Roots of Ukraine crisis in geopolitics

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has captured the attention of the international media, politicians and experts alike. But to properly assess the conflict, one needs to identify the primary reasons for this conflict.

After the end of the Cold War in 1991, the world entered an era of "absolute US hegemony", which many experts dubbed as a "unipolar moment". The United States defined the rules of international relations and had enough resources and power to force every country to abide by them. The main driver of the US hegemony was the promotion of liberal democracy worldwide. The US made it appear as if there was a messianic part in that policy, according to which it had to promote "freedom and democracy" all over the world.

However, the policy had a clear geopolitical agenda. From the US' perspective, the spread of liberal democracy meant spreading the US' influence. Since the US was the undisputed leader of the "free world", it would automatically sit on top of the globe if all the countries became part of that "free world".

Also, the US was above the rules and broke them whenever it deemed necessary. The brutal bombardment of Serbia in 1999, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 are a few examples of the audacity with which the US violated international laws and rules while demanding that the other states abide by them.

The US was particularly successful in its "democracy promotion" strategy in Eastern Europe through the expansion of the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. By 2007, almost all former socialist states and the three Baltic republics of the erstwhile Soviet Union had become part of the EU and NATO.

However, the US was less successful in "promoting democracy" in Russia. After the chaos of the 1990s, when Russia suffered significant economic and demographic losses and was essentially governed by a small circle of petroleum and banking tycoons that had strong connections with Western financial institutions, Vladimir Putin assumed office as Russian president in late 1999.

In the meantime, the West's claim that "liberal democracy" was superior to all other forms of government started receiving intense backlash in parts of the world.

But what really marked the beginning of the end of the unipolar world was the 2008 global financial crisis. Since the transformation of the world order usually takes decades to complete, most probably, the final contours of the emerging new world order will become clear only by the mid-2030s.

Amid the turmoil that the US foreign policy was causing across the world, Russia started regaining its status as a major global power, and Ukraine became the focal point of Russia-West confrontation. Due to its strategic location, large landmass and significant economic potential, Ukraine became the focus of the US, which sought to transform the country into the West's forward base in its confrontation with an assertive Russia.

Rampant corruption and failure of the state institutions to provide essential services for the people created public resentment and anger against Ukrainian leaders. These feelings were at the core of two Ukrainian revolutions－in 2004 and 2014. The revolutions reflected a geopolitical pattern of the West－moving Ukraine away from Russia, which was projected as the primary source of Ukraine's domestic problems.

However, neither the 2004 nor the 2014 revolution ended corruption. Instead, according to some accounts, they caused a rise in corruption. So as soon as a new leadership was installed in February 2014 after pro-Western forces ousted then president Viktor Yanukovych, anti-government protests started in the eastern Donbas region, especially in Donetsk and Lugansk, while the people of Crimea voted to join Russia.

As a result of these developments, the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine intensified, with the West openly supporting the latter. To defuse the tensions, Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France signed the Minsk agreements in September 2014 and February 2015, according to which Ukraine would accord special status to Donetsk and Lugansk.

However, in Russia's eyes, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko as well as incumbent president Volodymyr Zelensky refused to implement the Minsk agreements, claiming that implementing them would compromise the vital national interests of the country and that Kyiv signed the agreements under Moscow's pressure.

And even as negotiations on the implementation of the Minsk agreements were continuing, the US and the United Kingdom were actively supporting Ukraine to rebuild its army, sending armaments, and instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers, while asserting that Ukraine, in the future, will become a NATO member.

On the other hand, Moscow insisted that Ukraine, under the US' influence, especially as a NATO member, will pose a big threat to Russia's core national interests. In mid-December 2021, Russia sent a draft agreement to the US and NATO demanding that the cross-Atlantic military alliance not expand eastward or deploy weapons systems in the territories along Russia's borders. The US and NATO rejected the demands, following which Russia launched a "special military operation" in Ukraine on Feb 24.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has already had significant geopolitical implications. Since the mid-2010s, some European countries, especially France, had been circulating the idea of "European strategic autonomy", mainly to reduce the EU's dependence on the US for hard security, which could be reached only by deepening security cooperation with Russia.

But after Feb 24, Europe has rallied behind the US to impose sanctions on Russia. The unprecedented economic pressure the US, the EU and the UK and their allies have put on Russia and the statements they have issued show the West's strategic goal is to destroy the Russian economy and raise the West-Russia confrontation to a new level.

No state can survive without an economy, so the West's strategy to destroy the Russian economy is equivalent to undermining the Russian state. The ultimate goal is to have a pro-Western government in Russia, which would welcome the further enlargement of the EU and NATO.

And importantly, the West's economic war against Russia is a good playbook for other countries to understand how the US-led West seeks to destroy those countries it considers rivals.

The author is the chairman of the Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies, Yerevan, Armenia.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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