Berliner Boersenzeitung - Vladimir Putin's Ukraine obsesssion

EUR -
AED 4.081513
AFN 77.230118
ALL 99.042862
AMD 430.140447
ANG 2.003297
AOA 1032.870816
ARS 1069.272543
AUD 1.642244
AWG 2.001578
AZN 1.891198
BAM 1.953279
BBD 2.244384
BDT 132.82382
BGN 1.955628
BHD 0.418727
BIF 3214.74806
BMD 1.111216
BND 1.437883
BOB 7.68095
BRL 6.070127
BSD 1.111556
BTN 93.071223
BWP 14.684447
BYN 3.637804
BYR 21779.834762
BZD 2.240568
CAD 1.512215
CDF 3189.190401
CHF 0.941761
CLF 0.037483
CLP 1034.264491
CNY 7.869634
CNH 7.889245
COP 4656.273092
CRC 575.347202
CUC 1.111216
CUP 29.447226
CVE 110.581035
CZK 25.072369
DJF 197.485658
DKK 7.459843
DOP 66.72826
DZD 146.835789
EGP 53.922652
ERN 16.668241
ETB 129.160898
FJD 2.451457
FKP 0.846257
GBP 0.841741
GEL 2.980835
GGP 0.846257
GHS 17.457112
GIP 0.846257
GMD 76.673956
GNF 9612.018347
GTQ 8.597828
GYD 232.625627
HKD 8.660018
HNL 27.735577
HRK 7.55517
HTG 146.669414
HUF 394.304073
IDR 17004.939355
ILS 4.199563
IMP 0.846257
INR 93.080735
IQD 1455.693038
IRR 46787.751798
ISK 152.292299
JEP 0.846257
JMD 174.634647
JOD 0.787521
JPY 158.672729
KES 143.346323
KGS 93.744637
KHR 4522.64896
KMF 491.711705
KPW 1000.093823
KRW 1476.253041
KWD 0.338843
KYD 0.92633
KZT 532.423365
LAK 24568.987385
LBP 99509.397658
LKR 337.191845
LRD 216.687298
LSL 19.545888
LTL 3.281132
LVL 0.672163
LYD 5.283827
MAD 10.841857
MDL 19.313599
MGA 5067.145444
MKD 61.530629
MMK 3609.186415
MNT 3775.91212
MOP 8.922126
MRU 44.114338
MUR 50.948991
MVR 17.057703
MWK 1928.515872
MXN 21.403543
MYR 4.724337
MZN 71.006746
NAD 19.546773
NGN 1821.761212
NIO 40.848097
NOK 11.769856
NPR 148.920849
NZD 1.788863
OMR 0.42778
PAB 1.111546
PEN 4.195007
PGK 4.36469
PHP 62.030859
PKR 309.085048
PLN 4.273859
PYG 8666.738233
QAR 4.04566
RON 4.975249
RSD 117.057684
RUB 104.038142
RWF 1489.029519
SAR 4.170346
SBD 9.246166
SCR 14.965422
SDG 668.391412
SEK 11.34546
SGD 1.440891
SHP 0.846257
SLE 25.38829
SLL 23301.639441
SOS 634.504739
SRD 33.417049
STD 22999.928891
SVC 9.726099
SYP 2791.963614
SZL 19.545971
THB 37.115306
TJS 11.838011
TMT 3.900368
TND 3.36811
TOP 2.611133
TRY 37.856354
TTD 7.550121
TWD 35.523332
TZS 3027.441423
UAH 46.079379
UGX 4134.627366
USD 1.111216
UYU 45.549582
UZS 14162.448707
VEF 4025438.551901
VES 40.818578
VND 27363.69546
VUV 131.925803
WST 3.108586
XAF 655.129292
XAG 0.036848
XAU 0.000435
XCD 3.003117
XDR 0.823859
XOF 655.049687
XPF 119.331742
YER 278.192985
ZAR 19.512729
ZMK 10002.272396
ZMW 29.428495
ZWL 357.811118
  • RBGPF

    3.5000

    60.5

    +5.79%

  • BCC

    1.8200

    137.06

    +1.33%

  • CMSC

    0.0050

    25.055

    +0.02%

  • NGG

    -0.3200

    70.05

    -0.46%

  • RYCEF

    0.0900

    6.55

    +1.37%

  • GSK

    -0.1300

    42.43

    -0.31%

  • AZN

    0.0500

    78.58

    +0.06%

  • SCS

    0.1000

    14.11

    +0.71%

  • CMSD

    -0.0300

    24.98

    -0.12%

  • RIO

    -0.0100

    62.91

    -0.02%

  • RELX

    -0.3900

    47.37

    -0.82%

  • JRI

    0.0600

    13.44

    +0.45%

  • BCE

    1.1000

    35.61

    +3.09%

  • VOD

    0.0500

    10.23

    +0.49%

  • BP

    -0.1200

    32.43

    -0.37%

  • BTI

    -0.1300

    37.88

    -0.34%

Vladimir Putin's Ukraine obsesssion
Vladimir Putin's Ukraine obsesssion

Vladimir Putin's Ukraine obsesssion

Russian President Vladimir Putin has an obsession that is so close and yet so far: to return Ukraine to Moscow's fold, in the name of Russia's greatness.

Text size:

For many Russians of his generation, who were raised on Soviet propaganda, the USSR disintegrating and its spheres of influences vanishing in just three years remains an open wound.

For Putin, a KGB officer based in East Germany at the time the Soviet Union was gradually collapsing between 1989 and 1991, this was a personal defeat.

The Russian leader has said many times that he suffered the same misery as his compatriots when the Soviet empire crumbled, most recently claiming he was forced to drive a taxi to make ends meet when he returned to his homeland.

For many Russians, the years after the Soviet collapse were marked by humiliation and poverty -- a stark contrast to the West's triumphalism and prosperity at the time.

Putin has claimed that the end of the Soviet Union was the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century" -- despite Russia living through two world wars.

Observers say his sense for revenge deepened when NATO and the EU expanded into countries once dominated by Moscow.

Putin has since made it his historical mission to stop this advance in what he believes should be Russia's region of influence.

For the longtime Russian leader, any moves towards bringing Ukraine into Western alliances is a red line.

- Vision of 'NATO rockets in Moscow' -

In his vision, "if the authorities do not solve this security problem now, then Ukraine will be in NATO in 10-15 years" according to analyst Alexei Makarkin.

When a pro-Western revolution took place in Kyiv in 2014, Moscow land-grabbed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and pro-Russian separatists took up arms in the east of the country.

Recent rhetoric from Putin has criticised Ukraine for presenting itself as a victim of Tsarist and Soviet imperialism.

And, he says, two Ukrainian revolutions -- in 2005 and 2014 -- that drove out pro-Russia elites were the result of a Western plot.

For the Kremlin chief, Russia must respond by being strong, menacing even. Giving in is not in the nature of the former KGB agent and judoka.

Born into a working class Saint Petersburg family, Putin said in 2015 that "if a fight is inevitable, you must strike first."

One of his school teachers, Vera Gurevich, has said that when a 14-year-old Putin broke one of his classmate's leg, he said that some "only understand force."

After Ukraine's Orange Revolution that broke out in the winter of 2004, Putin waged natural gas wars against the country, destabilising it economically.

Then he made a military move in 2014, by taking Crimea, and supporting pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine.

He has repeatedly called into question the idea of distinct Ukrainian identity and statehood.

As far back as 2008, according to Russian and US media, Putin told his then US counterpart George W. Bush that "Ukraine is not even a country."

During his end-of-year press conference in December, Putin again raised eyebrows by saying Ukraine was "created" by Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.

- Desire to 'stop time' -

Months earlier, in a long article called "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians," he said that Kyiv's decisions are driven by a Western "anti-Russia" plot.

The West is "setting up a political system in Ukraine in such a way that presidents, deputies and ministers change, but the line towards division with Russia, towards enmity with it, is unchanged," Putin wrote.

Tatiana Stanovaya, who runs the R.Politik analytical centre, said that, according to this logic, the 100,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine's border are not a threat.

The Russian leader, she said, has always believed that the Ukrainian people are themselves pro-Russians that have been "the subject of manipulation."

"In their (the Kremlin) understanding, war would not be an attack on Ukraine, but a liberation of the Ukrainian people from a foreign occupier," she said.

His spokesman Dmitry Peskov made this position clear back in December: "It is not possible to lose a brotherly nation, it will remain brotherly."

In essence, Russian authorities see it as their mission to bring Ukraine back onto its natural course.

The Kremlin has for years repeated its line that the West has taken advantage of Russia's post-Soviet weakness to camp close by, betraying vague promises made in the twilight of the USSR.

With his army at Ukraine's doorstep, Putin is demanding that NATO move back to its 1997 borders and roll back the European security framework born out of the end of the Cold War.

What drives Putin, said Makarkin, "is the desire to stop time."

(A.Lehmann--BBZ)