Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire

Ukraine’s size, population, Black Sea ports, and geographical position, which make it both buffer and launching pad against the West, along with its role as both a supplier of foodstuffs and a market for Russian goods, have made it a strategic prize for the Russian imperial project for centuries. Ukraine shares a long border with Russia, a sizable Russian-speaking population, and a common Christian Orthodox faith. The ideological motives behind Moscow’s imperial claims on Ukraine are significant. As Zbigniew Brzezinski noted, “It cannot be stressed strongly enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”⁴⁸ Ukraine would be the most prized addition to the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union, of which Belarus and Kazakhstan are also members. At the same time Russia strongly opposes Ukraine’s association agreement with the EU. Part of the imperial ideology vis-à-vis Ukraine rests on the aforementioned concept of Russia and Ukraine as “brotherly Slavic nations.” Days ahead of the annexation of Crimea, on 18 March 2014, President Vladimir Putin stated that Ukraine and Russia are inextricably interlinked, saying “we are one people… and we cannot live without each other.”⁴⁹ In August 2014, Putin reiterated, “I think that the Russian and Ukrainian peoples are practically one single people, no matter what others might say…. People living in what is Ukraine today all called themselves ‘Russian.’ ”⁵⁰ The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are more ambivalent about this concept of “Slavic brotherhood” accompanied by threats.⁵¹ Ukraine also figures centrally in Russia’s perception of empire. The influential far-right, anti-Western Russian author Alexander Prokhanov has argued that Russia is now entering the stage of its Fifth Empire: “The first Russian empire was Kievan Rus’, the second was the Moscow Kingdom, the third was the St. Petersburg Empire of the Romanovs, [the fourth] the Red Empire of the Soviet Union,” and the fifth is now emerging under the leadership of President Putin.⁵² Finally, Moscow is also concerned about the domestic repercussions in Russia, when neighboring Ukrainians are looking to the EU, seeking reforms and a democratic society.⁵³ Moscow likely worries that a version of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Maidan movement of 2013–14 might spark in Russia, and thus attempts to delegitimize if not demonize the civic unrest by labeling it a radical, fascist, staged revolution, and alleging Western interference.

Besides these ideological motives, Russia has a number of strategic economic interests in Ukraine. The country is a significant market for Russian natural gas, oil, and nuclear fuel.⁵⁴ In 2013, according to Gazprom’s data, the company sold nearly $11 billion worth of gas to Ukraine, representing some 16 percent of Gazprom’s total gas exports, and earned 16 percent of its total revenue.⁵⁵ Following the conflict and a change in the Ukrainian government, in 2014 Ukraine cut its gas consumption by half to less than $4 billion.⁵⁶ Most significantly, however, Russian energy exports depend on Ukrainian territory. Through Ukraine runs Russia’s key Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhhorod gas pipeline and the Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline, transporting Russian energy resources to European markets. Russia’s economy is hugely dependent on revenues from oil and gas exports, and Russia depends on the European markets for some 80 percent of its piped gas exports. Half of that supply is piped through the territory of Ukraine. Thirteen European countries—Croatia, France, Greece, Germany, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Austria, Bulgaria, and Romania—get their gas via Ukraine.⁵⁷ Thus for Russia it is critical to maintain control and influence over a territory through which flows its most important export route and on which its main source of income depends. Leaked Russian government policy papers from February 2014 stated that in light of the changing political situation in Ukraine, Russia could not risk “losing not only the Ukrainian market for energy sales but more importantly indirect control over the gas transportation system of Ukraine. This will put at risk Gazprom’s positions in Central and Southern Europe, causing great damage to the national economy.”⁵⁸