The "Near-Abroad" Factor: Why Putin Stands Firm over Ukraine

The "Near-Abroad" Factor: Why Putin Stands Firm over Ukraine

05/23/14

Hilary Appel

Security, Ukraine

"Western leaders should assume that averting conflict is not the priority for Russia if it means losing Ukraine in the long term."

President Vladimir Putin has been hesitant to acknowledge Russia’s role in the escalating violence and instability in eastern and southern Ukraine. Striking a more conciliatory tone, Mr. Putin recently announced a plan to pull back Russian troops from the border in order to ease tensions. Few in the West seem to be buying it, however. Mr. Putin’s credibility was deeply undermined by his past denials of Russian special forces in Crimea, and by the absurd claims that last month’s military exercises on Ukraine’s border were simply routine. As much as the recent aggression in Ukraine flies in face of Mr. Putin’s oft repeated mantra of Russia’s commitment to international law and respect for national sovereignty, in fact his stance is compatible with the ways past Russian leaders have often treated the “near abroad.”

For centuries, Russia has sought to ensure its physical security through its control over neighboring territory. In Russia, the notion of “empire” was not based upon acquiring control over distant unconnected territories on faraway continents, as the British and the French did. Rather, for Russia, an empire was built through acquisition of contiguous territories. This approach to security has left Russia, even after losing its Soviet empire, the largest country in the world geographically. Furthermore, Russia has always made the near abroad—as the territory surrounding Russia’s borders is called—a priority. And while Mr. Putin acknowledged the impossibility of restoring the Soviet Union, he also found unacceptable any further unraveling of Russia’s territorial integrity, for example through the loss of secessionist regions in the Caucasus. His first actions as Prime Minister and acting President were to prevent Chechen independence, even if this required tremendous brutality and violence against Russian citizens in Chechnya.

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