{"id":42795,"date":"2021-07-14T14:55:13","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T12:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/?p=42795"},"modified":"2021-07-14T15:27:23","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T13:27:23","slug":"russia-ukraine-and-the-eu-a-comment-on-putins-history-doctrine-fuecks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/russia-ukraine-and-the-eu-a-comment-on-putins-history-doctrine-fuecks\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia, Ukraine and the EU: A Comment on Putin\u2019s history doctrine"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=\u201d.vc_custom_1508251598805{margin-top: 30px !important;}\u201d][vc_column width=\u201c2\/3\u201d css=\u201d.vc_custom_1508252250311{padding-right: 20px !important;}\u201d][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

A commentary by Ralf F\u00fccks on Putin\u2019s latest historical policy manifesto, published by the Kremlin<\/a>.<\/h2>\n

He who controls the past controls the future: as with Stalin, official histo\u00adri\u00adog\u00adraphy in todays Russia serves to justify imperial power politics. Putin\u2019s historical-political digression on the unity of Russians and Ukrainians is entirely in the Great Russian imperial tradition. If the Ukrainians absolutely want to be one nation, be my guest \u2014 but only under the wing of the Russian motherland.<\/p>\n

In Putin\u2019s narrative, the Russian Empire was one big family of nations, united by language, culture & Orthodoxy. Conquerors and oppressors were only the others. Even the land grab after the Hitler-Stalin pact was just a return of historical possessions.<\/p>\n

His complaint that the Bolsheviks laid the axe to the unity of the empire with their nation\u00adal\u00adities policy is signif\u00adicant. To him, the disin\u00adte\u00adgration of the Soviet Union since 1990 is not an act of liber\u00adation but a historical catastrophe. Putin accuses the republics that have fallen away of nation\u00adalism (fomented by the evil West) \u2014 the fact that the Kremlin has set violent separatism in motion in Georgia and Ukraine falls by the wayside, as does Russian nation\u00adalism as the cement of his regime. Putin\u2019s historical-political doctrine caters to Russian post-imperial phantom pain.<\/p>\n

He is full of contempt for contem\u00adporary Ukraine. His article is a cold threat: Ukraine belongs in the Russian orbit. It does not have the freedom to choose its alliances. This is the return of the Brezhnev Doctrine in a new guise. The Russian Foreign Ministry sums up its message: \u201cUkrainians and Russians are one people, one entity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukrainians will not accept that. Putin himself has ensured that they will have to seek their indepen\u00addence by separating themselves from Russia. One can only hope that the West will not abandon them. A return to Yalta, to the division of Europe into separate spheres of influence, is unacceptable.<\/p>\n

The equal sover\u00adeignty of all states and the renun\u00adci\u00adation of violence as a means of politics are corner\u00adstones of the European peace order \u2014 as is respect for human rights. They must also be the yardsticks of German and European policy towards Russia.<\/p>\n

\n

Ralf F\u00fccks is a founder and Man\u00adag\u00ading Partner at the Center for Liberal Modernity<\/em><\/p>\n

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