Crimea

For many of Ukraine’s supporters, Donald Trump’s recent declaration that Ukraine “is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form” came as a welcome – and unexpected – turnaround in US policy. “Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that!” wrote Trump in a Truth Social post in late September. “Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act.” But would taking back the lost territories of the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea make Ukraine whole again – or could a reconquest instead condemn Ukraine to perpetual civil war against itself and prolong the conflict with Russia indefinitely?

At a summit meeting in Moscow, Ronald Reagan was asked about his basic approach. He famously answered, “Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose.” Vladimir Putin has the same strategy for Ukraine. That is certainly his first response to President Trump’s offer to mediate an end to the war and bring a reluctant Ukraine to the negotiating table. If “we win, they lose” is Putin’s final response, then the war cannot end without Ukraine’s surrender or Russia’s collapse. Putin’s initial reply, filled with his maximalist demands, indicates he is still committed to the conquest of his neighbor, whose independence and sovereignty he has long rejected.

For centuries before Vladimir Putin arrived on the scene, Russian foreign policy has been shaped by the country’s need for warm-water ports. To be a great power in Europe and the Near East, Russia must have access to the Mediterranean. Commercial as well as military considerations dictate this. In the eighteenth century Russia conquered the khanate of Crimea and acquired a splendid location for a new Black Sea port — what is now the city of Sevastopol. The Crimean peninsula had been a gateway from Asia to the Mediterranean since the days of the ancient Greeks, who built some of their northernmost colonies there. Russia made Sevastopol the permanent home of its Black Sea Fleet.

Six months ago this week, the United States and its European allies enacted one of the most comprehensive, stringent sanctions regimes against a major economy in history. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24 not only shocked the West’s sensibilities, but pushed Washington and Brussels to take actions that would have been unthinkable only a few weeks prior. As far as the West is concerned, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is nothing less than a dangerous pariah state — and its aggression against a neighboring country meant it had to be treated as one.

Vladimir Putin’s regime has a track record in building up public heroes whom it hopes to use, only to find the ungrateful wretches unwilling to play the roles it intends. The most recent is Natalia Poklonskaya, a woman whose trajectory from cartoon heroine to legal adviser has starkly illustrated the way Putin faces criticisms not just from remaining liberals at home, but also nationalists. Poklonskaya shot to fame amidst the Russian take-over of Crimea. A Ukrainian, she had been a senior prosecutor in Crimea, then in Kyiv, until she resigned in the wake of the ‘Euromaidan’ rising, ‘ashamed to live in the country where neo-fascists freely walk the streets.’ She returned to Crimea and after it was annexed by Moscow was appointed its Prosecutor.

In the last few weeks, Russia has been flaunting its military build-up in and around Ukraine, sending 20,000 extra troops, artillery convoys, and trains heaving with weaponry to Crimea. To avoid this escalating into full-scale war, a more robust and consistent response is needed from the international community, as well as new fora and strategies to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, France and Germany have assumed leading roles in mediating the conflict. They are part of the ‘Normandy Quartet’ and mediators for the Minsk Protocol.