Generously, For Their Own Good

How Putin Justifies His Invasion of Ukraine in “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”

On July 12th 2021, Russian president Vladimir Putin published an extensive essay entitled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians. In this essay, Putin (among other things) rewrites a history of Eastern Europe, pays homage to his favourite philosopher, and justifies the brutal attack against neighbouring Ukraine that his state was to launch less than a year later. Initially dismissed by Western media outlets as “unhinged ramblings” or “delusions”, there is a single, if occasionally obscured by bombast, thesis to this project: Russia is invading Ukraine for its own good (Beauchamp, 2022 ,3; Haring as cited in Dickinson, 2021, para.9). Now a long- serving statesman such as Putin is not going to come right out and extoll the benefits allotted to Ukrainians by bombing and missile-ing them (at least not in the version available to English- speaking audiences), but throughout the essay Putin creates a narrative in which this conclusion is the only possible one. A brief disclaimer: I will not be spending very much of this paper fact- checking Putin’s essay. There are many excellent papers, by historians far more qualified than myself, devoted to doing so already. As many of them have shown, much of the supposed “historical fact” in the essay is, in whole or in part, categorically untrue – Anders Åslund described it as a “masterclass in disinformation” (2021, para.1). The point of this paper is to examine not what is said, but rather how things are said and why they might be presented in the way that they are.

One of the major themes of Putin’s essay is that of exposing the untruths of the Ukrainian state and of the West. There are references throughout the piece to people living in Ukraine being “forced to believe” the lies of the Ukrainian state, or of “the leaders of modern Ukraine and their external patrons prefer[ing] to overlook [the] facts” (Putin, 2021b, para.33, para.24). This might seem ironic considering that so much of the historical fact mentioned by Putin is false. Timothy Snyder, however; writes that is not an incidental irony, but is instead a strategy designed to discredit the idea of truth in its entirety. According to Snyder it is useless to spend time trying to expose the lies of the Russian state or to prove what the correct version of events may be because “these utterances [are] not logical arguments or factual assessments, but a calculated effort to undo logic and factuality” (Snyder, 2018, 151). The purpose of this is twofold, first it simply muddies the waters and makes it more difficult for anyone to understand the situation in Ukraine because the very basic facts of it cannot be discerned (Allison, 2014). Secondly, this form of extreme cynicism allows the Russian state to cast itself as morally superior to the West because Russia is honest about lying. As bizarre as this thinking seems, it does make sense if looked at through the prism of Krastev and Holmes’s argument that Putin is motived to expose the “Age of Imitation as the Age of Western Hypocrisy” (Krastev & Holmes, 2019, 125). Essentially Putin is able to deflect accusations that the Russian state distorts facts by saying “Yes, I am lying, but I will tell you that the West also lies to you. Therefore, I am more moral than the West because I do not pretend to tell the truth so it is better for you to believe my blatant lies than the West’s subtle ones. I am the truth teller because I lie openly”.

Putin then turns his argument to discrediting the Ukrainian state, in a way that makes the work of Edward Said a useful point of reference. It would be incorrect to say that Putin uses purely Orientalist rhetoric to do this, but his methods would be immediately familiar to readers of Said. Said writes that those engaging in Orientalism create representations of people living in the East that inaccurately portray them as more primitive, more mystical, and less advanced than the those in the West (Said, 1978). Similarly, Putin persistently implies that Ukrainians are somewhat simple or backwards throughout the essay, a discourse I will term “folkanization” – a second cousin to Orientalism. It is not only the use of the Malorussia or “little Russia” terminology that strikes a condescending, paternalistic note, but the implications that Ukraine

was duped or swayed by the West into turning on Russia (Putin, 2021b). There are examples of this kind of language throughout the essay, Ukraine is “dragged”, “used” and treated as “tool” by the West (Putin, 2021b). Ukrainians are never given credit for their independence movements nor their resistance to Russian control, but instead are treated in this paper like slightly wayward, stupid children who simply did not and could not be expected to know any better. Putin is tapping into a long-used trope of Russian writing about Ukraine – that Ukraine is earthier, more mystical, more folksy and more emotional than Russia. A more “pure” people, but one who is also less technologically advanced, less worldly, and simply less intellectual than Russia. Anne Applebaum writes that for many Russians “Ukraine [is] an idealized alternative...more primitive and at the same time more authentic, more emotional, and more poetic than Russia” (Applebaum, 2017, 3). She also describes how the Ukrainian language was used in nineteenth century Russian literature to “indicate colloquial or peasant speech” –reinforcing this representation (Applebaum, 2017, 4). Putin continues this tradition in his essay by reducing the Ukrainian language to a “dialect” of “folk sayings and motifs” used to enliven the true language of Russian (Putin, 2021b, para.11). These messages are mostly intended for the outsider reading, but it contains a warning aimed at the Ukrainian people as well. Like a strict parent explaining the consequences of disobedience to a defiant teenager, he writes “for those who have today given up the full control of Ukraine to external forces, it would be instructive to remember that, back in 1918, such a decision proved fatal for the ruling regime in Kiev” (Putin, 2021b, para.15). It serves to remind Ukrainians that trusting the West did not end well for them last time and they therefore should turn back into loving Russian arms lest their state face destruction.

Putin also finds the modern Ukrainian state to be illegitimate because it “is entirely the product of the Soviet era” (Putin, 2021b, para.23) and because it is supported by the West. This implies that if Ukraine was not these things then Russia would be happy to leave it in peace, but his next words prove that this is not the case. He claims that Russia would be content to leave Ukrainian borders unmolested if Ukraine had not unlawfully been given more land when the USSR broke up than it had before. However; he then negates this statement by saying “the Bolsheviks had embarked on reshaping boundaries even before the Soviet Union, manipulating with territories to their liking, in disregard of people’s views” (Putin, 2021b, para.25). So returning to their pre-Soviet borders still wouldn’t absolve Ukraine of its illegitimacy because the truth of the matter is that is no way for Ukraine to be independent that is acceptable to Russia. This stance also ignores that much of Eastern Europe as we know it today could be called a creation of Bolshevism, as the disintegration of empires almost always brings about the creation of new states and the redrawing of borders. Further, Putin goes on to say that the states which have shown support for an independent Ukraine are “de facto Western states” implying that these states are also not legitimate (Putin, 2021b, para.30). Since the “West” in this case refers mostly to the liberal democracies, but can also mean any state critical of Russia, Putin sets up the logic that states which disagree with Russia are not legitimate. Only Russia is a legitimate state and Russia can therefore intervene in Ukraine as it wills because Ukraine, and the world order to which it has over the years attempted to belong, are not legitimate institutions. Putin also attempts to discredit the legal status of modern Ukraine, by saying that “Ukraine never signed or ratified the CIS Charter adopted back in 1993” (Putin, 2021b, para.20). This is true, but an odd equivocation to make. After the dissolution of the USSR, the new Russian government proposed the CIS as a new security and economic system for the region. The newly-independent Ukrainian government was a part of drafting this new framework, but in the end refused to ratify it because doing so would have prevented Ukraine from forming an independent military and instead would have kept the common defensive space of the Soviet Union (D’Anieri, 2019). What the CIS is not, is a requirement of statehood and not signing it does not make Ukraine any less of a state. Nor does not signing a defense treaty give Russia any justification to attack this state. Saying “we do not want a shared military” does not mean the same thing as saying “we are using our military against you” Nor does not entering into a common defensive alliance mean that Russia is no longer obligated to respect Ukrainian borders – which is what it appears Putin intends by this comment.

Said’s work is again useful in describing one of the other pillars on which Putin’s justification for invasion rests, the constant and unsolvable conflict between Russia and the West. This requires a binary division of the world similar to one described by Said as key component of Orientalist discourse (Said, 1978). To make it clear that the conflict between Russia and the Western states is not one concerning the military invasion of a sovereign neighbour, but one of irreconcilable cultural differences Putin emphasizes the religious differences between Russia and the West. He defines the Russian world as an Orthodox one and references times in the past when Orthodox Russians have faced persecution by non-Orthodox powers such as during the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth in when those “suspected of sympathies with Orthodox Christianity ... were subjected to brutal repression” under Polish rule in 1800s (Putin, 2021b, para.13). Putin casts himself as a defender of the Orthodox faith, a leader in a new crusade to defend it, identifying himself with “descen[ts] of Prince Alexander Nevsky – cast[ing] off the foreign yoke [and] gathering the Russian lands” (Putin, 2021b, 2). He then makes it clear that Ukraine is a part of these Russian lands and emphasizes their shared faith. He describes Ukrainians and Russians as sharing the “same historical and spiritual space” and reminds the Ukrainian people that they should seek support, as they had done historically from “people who sp[eak] the same language and ha[ve] the same faith” (Putin, 2021b, para.2, para.9). If the key difference between the two mutually exclusive domains of the world is Orthodoxy, and if Russia is the domain of Orthodoxy and Ukraine is also Orthodox, then Ukraine is part of Russia. He urges Russians to “support their brothers in faith and take them under their patronage” and provides historical examples of Orthodox brotherhood in the face of invasion (Putin, 2021b, para.7). In doing so, Putin first of all ignores the religious diversity of modern Ukraine – which hovers around 70% Orthodox and even these split between the Russian and Ukrainian Church - and warps the nature of the conflict between Russia and the pro-Ukrainian Western powers (Kazmyrchuk & Scroope, 2023). This style of spin-doctored religious conflict is not an uncommon tactic, the war in Palestine being painted as a fight between Jewish and Islamic faiths instead of a genocidal response to actions of resistance provides another contemporary example. This strategy functions first as a smokescreen, obscuring the real reasons for the war in Eastern Ukraine and making people afraid to comment for fear of being seen as anti-someone’s-religion especially on virtue-signalling obsessed corners of the internet. It also erases the possibility of a productive solution, by making it seem like the conflict is due existential differences that can never be solved. The war thus becomes natural, becomes inevitable, and when it fades from the global headlines (as it has in the years since 2022) people not living in Eastern Ukraine are comfortable forgetting about it as it has, ostensibly, been going on forever. It’s a tactic that Timothy Snyder calls “the politics of eternity” meaning that nothing new ever happens or can ever happen and encourages people to distract themselves and tune out (Snyder, 2018, 8). Putin’s harping of the “age-old religious conflict” narrative fits in perfectly.

In this conflict, the Western powers are the explicit villains. They are the ones who separate the Orthodox brotherhood and turn its members against each other and the ones who “reject repeated calls for dialogue” on the topic of Ukraine (Putin, 2021b, para.30). And if the West is eternally evil and Russia is in eternal opposition to it, then Russia is eternally innocent and good. This idea of eternal Russian innocence is one to which Putin returns again and again in his speeches and media interviews. In this essay, Putin makes a number of references to apparently numerous enemies who “have always sought to undermine our [Russian] unity” (Putin, 2021b, para.2). Always is an important turn of phrase here, these enemies of Russia are forever trying to cause Russia harm, meaning that any action taken by the Russian state is a defensive one. Several scholars, including Irene Goudimiak have pointed out that Putin leans heavily on “the notion that Russia has been a constant victim to isolation and encirclement by its enemies” to justify both foreign and domestic policy decisions (Goudimiak, 2016, 17). The idea is cribbed from one of Putin’s favourite philosophers Ivan Ilyin, a fascist thinker whom Putin has described as “a true Russian patriot” and whose writings have deeply influenced Putin’s own (Mirovalev, 2022, para.3). Ilyin also leaned heavily on the idea of eternal enmity in his work, as Snyder explains “according to Ilyin, every single battle ever fought by Russians was defensive...Russia does no wrong; wrong can only be done to Russia” (Snyder, 2018, 24). Everything Russia does is done in self-defence and therefore cannot be wrong, because Russia is always facing a powerful enemy of “ill-wishers” who seek to bring about “the weakening of Russia” (Putin, 2021b, 24). These enemies, according to Putin, have now dragged simple, trusting Ukraine into this forever war and installed a state hostile to Russia. “Russia as a civilization” writes Snyder, “had been wronged be because the West did not understand that Ukraine was Russia” (Snyder, 2018, 62).

This idea leads into one of the most crucial facets of Putin’s ultimate argument: the separation of Ukrainians from the idea of Ukraine. This is a slight simplification, but Putin does make it clear at every turn that the ideas of Ukrainian independence and Ukrainian nationalism are separate from Ukrainians themselves. He does not acknowledge the very long history of a separate Ukrainian identity going back centuries, and instead claims that the “idea of a Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians” originated with “the Polish elite” during 1800s as a stick with which to poke Russia (Putin, 2021b, para.13). The exact wording of this is interesting on a few levels. First, and most obvious, is the idea that Ukrainian nationalism is a Polish invention and that Ukrainian independence was forced on the people of the region. It has to be in order for Putin’s ultimate thesis to make sense, because if Russia is forced to admit that (some) Ukrainians do desire an independent Ukraine and desire it of their own will, then Russia is not saving or rescuing Ukraine when it bombs and invades them. The idea of “Western (in this case Polish) elites” plotting against Russia is also a theme to which Putin often returns.
Othering this idea through casting as foreign is reinforced by the casting of it as elite, as intellectual, meaning that when Russia violently “rescues” Ukraine it can claim to do so on behalf of the peasant majority. This separation also allows the Russian state to bypass that popular paradox of fascist thought – that the enemy is weak, but also strong (Wodak, 2012). Ukraine and Ukrainians are weak and passive, but the Western powers that back them are strong enough to threaten the regime in Russia. This logic also allows Putin to state that he “has never been and never will be anti-Ukraine”, but opposes Ukrainian independence with a kind of love- the-sinner-hate-the-sin ironic flair (Putin, 2021b, para.43). The Ukrainians demanding independence and freedom are not “true Ukrainians” of the Orthodox brotherhood, but instead changelings installed by the West for their own gain.

A final prominent theme throughout this essay is the numerous comparisons of the Ukrainian state to Nazi Germany. The term “neo-Nazi” is used, and Ukraine is accused of trying to build an “ethnically pure Ukrainian state” and of “militarising the country” clearly meant to demonstrate the connection (Putin, 2021b, para. 33, para.39). Describing the Ukrainian government as a Nazi state in order to support Russian land claims is not a tactic unique to this particular essay. For example, in a 2022 address Putin referred to the Ukrainian government in Crimea as “Hitler’s accomplices” (Putin, 2022, para.30). Here, the Nazi idea serves to illustrate many of Putin’s earlier points. First among them is the idea of exposing Western fallacies. Inventing a Nazi-ridden Ukraine makes invasion acceptable by the standards of Western international relations. If a state indulges neo-Nazis and engages in relentless persecution of an ethnic group, other states can intervene and use force to protect those groups being attacked. As noted by Krastev and Holmes, Putin has previously been observed to “lif[t] whole passages from speeches by Western leaders” and use their own logic against them “justifying the dismantling of the Serbian territory in Kosovo and applied them to the Crimean case... clothing its own aggressive actions in idealistic rhetoric borrowed verbatim from the US” (Krastev & Holmes, 2019, 125). This creates a situation in which Russia is in the right for involving itself militarily in Ukraine and those Western state who criticise the invasion are self-serving hypocrites. The next purpose this narrative serves is that of a simple smear campaign - to equate any movement for an independent Ukrainian with a desire for the installation of a Nazi regime. To further cement this equivocation, Putin reminds the reader of the Ukrainian nationalist groups like OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) who “collaborated with the Nazis” during the second world war (Putin, 2021b, 14). While it is true that some of these groups did welcome the German occupation in hopes of gaining more independence than they had had under the Soviet regime, Putin neglects to mention that “by 1942 both factions of the OUN were at war with the Nazis” once the true nature of this regime had been unleashed on the Ukrainian countryside (Plokhy, 2015, 267). The Nazi-Soviet pact of this time period also goes unmentioned. The references to Nazi collaboration, not only associate any Ukrainian who desires an independent Ukraine with Nazism, but also implies again how easily swayed Ukrainian are –Ukrainians cannot be trusted with their own state because they are easily misled into Nazism. The West, therefore; should not encourage their independence.

As an added benefit, throwing around Nazi accusations is an excellent way to remove rationality from a discussion. The term is, justifiably, going to create a strong emotional response from most people and people in the midst of this type of response are not typically going to be evaluating your other arguments in a level-headed manner. To grossly simplify the situation, either readers are going to be swept up in these accusations and believe them – in which case Putin wins because anything he does to Ukraine is now justifiable because he is “fighting Nazis” or they will think the accusation is ridiculous and dismiss it out of hand. This is equally dangerous and still constitutes a victory for the Russian state because these people will then be inclined to dismiss everything he says as merely ridiculous and will not be inclined to read carefully and to try to understand what the purpose of such accusations are. Because this is such a pervasive piece of propaganda, it is important to briefly consider factuality here. There is undoubtedly a far-right, nationalist political presence in Ukraine. There are such factions in many European states today and frankly it would be more surprising if such a group was not evident in Ukraine. Contrary to Putin’s assertions, however; “radical nationalists” are not the driving force in Ukrainian politics, they are not even a major player. According to Serhii Plokhy, “the [radical] nationalist parties failed to attain the 5 percent threshold in the Ukrainian parliamentary elections of 2014 and 2019 and were not represented in parliament” (Plokhy, 2015, 349).

Accepting Putin’s justification for the invasion of Ukraine – that it is for the ultimate good of Ukrainians themselves -requires the acceptance of all the points discussed above: that the West eternally hates Russia, that Ukraine is easily led by the West, and that Russia is a victim that nevertheless risks itself to save Ukraine from these molestations. If the Ukrainian people are simple and backward they might easily be misled by the evil and devious West into rejecting the protections of Russia. The West, the “outsiders, the non-Orthodox” even go so far as to brainwash Ukrainians into creating a state. This state is not legitimate because it was created by outsiders and so to interfere in it does not contravene international law. This forces Russia, because it so loves Ukraine, to bomb, invade, and destroy Ukraine for its own good, to protect it from the West and show it the light of Slavic brotherhood. Only Russia works in the interest of Ukraine, the West is only trying to hurt Russia and Ukraine itself is simply not sophisticated enough to see through their lies. The answer to every question is contained within this circular logic – if only given a cursory glance. Throughout the essay, contradictions reveal themselves as soon as one examines a particular point too deeply. As Snyder points out in his analysis of the essay, “According to Russian propaganda, Ukrainian society was full of nationalists but not a nation; the Ukrainian state was repressive but did not exist; [and] Russians were forced to speak Ukrainian though there was no such language” (Snyder, 2018, 147). The bombastic style of the essay, with its references to Nazis, freedom fighters, religious imagery, and horrific massacres was chosen to ensure that readers do not examine these cracks too closely.

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