The date was Sunday 7th May 2000, the venue The Grand Kremlin Palace, and a small and rather insignificant figure was being sworn in as President of the Russian Federation. Few would have predicted he would become Russia’s longest serving leader since Joseph Stalin. He will almost certainly overtake Stalin’s record after the election due to be held in May.
Vladimir Putin’s rise to power had been unspectacular: a sixteen-year career in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, before resigning to begin a political career in the office of the Mayor of St Petersburg. Even then there were intimations of his later behaviour – he was investigated by two Commission deputies for an alleged fraud involving the under-pricing of exported metals, and they recommended his sacking. It didn’t happen.
Putin’s upward trajectory continued with a move to Moscow, joining the office of President Boris Yeltsin, who later appointed him head of the FSB [successor to the KGB] and subsequently Prime Minister. On Yeltsin’s unexpected resignation Putin ran for – and won – the Presidency. Little known even in his own country he was seen as a technocrat, an administrator, a ‘quiet man’ and safe pair of hands, in total contrast to his flamboyant, unpredictable predecessor Boris Yeltsin. There was relief both in Russia and internationally that the chaotic regime of Yeltsin had come to an end.
There were warnings
Were there straws in the wind, even in 2000, that might have alerted a keen observer to the autocrat and ultra-nationalist that Putin was later to become? Perhaps but, in general, world leaders were too relieved to be dealing with an apparently rational and capable Russian President to look more deeply into his beliefs. That mistake has cost Europe and the western world dear and has culminated in the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the first major war on European soil since WW2.
There were many occasions, even early on in Putin’s presidency, when warnings might have been heeded. Alastair Campbell remembers the journalist John Sweeney saying to him, after Putin’s State visit to London in 2003, ‘You have absolutely no idea who and what you are dealing with’. Tony Blair, who was desperately keen to encourage Russia to join the ‘international top table’ ignored advice from his officials that there had been a resurgence of Russian spying activity since Putin’s accession to power. Putin was clearly a KGB man, resentful of the humiliation that he believed Russia had suffered as a result of the break-up of the Soviet Union. We can see now that he perhaps always had a deep belief in the recreation of a ‘Greater Russia’.
Putin has grown increasingly blatant
The wind has become a hurricane over the years. Putin has grown increasingly blatant about his expansionist dreams and about his willingness to destroy internal dissent or opposition and his behaviour on the international front has become increasingly flagrant. Bill Clinton remembers a fairly chilling conversation with him back in 2011, after which he believed that it was ‘only a matter of time’ before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
Putin was clear that he did not agree with the formal agreement made by Yeltsin to respect Ukraine’s borders after the break-up of the Soviet Union, in return for that country giving up the nuclear weapons based on its soil. He said… ‘I don’t agree with it. And I do not support it. And I am not bound by it.’ He could not have been clearer. And yet the international community failed to heed his warning, even after he invaded Crimea in 2014. Even when over 100,000 Russian troops were massing on the Russia/Ukrainian border in 2022. Why? How much of that refusal to see what was in front of their noses was naivety, a refusal to believe that anyone in the modern world could be so rapacious, and how much was negligence, a simple ignoring of the official intelligence?
How much are we to blame?
That blindness – deliberate or otherwise – has led to accusations that many countries, organisations and individuals have blood on their hands, that their inaction contributed to the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers over the past two years. So who are the principle culprits?
- The US, although having provided enormous supplies of weaponry, has, since the start of the war, shown a level of timidity and caution about giving Kyiv the longer-range and more powerful weaponry that would have enabled the army to follow up its early successes against the Russian invaders. Instead of which Zelenskiy and his ministers have frequently had to go cap in hand to beg for faster delivery of ammunition, and more effective weaponry.
- The Republican Party in the US, almost entirely captured by Donald Trump, and the House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has held up legislation that includes funds for Ukraine, saying that he ‘won’t be rushed’, when the need is desperately urgent.
- Germany, whose history of course comes into play, but whose leaders appeared so timid and reluctant to provide Ukraine with the supplies that the country needed from the start of the Russian invasion.
- France and Italy, both of whom have promised a great deal and delivered much less, possibly in Macron’s case with one eye on his right-wing rivals.
- The world’s bankers, currently putting up strong opposition to plans to use the billions sitting in the frozen bank accounts of Russian oligarchs and the Russian central bank for the rebuilding of Ukraine. And, of course, all those who have colluded in the creation of the City of London as the alleged ‘laundromat of the world’.
The list, depressingly, goes on and on…. timidity, greed, self-interest all have a part to play, while the generosity of one small country – Denmark – in giving their entire stock of artillery shells to Ukraine – shines a light on what is possible if the will exists.
Ukraine desperately needs the international community to step up and show the courage and resilience that they have demonstrated. Putin’s aim, as a senior councillor made clear in the past few days, is to take over the whole of Ukraine, not just the area occupied by Russian troops at the moment. Countless numbers of commentators have warned that he will not stop there. Where next? The Baltic States, Poland?
On the second anniversary of the war there’s an opportunity for Europe and the West to show Putin that they will whole-heartedly support Ukraine in their fight against autocracy, and to supply the country with everything that it needs to push the Russians back to the border. Will they take it? We can only hope.
If you want to support Ukraine and Ukrainians, there are a number of organisations that you can contribute to and events happening in Sussex this weekend to mark the second anniversary of the war. https://ukrainianinstitute.org.uk/russias-war-against-ukraine-what-can-you-do-to-support-ukraine-ukrainians/
