The invasion of Ukraine is going to or has already changed the course of European history. I wanted to comment on the crisis since its start, but I had felt that I would have done it an injustice earlier. However, I can no longer remain silent on the issue. I am a European, specifically an Eastern European, and a Crimean Tatar. To say this issue is close to home (geographically and historically) is an understatement. Alongside this cultural proximity is my academic background in philosophy, economics, and political theory with a keen interest in history and geography. This is why I believe it is my duty to comment on it. Ignoring this issue would be a disservice to those that wish to learn another perspective and to myself. I will address the Russian invasion from the multiple perspectives at play, starting with the perpetrator itself.

Russia:

A historical analysis will show that this Russian imperialism is nothing new. The mighty Russian bear had a long history of eating up all the various ethnic groups around northern Eurasia and placing them into its sphere. The story of Russia can be said to have begun with the Kievan Rus, domination by/liberation from the Mongol Empire, the conflicts between the Rus principalities, and the spread of Orthodox Christianity. However, this is not exclusively the story of the Russian people as it is shared by other Slavic people living nearby such as the Ukrainians and Belarusians. Today, this shared history has been used by the Moscow Government to essentially deny the Ukrainian identity itself. However, the proper story of Russia began around its heartlands which surround Moscow and what used to be called the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. As Mongol domination ended, the region became littered with various Rus principalities and Turco-Mongolic (though mostly Turkic in the Western regions) khanates. Following this, as has happened for most of history, those with the strongest sticks and stones ended up dominating. From its initial heartlands, it spread far and wide to become the largest state in the world, and one of the largest empires in human history.

However, this empire was built on mass ethnic cleansing achieved through assimilation, murder, and displacement. One can see this from how the Russian ethnicity spread eastward, to the Urals, then to the Altai, through the frozen wastes of Siberia, and even to another continent in Alaska. While one can respect this human perseverance and will to power, it must be noted that all these lands had indigenous people. Indigenous people who due to the aforementioned tragedies became nationless, outnumbered, and politically dominated. It was only the lucky few that ended up with states post-USSR. Unfortunately, this only allowed them partial self-determination as the hungry Bear is not keen to let go of its prey easily. Russia continues to subvert self-determination for those in its historical sphere of influence. Consider the “peace-keepers” sent to shut down the recent Kazakh protests, the invasion of Chechnya, the war with Georgia, and the current invasion of Ukraine. The tactics Russia uses to shut down any dissent and to destroy entire ethnicities have remained similar throughout history. To the point that Russia seems like a broken record at times. This point can be seen through the history of my people, the Crimean Tatars, who are now stateless, facing linguistic extinction, and cannot establish ties with their homeland (being forced to be a diaspora which accelerates the end of the ethnicity).

Crimean Tatars:

In today’s world of constant social media distractions, it is not uncommon for news stories to hit the limelight and be forgotten the very next day. The song “1944” winning Eurovision and the 2014 invasion of Crimea brought my people to the front of public discourse. But we were merely used as pawns for the West and Russia to play with. Nonetheless, at least once, we were recognized. Though being recognized for facing human rights abuses is not great. This recognition did little to help our situation, however, as it further bred Russian animosity to our “disruptive” ethnic group. To the West, we became something to bring up as a sore spot for Russia, but nothing more. All we received were empty promises and social media posts. Such is the story of all those without political power. This story of being a pawn or a troublesome ethnicity was not always the case for my people. The Eurasian steppe has been under Russian dominion since the Tsardom, but this was not always the case. Before that, it was a region with constant cultural/religious mixing, warfare, and trade due to the presence of various nomadic peoples. These nomads whom I call either ancestors or ethnic cousins are diverse and have been present for thousands of years. The Scythians, Xiongnu, Gokturks, Mongols, Huns, and many more have left a significant mark on the histories of the great empires of the Persians, Arabs, Europeans, Indians, and Chinese. The steppe had been our home for ages, and for many still is.

Indeed, nomadic history has been one of great bloodshed, but as has been every human society. The tragedies of the past must be acknowledged, but cannot be used as justification for future tragedies. This message did not enter the hearts of the Russian leadership when they conquered the Crimean Khanate. To them, we were not people who had been on the steppe for thousands of years, but descendants of the Mongol empire. Non-European invaders from other lands. This is why the Crimean Tatar people never properly accepted Russian rule which further bred resentment. After many decades of us protesting Russian rule, Stalin was finally ready to solve “The Tatar Question”. In 1944, Russian troops entered Crimea and within a couple of days boarded thousands upon thousands of Crimean Tatars on trains to be deported to Central Asia and Siberia. During this act of genocide, it is estimated that up to half of our entire population in Crimea died. Furthermore, it put in place all the necessary steps to begin our current slow extinction. And what was the justification? During WW2, a small faction of about a thousand nationalist Tatars, who did not represent the entire estimated population of over 100,000, aligned themselves to Nazi Germany. This gave Stalin the perfect excuse to finally get rid of us. And where to? Well, back to our “homes” since we were “Mongolian/Central Asian” invaders that did not belong in ancestral Russian lands. And as we were kicked out, Russian populations moved in to “make it Russian” to ensure that we would never return properly. Our ethnicity was not even recognized by Soviet demographic censuses for a long time. To ensure the process of deletion, we were denied our specific identity as “Crimean Tatars” and lumped in with other ethnic groups like “Kazan Tatars” who were not treated as badly. The general label of “Tatar” was used to deny that human rights abuses were happening to us because “look the Tatars in Kazan are doing just fine”. Now, if you have been paying attention to the situation in Ukraine, then all of this should sound eerily similar. This is the broken record stuck on a loop of Russian propaganda and its justifications of ethnic cleansings.

Ukraine:

After decades of Russian domination, Eastern Europeans should be completely justified in mistrusting them. Shall we not mention how Moscow invaded Budapest to shut down its self-determination during the 1956 Revolution, how it starved millions in Ukraine to feed ethnic Russians during the Holodomor, how it sent millions of people (many of them being ethnic minorities) to Gulags, and countless other tragedies. It is clear that Moscow cares little for its “partners”, and that is why many from the ex-Eastern Bloc looked westward after the fall of the Berlin Wall. One should note that the West is not without its crimes, but they have clearly treated allies better than Russia has (don’t worry I shall critique the West later too). This is one of the many reasons behind the Euromaidan protests which sought to align Ukraine with the West. Russia could not lose a partner as vital and as large as Ukraine, so it took a gamble in 2014. There are many reasons for the 2014 Invasion of Crimea, but partly it was to bully Ukraine into submission (something it is doing now as well). This gamble failed horribly as it fueled resentment and intensified Ukraine’s move to the West.

Ukraine traces its roots to the Kievan Rus which is why they are related to Russians. However, they are NOT the same ethnicity, and the cultural separation has been more prominent than Russia would like to admit. One can look to the Cossacks who lived on the Western Eurasian steppe. They rebelled against any harsh rule (including Russian) and established their own free semi-nomadic polity and distinct identity. This distinct rebellious Cossack identity has become quite important to Ukrainian identity itself. There were also various other states and governorates in the region. A common historical theme amongst those that represented the Ukrainian people has been one of foreign domination. This is one of the reasons why the current invasion is particularly sour to the Ukrainian people and why they are fighting so bravely. Later on, the lands in modern-day Ukraine that were once held by Cossacks, Tatars, Ukrainians, and other ethnic groups became ruled by Tsarist Russia. The Tsardom followed a policy of Russification and sought to reduce non-Russian ethnicities from the region. This domination continued until Lenin’s Revolution where agreements were made for the establishment of the USSR that broke up the Tsardom. They established the various Soviet Republics including Ukraine. During these agreements, Ukraine was given its modern-day territory but this did not matter for Putin. And neither did the Budapest Memorandum, where Ukraine willingly gave up its nuclear weapons for security assurances with various states including Russia.

This is because Russia set up a faux referendum in Crimea (though it might have passed due to the Russian majority in the region, it was not official). It then used it as justification to invade. The invasion of Crimea was accompanied by the separatist war in the Donbas region. A war which was a precursor to the current war. And this is where we can start hearing the broken record again. Around a month ago, Vladimir Putin announced that Luhansk and Donetsk were Russian and not Ukrainian. One of the ways he justified this was by claiming that it was ancestral Russian land. Russian propaganda later made many suggestions that Russians and Ukrainians were, in fact, the same people or that the Ukrainian identity was made up. It also pointed to the ultra-rightwing nationalist Azov battalion which has been active since the Donbas war and used it as justification to “de-nazify” Ukraine. An INVASION to “de-nazify” a country run by a Jewish president, that has strong historical ties to Jewish people, and a country of over 40 million people which cannot, in good faith, be defined by the actions of a small extremist battalion.

Despite the poor justification, Russia invaded and through it shook the international world order to its core. It caused a massive humanitarian crisis and isolated itself politically and economically. And now, as I type this, millions of Ukrainians are leaving behind their lands, their families, and their belongings to escape the violence. Though I had not lived through the tragedies of my people and am not living the tragedy of Ukrainians, I cannot help but feel a sort of historical trauma. A looming fear that Ukraine could lose more than its ability to self-determine. I do not wish the situation that is happening to my culture to happen to others as there is deep human value in the ethnic communities we form. However, I personally believe that Ukrainian as an identity will only grow stronger with this war. Shared hardships and the stories that follow from them are the most surefire way to form resilient collective identities. So continue fighting bravely Ukrainians! Slava Ukraina!

Why Invasion?

One may now ask themselves, why tragedy? Why must ethnic cousins murder each other? Why is Russia so intent on the region that it is willing to commit not one, but possibly two genocides? Do these ancestral Russian lands really hold that much cultural value? Well, possibly, but to say that is the ONLY reason for this invasion is utter nonsense. I would argue that the main reasons for this invasion are the following: (1) power projection and (2) resources. I will start with resources since it is easier to explain. There are natural gas and oil reserves in the Black Sea and one of Russia’s main pipelines to trade these resources to Europe runs through Ukraine. This is why Nordstream was so vital to Russia as it could have been used to bypass Ukraine. This is on top of creating another route to the German market which would increase German reliance on Russian energy resources. An angry Ukraine could destabilize this trade and Russia cannot let that happen. This is because it would hurt its economy and influence, things it cannot afford to lose much of.

And this leads to the main reason for all this, influence and power projection. The mighty brown bear of Russia has aged. It is starting to show grey hairs and it feels deeply insecure about it. Its position on the global stage is not what it once was, and, as with every declining empire, it looks back to its greatness with hopeful yet bitter eyes. How is the great nation of Russia unable to keep its closest neighbors in line? Neighbors it once easily dominated with its sharp teeth and massive claws. But why Ukraine specifically? Why did Russia not show the same fury towards the Baltic states and its other Eastern Bloc subjects when they joined/planned to join NATO? Partly because Putin/Russia was either not confident enough at that time or did not consider the risk worth it. But mainly because of the strategic importance of the region. The deportation of my people happened because we tended to be political dissidents and were in a region of great value. So, what is so valuable about this region? Access to and control of the Black Sea. It is the most important sea and naval region for Russia because the northern ports are unreliable due to the harsh winters and the eastern ports are too far away from the Russian heartlands. This is the reason why Istanbul has historically been Russia’s desired golden apple as whoever controls the Bosphorus controls the Black Sea. It cannot allow Ukraine to enter the Western sphere because it would mean losing influence in the sea. Trade is the lifeblood of modern states, and most of it travels by naval routes. However, using this as justification for war is wrong-headed and illegal. Ukraine entering NATO or the EU does NOT mean that you can preemptively invade. There is no guarantee that your fears will play out. However, by declaring an unjustified war you are providing the primary reason for Ukraine and other European states to rush towards NATO membership. Unfortunately, the feebleness of the West delayed Ukraine’s admission long enough to allow Russia to invade. And now it is too late to provide membership without escalating to a possible nuclear war.

The West and the international world order:

I have been writing positively about NATO and EU membership, but now it is time to step back for a second. The hypocrisy of the West when it comes to this issue has been pointed out immediately. The Western powers have done their fair share of invasions and caused refugee crises. In recent memory alone, one can recall Lybia, Afghanistan, and Syria. One can point to the silence from the West about the Saudi and Emarati-led war in Yemen. When it comes to refugees, one can obviously see the distinction in narratives between the “Muslims” and the Ukrainians. This hypocrisy must be noted, but it cannot be allowed to be a reason to ignore or disvalue the current crisis. This would do nothing but benefit Putin’s murderous rampage. A victim is a victim regardless of ethnic identity, religion, or race. And imperialism is imperialism be it Russian, American, Israeli, Saudi, French, or Chinese.

However, the non-Western imperialists do not attempt to posture a moral high ground and do not police an international world order. A shared feature for Ukraine and the other contemporary victims of imperialism is that the supposedly “moral” international world order failed them. It infuriates me that the West dares to call itself democratic and liberal when it refuses to uphold any of its values. Not only does it invade other countries, but fails to take action when it must. The West proclaims equality for all while supporting an apartheid regime in Israel. It exclaims its love of liberty while ignoring the genocide of Uyghurs in China. It demands the protection of democracy but is unwilling to take substantial action in Hong Kong or Ukraine. Why? Because the West, or at least its leadership, is not driven by democracy, freedom, or equality, but cold hard cash. This is why the Chinese dragon cannot be angered. But since the Russian bear has aged, we are willing to risk just enough to not seriously hurt our economies. Oppositely, one could argue that the West is actually profiting from this crisis.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the West went into unbelievable debt. The Russian threat means that Europeans cannot rely on Russian oil/gas anymore and that Europe must be ready to defend itself. America and Canada with their resource wealth will benefit by selling gas/oil to Europe to make up for the Russian absence. The US can further benefit through its military-industrial complex. This should help America and Canada ease out of their economic crises. On the other hand, Europe will not receive as many economic benefits from this crisis. It is going to have to expand its military and find other sources of oil/gas. This will likely be an expensive project unless assisted in some way. However, Europe could see political and cultural benefits.

The Future:

I shall begin with the hopeful scenario or best-case scenario for this conflict. This is any scenario where Ukraine holds long enough that Russia concedes. This can happen if the war becomes too costly and Putin is either overthrown by his people or the oligarchs. This is because I doubt that Putin’s administration is willing to give up at this point. Russia conceding will ruin its power projecting capacity which alongside its crumbling economy and poor demographics could be an existential threat. Unfortunately for Putin, by starting this war he assuredly put Russia under existential threat. I mean who thinks sending mostly young men to their deaths is a good idea when you have an aging population, low birth rate, a mental health/alcoholism crisis, and an already imbalanced sex ratio. In this scenario, Ukraine will likely join the Western Sphere after it survives the war. It will, for sure, become a celebrated hero amongst its peers. Europe as a continent would bond from this crisis. Regardless of the outcome, it will further unite us economically, politically, culturally, and militarily due to the shared threat to our values and way of life. It looks like this is going to become our equivalent to what 9/11 was for Americans. A critical point in our future where we must decide how to conduct ourselves on the world stage. The docile post-WW2 Europe died the moment Russian soldiers stepped foot in Ukraine. No moment represents this more than when the wishy-washy German state, which was hesitant to spend on its military and remained neutral due to its economic ties to Russia, canceled Nordstream 2 and added 100 billion Euros to its military spending. However, the direction Europe will look towards in its future depends on how this crisis proceeds.

If Ukraine loses, then the international world order that the United States set up will likely crumble under its irony. It will be shown to be nothing but empty promises and half-measures (what it seems to be, honestly). An impotent institution that does nothing but further American interests. The international system is inherently corrupt for a variety of reasons such as the existence of the permanent UN Security Council Members who can veto anything on a whim and the acceptance of Western-supported human rights abuses. However, failure to save Ukraine would show the West’s inability to secure its allies. It would prove to the world that might makes right. That any authoritarian regime can bully and invade a weaker state without major consequences. All states that previously secured Western protection will call it into doubt. The hungry Dragon will keenly eye Formosa, and the Bear will be emboldened by its actions. Ukraine will become a martyr, and probably end up as an anarchic war zone as I doubt Ukrainians will accept their country being a Russian puppet again. And when it comes to Europe, it’ll further unite due to fear of Russia.

However, its relation to the Anglophone world will be called into question. If the free Eagle fails to make its journey across the Atlantic as it had done before to help the aging Lion, then the Lion will look inward. This moment is a crossroad for the journey of North America and Europe. It will decide whether we continue walking the same path or depart, each to our own. Brexit and Trump already signaled a rift in the Atlantic, a separation between the Anglophone and Continental (Franco-German) powers. The Biden administration is attempting to mend the distrust created by Trump, but without substantial actions it will not be enough. I do not know what an isolated Europe would look like. And even though I now reside in North America, I do not know what an isolated Anglophone world would look like either. However, I do know that a separation between the two main centers of liberal democracy would mean a weakening of the democratic project as a whole. Lastly, the fall of the international order will probably lead to a return to the Concert of Europe system, but on a global scale. A system dominated by various regional Great powers who will try to establish their own spheres. This could be a positive scenario for nations like Brazil, India, Russia, China, and Turkey who will either carve out new spheres or return to their historical ones before the rise of the West. However, before you rejoice at hearing about the end of Western hegemony remember that the Concert of Europe was the system that led to both World Wars. Despite its abhorrent corruption, the international order of supranational institutions and coalitions has overseen the most peaceful time in recorded human history. I would prefer to have the current system reform. It should be more inclusive as to produce a plurality of opinion and be more stringent on human rights abuses. Creating a Concert of Terra reliant on a fine balance of powers will just produce a powder keg. As the famous quote goes “history does not repeat, but it does rhyme”. And those that do not listen to the birds’ warnings cries before a disaster will be ill-prepared to face it.