STEVEN PIFER: You would not see American or NATO forces on the ground, fighting the Russians on Ukraine's behalf. I don't want the Ukrainian government to make a decision based on a miscalculation of how much help they can get from the West.

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By stepping up its military presence along the Ukrainian border, Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that Ukraine and the West will make concessions and Ukraine will realign itself back to Moscow, says Stanford scholar Steven Pifer. But nothing has alienated Ukraine more than Kremlin policy over the past eight years, particularly Russia’s military seizure of Crimea in 2014 and its role in the Donbas conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives, he said.

Here, Pifer, the William J. Perry Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), discusses what Putin hopes to accomplish by amassing military troops along the Ukrainian border and why Ukraine’s democratic ambitions pose such a threat to Russia’s authoritarian leader.

Read the rest at Stanford News

Click the link for a transcript of “Ukraine, Russia and the Fight for Democracy.”

The Complicated History Between Russia and Ukraine
 

Ukraine played a key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it came out as the biggest independent country of the former Soviet states. Ukraine decided to be a democracy, thankfully, and this has been our path for the last thirty years.

This is a great achievement for our nation, because if you look around our country, even among hundreds of other successful European countries, there are not many other good examples of democracy. They have problems: Turkey has problems; Belarus has problems; Kazakhstan as well. We have some problems with corruption, but we are still an electoral democracy with fair elections.

Now, unfortunately, Russia understands itself as the successor, or empire, coming after the Soviet Union, and Putin has said many times that this collapse was the biggest catastrophe in the last twenty years of the last century. For him, Ukraine’s success is a tragedy.

Putin has invaded Ukraine before during the annexation of Crimea. He tried to divide Ukraine into a Russian, authoritarian Ukraine and a European, democratic Ukraine. But he failed. Our civil society worked hard to create voluntary military and paramilitary organizations and units, and Ukrainians pushed back as a nation.

And that was a moment when Putin understood, finally, that he lost Ukraine not only as an economic partner, but ideologically. Ukrainians chose freedom. We chose democracy. And for Putin, it's very dangerous to have examples of successful democratic countries – especially Slavic Orthodox Christian countries with close ties to Russia – like Ukraine. Putin needs the Russian people to believe that democracy is a weak, failing idea that doesn’t work.

A Struggle Broader Than One Country
 

This buildup of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border is not juist a regional conflict, and it's not just about NATO. It’s a battle between two conceptually different systems: the authoritarian system and the democratic system. It’s an attack towards democracy and the Western world. Our values in the Western world are a threat for Mr. Putin himself.

Putin is trying to shape the situation and to undermine the trust among countries and among people. He's trying to create destabilizing situations like an immigration crises, organize sabotages among the military, have political murders, and so on and so forth.

This buildup is only one element of this game to create one more additional crisis to attract attention, and to create a situation where Western leaders have to decide and make very hard decisions. Putin is trying to show that, “If I do attack, nobody will protect you. All of these values you have are just fairy tales. The West is weak, the West is insincere. When they tell you that values matter, it’s a lie because the only real value is money. There is no democracy.”

The Role of the West in Supporting Democracies
 

For Putin, the weak reaction from the West to the aggression towards Ukraine was a signal that it was acceptable to act like this. That's why Putin is raising the stakes and why he will continue to raise the stakes every year. Right now, the sanctions policy and general Western policy is creating a situation where time is playing against the victim, not against the aggressor.

Putin’s strategy is to wait, to use all his resources to undermine his democratic opponents, and to make sure that the next politicians in the western world will be more flexible. And maybe in 10 years or 15 years when the annexation of Crimea has become deep history, he will find some new trade-off with the next generation of democratic leaders.

This is why there needs to be a new model of smart or cascading sanctions where the EU adopts a package of sanctions for some period of time, maybe five, seven or ten years, and every next wave, every next package of sanctions will automatically come into power if the problem is not solved. So every single day, it automatically raises the price for the aggressor.

Supporting fragile democracies is not just about making a morally right choice; these countries on the frontlines that have paid an additional price – an additional tax, if you will, for democracy, and have taken on additional burdens, because they choose the democratic path. Whether it’s Ukraine or other countries, we need Western support now in a much bigger way than we have it now.

For more from Oleksiy Honcharuk, listen to his his remarks on "Ukraine vs Russia: The War for Democracy," given as a Liautaud Lecture at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

At dinner at the American ambassador’s residence in Moscow some years ago, I asked a former senior foreign policy official if anyone in the Kremlin understood Ukraine.  He replied that someone there understood Ukraine very well.  He then added “but nobody listens to him.” 

The abject failure of Russian policy toward Ukraine over the past seven years suggests the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin have a flawed understanding of the country. 

On Dec. 17, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “Have we [Russia] lost Ukraine as a partner, ally and so on?  At this point, yes, completely.” 

The Russian leadership presumably did not intend this.  Thus, the question of whether the Kremlin and Putin understand Ukraine.  Many signs suggest that they do not. 

Putin’s last visit to Kiev occurred in 2013, when he traveled to mark the 1025th anniversary of Kievan Rus’s acceptance of Christianity. In a speech Putin said, “We are all spiritual heirs of what happened here 1025 years ago.  And in this sense we [Ukrainians and Russians] are, without a doubt, one people.”  

What an utterly tone-deaf statement to make in Ukraine.  Millions of ethnic Ukrainians heard it as a denial of their culture, history and language.  Putin has since often repeated that point. 

Russia’s use of military force to seize Crimea following the Maidan Revolution could hardly be expected to win over Ukrainian sympathies.  Nor would sparking and sustaining a conflict in Donbas that has now claimed more than 13,000 lives. 

Shortly after the Russia-Ukraine conflict began in 2014, Putin and other Russians started speaking of “Novorossiya” — the idea that much of eastern and southern Ukraine would rise in revolt against Kiev.  The allure of Novorossiya held sway in Moscow long after it became clear that there was little enthusiasm among Ukrainians for breaking away. 

Volodymyr Zelenskiy won the Ukrainian presidency in 2019.  He came to office a political novice who comfortably spoke Russian and promised a different approach from that of his predecessor, whom Moscow despised.  Zelensky endorsed the Minsk agreements as the basis for resolving the Donbas conflict and spoke approvingly of the “Steinmeier formula” for moving forward—politically risky steps for the new president given growing frustration and anger in Ukraine about the failure of the Minsk agreements to deliver peace in Donbas. 

What did that get Zelensky?  Putin agreed to a meeting in December 2019 with the Ukrainian leader, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.  The meeting produced agreement on a prisoner exchange, a full ceasefire in Donbass and a follow-up meeting in spring 2020.  Only the prisoner exchange occurred. 

Rather than seek compromise, the Kremlin leaders seemed to calculate that they could force the newcomer to make humiliating concessions.  

Moscow increasingly took the position that it was not a party to the conflict — despite a Russian signature to the Minsk II agreement — and sought to force Kiev to deal directly with the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics.”  The Kremlin now swats away any request by Zelensky to meet Putin. 

The unsurprising result:  Zelenskiy’s attitude toward Moscow has hardened.  While he brought to office an ambivalent view of the Ukraine-NATO relationship, he now publicly calls for an early membership path for Ukraine.  

Kremlin policy has driven Ukraine away.  More than anything else, it has persuaded the Ukrainian government and an increasingly large segment of the Ukrainian population that they can find security and stability only if their country is anchored in institutions such as the European Union and NATO. 

The Kremlin appears intent on continuing this course.  Putin released an essay in July in which he all but denied Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation.  In October, former President Dmitry Medvedev termed talking to Kiev “pointless.”   

The Russian military has massed tens of thousands of troops and tanks, artillery and other combat vehicles in staging areas near Ukraine, suggesting that Russia is preparing a major military assault. 

That would not bring Ukraine back to Russia.  It would instead generate more sanctions on Russia, an increased flow of Western arms to Ukraine, a bolstering of NATO military presence near Russia’s borders — and dead Russian soldiers.   

The Russian military is undoubtedly stronger, but the Ukrainian military would exact a price.  Moreover, Kiev is preparing for partisan warfare, and an early December poll showed that one-third of those asked, including one-fourth in the country’s east, would take up arms if the Russians invade. 

It is time for the Russian leadership to reexamine the premises on which it has based its approach.  Bad understanding leads to bad policy, and the Kremlin appears poised to make another in a line of mistakes in its approach toward Ukraine.  This one would prove a tragedy for Ukraine … but also for Russia. 

Originally for The Moscow Times

As Russian troops gather on Ukraine’s borders, the outstanding question is whether Russian President Putin is prepared to bear the domestic and international costs of a full-scale invasion or if he’ll stop at pressuring NATO and the West for political concessions. Steven Pifer explains why a military incursion in 2022 will not be as easy for Russia as annexing Crimea in 2014, and where there are avenues for dialogue to defuse the brewing confrontation.

Read the rest at Brookings

Click the link for a transcript of "Why Right Matters to Democracy Here and Abroad."

Upholding Democracy At Home
 

It's really kind of quizzical how an immigrant refugee kid from Kyiv ends up in the White House working on Russia and Ukraine policy. And that’s what my book is really about; it talks about some of the key moments from my background and my family's background that I drew on in making those fateful decisions that I did on January 25, and how they carried me through my congressional testimony.

I made that report without any hesitation, because I thought there was an opportunity to right the course of events. I didn't really think that these things were going to enter the public view. I just did what I thought was right, and then when I was called to testify about making these reports, I followed through. Even there, it was not a hard decision about what the right thing to do was. I was not going to put my interests ahead of U.S. interests.

Supporting Democracy Abroad
 

When we see everything that’s happening in the world right now, I can understand why people look at someplace like Ukraine and think, “Why should we care about what happens there?”

But Ukraine makes a really compelling normative case for where Russia could end up, which I think everyone would agree is important. I think about the example of West Germany making East Germany unviable in the Cold War. Both countries started at the same place: decimated. But West Germany, being democratic and prosperous and enjoying basic human rights, thriving economy, made East Germany unviable and demonstrated Germany as a failure.

In much the same way, Ukraine could do the same thing for Russia. As we both know, Putin believes that Ukraine and Russia are the same people separated by an artificial boundary; the share roots and have a shared identity. Now, that's a vast oversimplification. That's not entirely true. But that's what he believes. And that's what he's convinced this population of. So, how would he explain 20 years from now, or in 2036, when he's done with his latest term in office, and there's somebody else that's looking to step in: How can another authoritarian leader step in and say, “We’re going to continue the course with managed democracy,” when Ukraine is prosperous?

It makes a really compelling case for a path that Russia could take on a path that would take it towards democracy. That would be a difficult road, but it's a viable path, because Ukraine is the example. And that's important not just because of our strategic aspirations for Russia, but also because it has an impact on China also. You've heard me talk about this notion that all of Russia's national security threats are from a belligerent rising, coercive China; they're not from the West.

The West is held out as a boogeyman at the moment, because it's useful to the regime. It's important to the regime to fight against the West as the aggressor and to couch the West as a failure and decadent for regime stability purposes. But from a national security perspective, I think any reasonable assessment would indicate that those threats are really not emanating from the West, but from the East. So supporting Ukraine also empowers our competition with China. That's why I think that the Biden administration should be unconstrained in its support of Ukraine.

More from Alexander Vindman
 

Watch the book talk FSI hosted with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman (Ret.) for Here, Right Matters.

As prime minister, Mr. Honcharuk introduced important policy initiatives in Ukraine including the institution of business privatization processes, efforts to combat black markets, and the launch of the Anti-Raider Office to respond to cases of illegal property seizures.

“I want to thank Ambassador McFaul for the invitation to be a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute, as well as my other colleagues – Kathryn Stoner, Larry Diamond, and Francis Fukuyama – for a very warm welcome.

“Stanford is the best place to rethink Ukraine's past and plan the future, and that's why I am especially happy to be here and add my expertise and experience to this important process.”

Prior to serving as prime minister, Honcharuk was deputy head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine and was a member of the National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine.

As a visiting fellow at FSI, Honcharuk will also work closely with scholars in the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), which runs practitioner training programs for democracy activists in Ukraine, such as the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program.

"I am delighted to welcome Mr. Honcharuk to Stanford,” shared Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of CDDRL. “His appointment as the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow continues a long tradition of FSI's and CDDRL's engagement in Ukraine. We are fortunate to have a visiting fellow who brings such a breadth of experience and expertise to our campus community and our growing network of Ukrainian leaders."

Please join us on Tuesday, November 16, at 4:00 pm for a lecture given by former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at FSI. Learn More & Register