By Amber Bereznyckyj, History and Creative Writing student at the New College of the Humanities
An estimated 100,000 troops have gathered on the Ukrainian border in recent weeks due to Vladimir Putin’s concern over NATO activity in the Black Sea. The UK government have said Britain is prepared to back Ukraine against ‘Russian Hostility’. Russia with allyship from Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has been putting considerable pressure on Europe in recent months, most notably by deliberately inducing a migrant crisis along the Polish border, pushing thousands of Iraqi refugees into Minsk and neighbouring countries. Polish border forces have responded with tear gas, forcing the migrants back into Belarus. Meanwhile, Putin has used his endorsed ally as a distraction to covertly build up presence on the Eastern Ukrainian border, blaming Ukraine’s lack of commitment to the Minsk Protocols.
This is not just a humanitarian crisis, but a credible threat to the UK’s foreign policy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has implored NATO to speed up their membership process in order to secure protection. It is the UK’s legal duty to support any NATO member state experiencing oppressed liberty.
The UK would be right to commit to backing Ukraine in the foreseeable future, as a response to the current tensions and a myriad of historical actions for which Russia has yet to be held accountable. Chief among these is Russia’s continued refusal to take responsibility for the MH-17 plane crash, which was shot down in 2014 with no survivors. The Netherlands and Austria (along with other European countries) believe that it was Russian forces who shot down the commercial flight and opened a lawsuit.
Russia avoided being subjected to international law by pinning the blame onto Ukraine through the European Court of Human Rights rather than the International Court of Justice. This meant that Russia would not have to face a collective structure of Justice which in their eyes could be bias against them due to its western majority. Russia blamed Ukraine for the lost lives of separatist rebels in the occupied East, despite the Netherlands finding evidence that Russia has armed the rebels. Therefore, these deaths are not considered civilian and cannot be considered unlawful. However, one cannot produce justice in a war situation due to classified intelligence. For example, Ukraine could be at blame for the MH-17 crash due to them not closing off commercial airspace above East Ukraine. The middle east are known for closing` airspace above warring territory and surely so should Ukraine.
Furthermore, there is debate around Russia’s suspected blackmailing of Europe into submission through the recent fuel shortage. The Ukrainian Ambassador has openly stated that the Polish Migrant Crisis and the Nord Stream-2 pipeline are directly related to the rising tensions in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Europe relies on three main gas lines that provide 43% of their natural gas supply from Russia. Two of which run through Ukraine or Ukrainian allegiances. Germany therefore has refused to permit the use of the Nord Stream-2 pipeline on the basis that it would bypass Ukraine, allowing Russia to cut off essential fuel supplies to Ukraine from the original pipelines without disrupting European supplies. This is a febrile situation which could easily escalate; Lukashenko has already been using fuel as blackmail towards Poland.
Matthew Kroenig, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, reported that Lukashenko had threatened to cut gas supply off to Europe last week and this week threatened to cut off Poland for three days in disguise of a maintenance call. Additionally, Russia’s national gas provider GAZPROM is reducing its exportation of natural gas from 53.2 bcm to 26.1 bcm this year and with the 2006 pipeline crisis in the back of everyone’s mind, Boris Johnson has taken the issue seriously.
Johnson has publicly stated that he would back Ukraine ‘in the face of Russian Hostility’. This is understandable, considering that the head of the Ukrainian Defence Intelligence has said that Russia is planning to attack in the new year, even suggesting ‘airstrikes, artillery and military strikes’. On the other hand, Putin recently published an academic article ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’ ,in which he relates both nations to the Ancient Rus and continually references Kiev as a ‘throne’ and ‘organ of supreme power’. Putin’s idealistic vision of the 500,000 Russian passports in occupied areas and confronting Ukraine in his article. “You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome,” he says – for in Putin’s mind – Ukraine is under the influence of the West’s ‘Anti-Russia Project’.
Is this conjuring past Cold War wounds? The West and East’s paranoia of each other has clearly increased the tensions at a far greater pace. Insecurity breeds war and there are some considerations many ignore. Occupying the whole of Ukraine isn’t feasible in this climate, unless Putin called on his allies Belarus and China. They could perhaps capture territory east of the Dnieper River, as suggested by Kroenig which would equate to ‘roughly half of the country’. However, it is possible that Putin is harvesting this attention for domestic reasons. On October 12th, Putin stated that he was ‘ready to increase’ gas supply to Europe and had – far from attempting blackmail – just been prioritising domestic demand. Additionally, his domestic popularity in Russia has dropped by 18% in the last year, down to 53%. Given Putin’s history with covert propaganda and the knowledge that his popularity increased to 80% after the annexation of Crimea; it is possible that Putin is showing force on the borders of Ukraine to bolster his self-image.
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