Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War by Taras Kuzio

Author:Taras Kuzio [Taras Kuzio]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2021-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

Weakness of Russian liberalism

Some Russian democrats may not have sympathised with the un-diplomatic tone of Russian Supreme Soviet resolutions; nevertheless, they joined forces with Russian nationalists in refusing to recognise Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea and Sevastopol. Vladimir Lukin, chairman of the State Duma committee on International Affairs and a leading member of the social-democratic Yabloko Party, initiated the first votes as early as January 1992 in the Russian Supreme Soviet to exert pressure upon Ukraine to relinquish control of Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet.33 In exchange for diplomatic recognition of Ukraine, Lukin proposed Kyiv should transfer sovereignty over Crimea to Russia. Lukin also believed Russia should lay claim to all the Soviet armed forces.34 Grigory Yavlinsky, Yabloko leader, had always considered Sevastopol to be historically a Russian town;35 the first political party Navalny joined in 2000 was Yabloko.

Lukin was supported by Boris Nemtsov, the then respected reformist governor of Nizhni Novgorod and deputy prime minister, who also described Sevastopol as a ‘Russian city acquired with Russian blood.’36 The Mayor of St. Petersburg and a leading member of the Movement for Democratic Reforms, Anatoly Sobchak, made similar claims Sevastopol was a ‘Russian city,’ saying Ukraine had no right to sovereignty over the port. In 1991–1996, Putin worked in Sobchak’s St. Petersburg office. A Ukrainian newspaper pointed out:

It would be a mistake, however, to boil down the ‘Crimean’ activities of Moscow to a method of scoring points by Russian politicians because those who want to see Crimea as Russian prevail among the helmsmen of the Kremlin’s course.37

Russian liberals were no different to nationalists in their imperialism towards Crimea and Sevastopol.

Jeremy Lester (1994) divided Russian political attitudes towards Ukraine into four groups: 1) Westernisers; 2) Centrists; 3) National Patriots; and 4) Democratic left. Glenn Chafetz (1996–1997, pp.683–684) defined three constituencies in Russian foreign policy: 1) Liberals; 2) Statists; and 3) Authoritarians. In a later analysis, Gretskiy (2020, pp.16–18) divided Russian politicians into: 1) Westernisers; 2) Moderate Liberals; 3) Centrists and Moderate Conservatives; and 4) Neo-Communists and Nationalists.

Lester (1994) and Gretskiy (2020) proposed similar frameworks, although with a few nuances. Lester (1994) was one of a small number of scholars who showcased centre-left forces who had re-emerged in the Gorbachev era but became progressively marginalised in the 1990s. One reason was they were the most amorphous of the four groups discussed by Lester (1994, pp.221, 224). As with nearly all Russian politicians, the Russian moderate left also preferred a union over a Russian nation-state. Gretskiy’s (2020) Westernisers and Moderate Liberals could to all intents and purposes be merged into one group. Combining Lester (1994), Chafetz (1996–1997) and Gretskiy (2020) we arrive at three groups of Russian attitudes to Ukraine:

Westernisers and Moderate Liberals: They were an amorphous group lacking internal coherence and unity and similar to the Democratic Left became quickly marginalised. Genuinely, post-imperial, this group recognised the independence of the non-Russian republics and did not advance territorial claims towards Crimea and south-eastern Ukraine. In the first half of the 1990s, the groups leading members, such as Sobchak, Lukin and Rutskoi, transitioned to the second group.

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