And by carving out of Ukraine the regions most skeptical of a Western trajectory for the country, Russia has eliminated a natural, internal brake on Ukraine’s drive to integrate with Europe. Ukraine has turned toward the West before, most recently with the Orange Revolution in 2005. But by 2010, Ukrainians were fed up with the infighting and lack of progress of their pro-Western government, and voted in the Russia-friendly Vladimir Yanukovich. Russia’s seizure of Crimea and fomenting of separatism in the Donbas have eliminated the potential for another such voluntary turn to the East by removing the most Russia-friendly voters from the Ukrainian electorate and catalyzing the formation of a strongly anti-Russian national identity in the rest of Ukraine.
And the collateral damage from Russia's Ukraine adventure spread out from there, as the article describes.
Consider what the Russians reversed with their Ukraine adventure:
Russia’s quest for perfect security has left it relatively less secure in 2019 than it was even in the 1990s, when – according to Putin’s rhetoric – it was “on its knees” and at the mercy of the West. But in the 1990s the West had no interest in confronting Russia. Instead, Western states alternated between ignoring and assisting it. Europe was struggling to deal with the Balkan Wars and attempting to engage Russia as a partner in the effort. The U.S. was demobilizing from the Cold War and focused on spending the “peace dividend” it expected to reap – the U.S. Army reduced its presence in Europe from 300,000 to some 30,000 and the U.S. defense budget declined from $426 billion in 1988 to $296 billion in 1998.
Putin can only hope that his own people judge his results in the same highly skewed way Westerners judge American and Russian success or failure.
Seriously, when Russians figure out just how badly Putin has effed things up, their natural paranoia might make them wonder just who Putin works for.
