,” “periphery”) is an homonym.
The other noteworthy feature of Putin's rhetoric is that it is all directed to the US, with the idea that he can either cut a deal with the US over the heads of Ukraine and the rest of Europe, or else get the US to give up on NATO at which point Russia (currently the world's second military power, on traditional measures) would be in a position to dominate Europe.
But this no longer looks realistic. Even supposing a truce in which Russia holds on to its current gains in Ukraine, its frontline army has been destroyed, and the seemingly bottomless stockpile of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and so on is reaching its limits. And Europe, as always, is moving slowly but (as not always) steadily towards a semi-unified military structure that doesn't depend on the US. The frontline states (Poland, Ukraine, plus the Baltics) will soon have more (and much more modern) tanks than Russia, and, in a few years, Europe will be outproducing Russia across the board in military hardware.
Ukrainians likely detest Russia because of the Holodomor of the 1930s in which Russia or should I cover it up and call it the USSR starved million in Ukraine. The Nazis liked the idea so much they followed up with the Hunger Plan no more than 10 years later. Of course the Nazis starved lots of Poles too.
I strongly recommend Timothy Snyder's lectures at Yale on Ukraine's history. You can find it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8&t=18s My link is only the first lecture, it will go from about Vikings up to at least the fall of the USSR. He also has an excellent book titled "The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania". His is a magnificent riposte to the evil Putin and the fatuous Mersheimer.
You may not take this as a compliment Noah, but I like it better when you write about history, like this, rather than economics. This is very informative and clear!! 🙂👍🏼
Putin isn't the first Russian leader to be fixated on Ukraine's 1654 request for Russian help against Poland. Khrushchev also viewed this as the moment that Ukraine chose to join its fate with Russia on a permanent basis, resulting in a gigantic Moscow-sponsored tercentennial celebration in 1954. What Putin and Khrushchev ignored was Ukraine's many subsequent attempts to escape the Russian embrace.
Putin alluded to Vladimir Lenin's irrational decision to allow Soviet republics to secede from the Soviet Union. As an anti-imperialist, Lenin wanted to contrast a voluntary Soviet Union to the coercion of the British Empire. But whereas each Soviet republic had a right to secede, no one was ever allowed to seriously consider it.
Ironically, the breakup of the Soviet Union came when Yeltsin called for Russia itself to secede. This quickly led to the secession of Ukraine in 1991. Since approximately 90% of the population voted to secede, it appears a few Ukrainian minds had changed since 1653.
As a final irony, Putin stressed how cruelly the Poles treated the Ukrainians. Nowadays, most Ukrainians remember better the famines caused by ferocious Soviet efforts to extract grain from unwilling small farmers of Ukraine. There was no capitalistic mechanism by which grain could travel 600-800 miles north to feed Moscow and Leningrad, so Moscow simply sent out soldiers to gather whatever they could find and pay a token price for it.
The Soviets justified this by their belief that farmers always had more grain hidden than could ever be found. This was not correct— Ukrainians ended up starving by the millions, which led many of them to look on the invading Nazis as liberators.
As some one ho lived and worked in Ukraine, speaks both Russian and Ukrainian, and who is familiar with the how Russia and Ukraine have intersected through history, I think you are underestimating the extent to how much this is actually about Ukraine and Russia's ongoing unwillingness to acknowledge Ukrainian national identity. An uncountable number of Russians have told me that Ukraine was not a real country, and there is no such language as Ukrainian long before the invasion. They scoff at the notion. The amount of effort put into suppressing Ukrainian nationalism in both imperial Russia and the Soviet Union was enormous. And after Ukrainian threw off Polish rule in the 1600's they did not seek to become part of Russia, but to ally with Russia to keep from being reabsorbed by Poland. It did not work out as they hoped.
“ Ethnic imperialism is exactly what we’re facing in Russia right now. Putin doesn’t want Ukraine’s wheat farms. Nor is he motivated by some world-conquering ideology. He simply wants Russia to rule over all the places he views as being within its historic and linguistic sphere of influence.”
=================
Beg to differ here. Ethnic imperialism doesn’t explain Russia’s involvement in Syria, Venezuela, several African countries, strategic partnership with North Korea and Iran and attempts to influence elections in the US and Europe. Do you think they go to all this trouble just for sake of capturing Ukraine?
I think Russia fully fits the bill of an empire with global ambitions fueled by “an insane ideology.” There is an ethnic component, sure, but it’s only part of it.
Underestimating Poland has historically been a mistake. It manages to come up with great individuals at turning points in history. Marian Adam Rejewski, a Polish mathematician, figured out how the Nazi’s enigma machine worked and built an enigma model for the Allied Forces. A great labor leader, combined with an immensely popular Polish Pope who found common ground with William Casey, director of the CIA who attend a Catholic Mass every morning, turned the tide against Russia. And where did the most young, educated Russians (2 million) choose to flee from Putin: Poland. Imagine the technical an economic advances Poland will make with a generation of Russia’s best and brightest. The irony is rich.
Very interesting, and I agree with the main thrust of it. I think Putin's next aims, if he were to succeed in Ukraine or consolidate his gains and reconstitute his forces, would be Moldova, because it's small and would let him place further pressure on Ukraine, and Estonia, because a NATO failure to either answer the Article 5 call or successfully retake a NATO country after a fait accompli invasion might de facto break the alliance.
North Korea's regime probably benefits largely from the status quo. Iran might be playing a long game and hoping to expand into a strategic vacuum as the West withdraws and possibly if KSA becomes unstable. But Russia and China both seem to have a sense of urgency to achieve strategic wins in the lifetimes of their respective aging leaders.
True for Poland. But the same story is playing out, albeit on a smaller scale, between Romania and Russia.
Russia has invaded the lands that became modern Romania multiple times since at least the mid-eighteenth century. More recently, the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement of 1940 transferred Bessarabia and North Bukovina to the Soviet Union. Romania went to war in 1941 in large part to get them back -- and failed. Neither the Romanians nor the Russians have forgotten.
I was hoping someone would watch the interview and provide serious commentary. Tom Nichols failed me in that regard. Very lucid and informative, Noah. Thanks!
As a Ukrainian, I will correct you on this - the word Ukraine does not come from “borderland,” that’s an outdated theory that never made much sense since the word Ukraine was first mentioned in a text from 1187 during the time of the Kyivan Rus, so what was it a “borderland” of? Certanly not of Muskovy, which didn’t yet exist!
In Ukrainian “Krajina” means “country” and “u” means “in” or “into,” so the simplest interpretation is that U-krajina means “in-country” or middle country (a bit like China is Zhong-guo, Middle Country). Another version of the word “Ukraina” is “Vkrajina” (our national poet Shevchenko often used this version interchangably with “Ukraina”) and that once again points to this theory since “U” and “V” are also interchangeable in Ukranian language, both meaning “in” or “into.” Russian word “Okraina” (“borderland,” “periphery”) is an homonym.
The other noteworthy feature of Putin's rhetoric is that it is all directed to the US, with the idea that he can either cut a deal with the US over the heads of Ukraine and the rest of Europe, or else get the US to give up on NATO at which point Russia (currently the world's second military power, on traditional measures) would be in a position to dominate Europe.
But this no longer looks realistic. Even supposing a truce in which Russia holds on to its current gains in Ukraine, its frontline army has been destroyed, and the seemingly bottomless stockpile of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and so on is reaching its limits. And Europe, as always, is moving slowly but (as not always) steadily towards a semi-unified military structure that doesn't depend on the US. The frontline states (Poland, Ukraine, plus the Baltics) will soon have more (and much more modern) tanks than Russia, and, in a few years, Europe will be outproducing Russia across the board in military hardware.
Ukrainians likely detest Russia because of the Holodomor of the 1930s in which Russia or should I cover it up and call it the USSR starved million in Ukraine. The Nazis liked the idea so much they followed up with the Hunger Plan no more than 10 years later. Of course the Nazis starved lots of Poles too.
I strongly recommend Timothy Snyder's lectures at Yale on Ukraine's history. You can find it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8&t=18s My link is only the first lecture, it will go from about Vikings up to at least the fall of the USSR. He also has an excellent book titled "The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania". His is a magnificent riposte to the evil Putin and the fatuous Mersheimer.
You may not take this as a compliment Noah, but I like it better when you write about history, like this, rather than economics. This is very informative and clear!! 🙂👍🏼
Putin isn't the first Russian leader to be fixated on Ukraine's 1654 request for Russian help against Poland. Khrushchev also viewed this as the moment that Ukraine chose to join its fate with Russia on a permanent basis, resulting in a gigantic Moscow-sponsored tercentennial celebration in 1954. What Putin and Khrushchev ignored was Ukraine's many subsequent attempts to escape the Russian embrace.
Putin alluded to Vladimir Lenin's irrational decision to allow Soviet republics to secede from the Soviet Union. As an anti-imperialist, Lenin wanted to contrast a voluntary Soviet Union to the coercion of the British Empire. But whereas each Soviet republic had a right to secede, no one was ever allowed to seriously consider it.
Ironically, the breakup of the Soviet Union came when Yeltsin called for Russia itself to secede. This quickly led to the secession of Ukraine in 1991. Since approximately 90% of the population voted to secede, it appears a few Ukrainian minds had changed since 1653.
As a final irony, Putin stressed how cruelly the Poles treated the Ukrainians. Nowadays, most Ukrainians remember better the famines caused by ferocious Soviet efforts to extract grain from unwilling small farmers of Ukraine. There was no capitalistic mechanism by which grain could travel 600-800 miles north to feed Moscow and Leningrad, so Moscow simply sent out soldiers to gather whatever they could find and pay a token price for it.
The Soviets justified this by their belief that farmers always had more grain hidden than could ever be found. This was not correct— Ukrainians ended up starving by the millions, which led many of them to look on the invading Nazis as liberators.
As some one ho lived and worked in Ukraine, speaks both Russian and Ukrainian, and who is familiar with the how Russia and Ukraine have intersected through history, I think you are underestimating the extent to how much this is actually about Ukraine and Russia's ongoing unwillingness to acknowledge Ukrainian national identity. An uncountable number of Russians have told me that Ukraine was not a real country, and there is no such language as Ukrainian long before the invasion. They scoff at the notion. The amount of effort put into suppressing Ukrainian nationalism in both imperial Russia and the Soviet Union was enormous. And after Ukrainian threw off Polish rule in the 1600's they did not seek to become part of Russia, but to ally with Russia to keep from being reabsorbed by Poland. It did not work out as they hoped.
The current New York Review of Books has a long review essay exploring Putin's strange ethno/religious nationalism. It has a long history & is quite popular. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/02/22/russian-exceptionalism-foundations-of-eurasianism/
“ Ethnic imperialism is exactly what we’re facing in Russia right now. Putin doesn’t want Ukraine’s wheat farms. Nor is he motivated by some world-conquering ideology. He simply wants Russia to rule over all the places he views as being within its historic and linguistic sphere of influence.”
=================
Beg to differ here. Ethnic imperialism doesn’t explain Russia’s involvement in Syria, Venezuela, several African countries, strategic partnership with North Korea and Iran and attempts to influence elections in the US and Europe. Do you think they go to all this trouble just for sake of capturing Ukraine?
I think Russia fully fits the bill of an empire with global ambitions fueled by “an insane ideology.” There is an ethnic component, sure, but it’s only part of it.
Underestimating Poland has historically been a mistake. It manages to come up with great individuals at turning points in history. Marian Adam Rejewski, a Polish mathematician, figured out how the Nazi’s enigma machine worked and built an enigma model for the Allied Forces. A great labor leader, combined with an immensely popular Polish Pope who found common ground with William Casey, director of the CIA who attend a Catholic Mass every morning, turned the tide against Russia. And where did the most young, educated Russians (2 million) choose to flee from Putin: Poland. Imagine the technical an economic advances Poland will make with a generation of Russia’s best and brightest. The irony is rich.
Very interesting, and I agree with the main thrust of it. I think Putin's next aims, if he were to succeed in Ukraine or consolidate his gains and reconstitute his forces, would be Moldova, because it's small and would let him place further pressure on Ukraine, and Estonia, because a NATO failure to either answer the Article 5 call or successfully retake a NATO country after a fait accompli invasion might de facto break the alliance.
North Korea's regime probably benefits largely from the status quo. Iran might be playing a long game and hoping to expand into a strategic vacuum as the West withdraws and possibly if KSA becomes unstable. But Russia and China both seem to have a sense of urgency to achieve strategic wins in the lifetimes of their respective aging leaders.
Very interesting perspective.... it rings true.
Nice piece. I was very glad to see the results of Poland’s recent election, which served as a setback for the Putinist Law and Justice Party.
True for Poland. But the same story is playing out, albeit on a smaller scale, between Romania and Russia.
Russia has invaded the lands that became modern Romania multiple times since at least the mid-eighteenth century. More recently, the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement of 1940 transferred Bessarabia and North Bukovina to the Soviet Union. Romania went to war in 1941 in large part to get them back -- and failed. Neither the Romanians nor the Russians have forgotten.
I was hoping someone would watch the interview and provide serious commentary. Tom Nichols failed me in that regard. Very lucid and informative, Noah. Thanks!
Your valid view has been obvious long before Ukraine's invasion. Keep shouting this theme, please. More need to hear.
Thank you