Zürcher Nachrichten - Vladimir Putin's Ukraine obsesssion

EUR -
AED 3.879454
AFN 71.766172
ALL 98.446538
AMD 408.727287
ANG 1.903424
AOA 962.189651
ARS 1055.136057
AUD 1.630409
AWG 1.901181
AZN 1.789518
BAM 1.961728
BBD 2.132343
BDT 126.201335
BGN 1.9588
BHD 0.398064
BIF 3118.741826
BMD 1.056211
BND 1.421281
BOB 7.297188
BRL 6.105428
BSD 1.056091
BTN 89.136639
BWP 14.496666
BYN 3.456143
BYR 20701.745225
BZD 2.128773
CAD 1.480962
CDF 3026.046048
CHF 0.937129
CLF 0.037557
CLP 1036.439301
CNY 7.636301
CNH 7.645963
COP 4727.78219
CRC 539.429963
CUC 1.056211
CUP 27.989605
CVE 110.599191
CZK 25.276513
DJF 188.054673
DKK 7.458575
DOP 63.873001
DZD 141.196108
EGP 52.131744
ERN 15.843172
ETB 130.910644
FJD 2.402194
FKP 0.833686
GBP 0.831777
GEL 2.883565
GGP 0.833686
GHS 16.976135
GIP 0.833686
GMD 74.991397
GNF 9102.504493
GTQ 8.155953
GYD 220.943428
HKD 8.217753
HNL 26.666577
HRK 7.53423
HTG 138.767993
HUF 406.15981
IDR 16809.289017
ILS 3.948874
IMP 0.833686
INR 89.180057
IQD 1383.48038
IRR 44458.579959
ISK 146.095547
JEP 0.833686
JMD 167.185173
JOD 0.748958
JPY 164.521312
KES 136.515348
KGS 91.231852
KHR 4289.881246
KMF 492.563931
KPW 950.589942
KRW 1479.650439
KWD 0.32489
KYD 0.880043
KZT 523.582077
LAK 23200.543009
LBP 94573.658376
LKR 308.542304
LRD 194.845062
LSL 19.330811
LTL 3.118718
LVL 0.638891
LYD 5.158587
MAD 10.547972
MDL 19.130443
MGA 4948.044906
MKD 61.515768
MMK 3430.533723
MNT 3589.00659
MOP 8.466021
MRU 41.984863
MUR 49.842827
MVR 16.318166
MWK 1831.198548
MXN 21.74186
MYR 4.732353
MZN 67.489547
NAD 19.330811
NGN 1774.287045
NIO 38.86892
NOK 11.740652
NPR 142.624361
NZD 1.797365
OMR 0.406676
PAB 1.056111
PEN 4.024312
PGK 4.184644
PHP 62.056118
PKR 293.325825
PLN 4.325535
PYG 8247.922253
QAR 3.849933
RON 4.976236
RSD 117.044056
RUB 105.092045
RWF 1449.953783
SAR 3.967208
SBD 8.854807
SCR 14.362927
SDG 635.317643
SEK 11.596225
SGD 1.417832
SHP 0.833686
SLE 24.097471
SLL 22148.231865
SOS 603.523631
SRD 37.343937
STD 21861.445383
SVC 9.240923
SYP 2653.762908
SZL 19.339168
THB 36.814269
TJS 11.257603
TMT 3.707302
TND 3.335479
TOP 2.473748
TRY 36.27907
TTD 7.170667
TWD 34.391332
TZS 2809.522312
UAH 43.536853
UGX 3875.711004
USD 1.056211
UYU 44.865568
UZS 13525.870313
VES 47.523829
VND 26827.771874
VUV 125.395551
WST 2.94851
XAF 657.932577
XAG 0.034763
XAU 0.000412
XCD 2.854464
XDR 0.795596
XOF 657.976316
XPF 119.331742
YER 263.843317
ZAR 19.268254
ZMK 9507.174232
ZMW 28.963064
ZWL 340.099669
  • RBGPF

    -0.9400

    59.25

    -1.59%

  • SCS

    -0.0260

    13.344

    -0.19%

  • BTI

    0.1800

    35.6

    +0.51%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    24.755

    +0.1%

  • NGG

    0.4400

    62.56

    +0.7%

  • BCC

    -1.6100

    140.94

    -1.14%

  • GSK

    0.1110

    35.221

    +0.32%

  • RIO

    -0.2050

    60.415

    -0.34%

  • CMSC

    0.0150

    24.625

    +0.06%

  • RYCEF

    -0.1500

    6.96

    -2.16%

  • RELX

    0.1950

    46.315

    +0.42%

  • AZN

    0.5950

    65.885

    +0.9%

  • BCE

    0.1150

    27.325

    +0.42%

  • JRI

    0.0100

    13.25

    +0.08%

  • VOD

    0.0300

    8.78

    +0.34%

  • BP

    0.3150

    28.885

    +1.09%

Vladimir Putin's Ukraine obsesssion
Vladimir Putin's Ukraine obsesssion

Vladimir Putin's Ukraine obsesssion

Russian President Vladimir Putin has an obsession that is so close and yet so far: to return Ukraine to Moscow's fold, in the name of Russia's greatness.

Text size:

For many Russians of his generation, who were raised on Soviet propaganda, the USSR disintegrating and its spheres of influences vanishing in just three years remains an open wound.

For Putin, a KGB officer based in East Germany at the time the Soviet Union was gradually collapsing between 1989 and 1991, this was a personal defeat.

The Russian leader has said many times that he suffered the same misery as his compatriots when the Soviet empire crumbled, most recently claiming he was forced to drive a taxi to make ends meet when he returned to his homeland.

For many Russians, the years after the Soviet collapse were marked by humiliation and poverty -- a stark contrast to the West's triumphalism and prosperity at the time.

Putin has claimed that the end of the Soviet Union was the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century" -- despite Russia living through two world wars.

Observers say his sense for revenge deepened when NATO and the EU expanded into countries once dominated by Moscow.

Putin has since made it his historical mission to stop this advance in what he believes should be Russia's region of influence.

For the longtime Russian leader, any moves towards bringing Ukraine into Western alliances is a red line.

- Vision of 'NATO rockets in Moscow' -

In his vision, "if the authorities do not solve this security problem now, then Ukraine will be in NATO in 10-15 years" according to analyst Alexei Makarkin.

When a pro-Western revolution took place in Kyiv in 2014, Moscow land-grabbed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and pro-Russian separatists took up arms in the east of the country.

Recent rhetoric from Putin has criticised Ukraine for presenting itself as a victim of Tsarist and Soviet imperialism.

And, he says, two Ukrainian revolutions -- in 2005 and 2014 -- that drove out pro-Russia elites were the result of a Western plot.

For the Kremlin chief, Russia must respond by being strong, menacing even. Giving in is not in the nature of the former KGB agent and judoka.

Born into a working class Saint Petersburg family, Putin said in 2015 that "if a fight is inevitable, you must strike first."

One of his school teachers, Vera Gurevich, has said that when a 14-year-old Putin broke one of his classmate's leg, he said that some "only understand force."

After Ukraine's Orange Revolution that broke out in the winter of 2004, Putin waged natural gas wars against the country, destabilising it economically.

Then he made a military move in 2014, by taking Crimea, and supporting pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine.

He has repeatedly called into question the idea of distinct Ukrainian identity and statehood.

As far back as 2008, according to Russian and US media, Putin told his then US counterpart George W. Bush that "Ukraine is not even a country."

During his end-of-year press conference in December, Putin again raised eyebrows by saying Ukraine was "created" by Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.

- Desire to 'stop time' -

Months earlier, in a long article called "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians," he said that Kyiv's decisions are driven by a Western "anti-Russia" plot.

The West is "setting up a political system in Ukraine in such a way that presidents, deputies and ministers change, but the line towards division with Russia, towards enmity with it, is unchanged," Putin wrote.

Tatiana Stanovaya, who runs the R.Politik analytical centre, said that, according to this logic, the 100,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine's border are not a threat.

The Russian leader, she said, has always believed that the Ukrainian people are themselves pro-Russians that have been "the subject of manipulation."

"In their (the Kremlin) understanding, war would not be an attack on Ukraine, but a liberation of the Ukrainian people from a foreign occupier," she said.

His spokesman Dmitry Peskov made this position clear back in December: "It is not possible to lose a brotherly nation, it will remain brotherly."

In essence, Russian authorities see it as their mission to bring Ukraine back onto its natural course.

The Kremlin has for years repeated its line that the West has taken advantage of Russia's post-Soviet weakness to camp close by, betraying vague promises made in the twilight of the USSR.

With his army at Ukraine's doorstep, Putin is demanding that NATO move back to its 1997 borders and roll back the European security framework born out of the end of the Cold War.

What drives Putin, said Makarkin, "is the desire to stop time."

L.Muratori--NZN