The world in question

Ukraine: Vladimir Putin's obsession

Audio 03:14

Russian President Vladimir Putin signs documents, including a decree recognizing the independence of two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, during a ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow on February 21, 2022. © Alexey Nikolsky / Sputnik / AFP

By: Bruno Daroux Follow

3 mins

Vladimir Putin decided this week to invade Ukraine.

But how to explain this Ukrainian obsession in the master of the Kremlin? 

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To answer this question, we must go back 30 years, to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. An event described by Putin as "

 ". 

The dismantling of the Soviet empire, the return of the countries of Eastern Europe to the west of the European continent, then their integration, desired by themselves, within NATO and the declarations of independence of the different ex-republics which were integrated into the USSR, left the young Putin with a bitter taste.

That of defeat and that of the voracious appetite of Westerners to extend their influence.

This is particularly true for Ukraine, the sister country, historical cradle – even if it dates back to the 9th century – of the Russian nation.  

Even before coming to power in 1999, Vladimir Putin was driven by these feelings of bitterness, injustice and helplessness in the face of a triumphant West.

He judges that Ukraine is part of Russia and that the Ukrainian state has in fact never existed, except in an artificial way, and by the sole will of the Bolsheviks at the time of the creation of the USSR in 1922. He recalled it Monday evening in his long speech in the form of a

plea , even if it meant twisting the historical facts.

For him, everything is the fault of Lenin, who believed it necessary to grant a certain autonomy to these socialist republics, the objective being to manage the immense Soviet space as closely as possible.

Putin is more in favor of a Stalinist-style centralist vision.

From 1991, Ukraine will gradually, because of local elites according to him corrupted by the Americans, slide towards Western Europe.

It's as if Russia was letting slip a part of its dearest territory, this Ukraine which is, he says, " 

 ". 

The rapprochement of Ukraine and NATO

This is why he saw very badly what happened at the NATO summit in 2008, when Ukraine's candidacy was declared admissible in principle.

More precisely a partnership with a view to membership.

Vladimir Putin sees it as an attack and, therefore, seeks to stop this infernal mechanism for him.

A very Ukrainian mechanism, however, which asserted itself during the Maidan Revolution in 2014: a political nation that chose Europe.

Unbearable for Putin.

Hence, the annexation of Crimea then, and the support, even if it is not officially assumed, for the pro-Russian separatists of Donbass.

The Russian president then realizes that the Europeans and the Americans are crying out loud, establishing sanctions against Russia, but in the end, letting it happen. 

After the very democratic election of the current President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019, the latter firmly supports, in September 2020, NATO membership, as a strategic objective for Ukraine.

From then on, Tsar Putin's Ukrainian obsession became a desire to do everything to prevent such a development.

The rest, we are living it…

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• Ukraine

• Russia

• Vladimir Poutine

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