The 35th anniversary of Ukrainian independence is a timely occasion to reflect on the last chance that it had to restore this in full. For background, “Putin Always Wanted A Truly Independent Ukraine” since he envisaged it complementing Russia’s role in facilitating Sino-EU trade with the aim of strengthening all parties’ complex independence, which could have economically united Eurasia and peacefully challenged the US’ hegemony. The problem, however, was Ukraine’s Western-backed ultra-nationalists.
What went wrong over the last 35 years is that these forces gradually subordinated Ukraine to the West as its anti-Russian proxy, the process of which was accelerated after the West helped install them in power through 2014’s “EuroMaidan” precisely for this purpose. Nevertheless, Putin still (naively in hindsight) believed that France and Germany remained independent of the US, which is why he expected that Russia’s security guarantee requests from December 2021 would resonate with them.
In his mind, they’d de-escalate tensions with Russia through the means that he proposed, leveraging their influence over the Baltic States and Poland to get them to agree “for the greater (economic) good”. The US would then be forced to choose between complying with the related proposals that Russia shared with it if European NATO already agreed to the ones shared with it or divide NATO by supporting the Baltic States and Poland if they weren’t on board. Both outcomes would advance Russia’s interests.
As a reminder, here’s what Russia requested from NATO: bloc members at the time of the 1997 NATO-Russian Founding Act’s signing will withdraw the forces that they deployed eastward afterwards; no intermediate- and short-range missile deployments that can reach Russia; no more NATO enlargement; no NATO drills in Ukraine, Eastern Europe (unclear if this includes the Baltic States), the South Caucasus, and Central Asia; and only brigade-level drills within a zone of agreed width from the Russian border.
Likewise, here’s what Russia requested from the US: no US bases in non-NATO former Soviet Republics, use of their infrastructure for military activities, or bilateral military ties; no military deployments outside of its borders that can be perceived as a threat; no heavy bombers or surface ships outside its national airspace and territorial waters from where they could target Russia; no ground-launched intermediate- and short-range missiles within targeting distance of Russia; and no US nukes deployed outside the US.
Russia would reciprocate compliance with the terms that apply to it and the less significant ones that weren’t listed above. This new European security architecture would have restored Ukraine’s independence in full through the West’s resultant abandonment of its plans to weaponize it as their anti-Russian proxy to the consternation of its ultra-nationalists. Kiev would then have had no choice but to do what it should have done all along by maintaining peaceful and pragmatic ties with Moscow.
As it turned out, France and Germany had already subordinated themselves to the US just like Ukraine had, so Russia’s security guarantee requests were doomed to be denied. Consequently, it wasn’t just Ukraine’s independence that was lost, but those two Great Powers’ and the rest of the EU’s too after they all did their shared US patrons’ bidding against Russia at the expense of their interests. History can’t be changed, but lessons can be learned from it, which could help Russia, China, and Iran in the future.
