Ukraine & Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry

by Anatol Lieven

Lieven explores the complex ethnic and political relationship of Ukraine and Russia. Based on extensive interviews, Lieven provides a fascinating portrait of the diversity that is contemporary Ukraine and of its efforts to forge a national identity after three centuries of Russian rule. Lieven examines the policy implications of Eastern Europes new political geography. Will ethnic coexistence endure in the face of economic hardship and the divisive issues left over from the Soviet era? Is it wise for the west to force the issue of Ukraines membership in Western institutionsNATO first and foremost among them?

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, International Relations

182 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1999

About the author

Anatol Lieven currently reports from Central Europe for the Financial Times. In 1996-97 he was visiting senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence, published by Yale University Press.

Reviews

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written over the course of 1998 and published in 1999, this slim volume is rather prescient given the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. Two quotes, I think, suffice to summarize Lieven's overall findings. The first from a Ukrainian military officer certainly describes something like the course of combat so far:

Only a tiny minority of officers, even in our officers' union, actually want to fight Russia. Most would agree with Lebed. It's quite true that we are closely related: I served for much of my career in Russia, and of course many of my closest friends are Russians. I come from a military family. my wife is Russian, my sister is married to a Russian officer and they are stationed in Leningrad [sic] now....

As to how the Ukrainian army would fight in a war with Russia-and a war really isn't likely, thank God-to be honest, I think that would depend on how the war started. If it seemed as though a nationalist Ukrainian government had gone out of its way to provoke the Russians, and if at the same time they were ramming Ukrainianization down our throats and sacking good officers so as to appoint nationalists and political timeservers, and at the same time paying us a pittance-like what happened in 1992 and 1993, say, but even worse-then I think the army might just fall to pieces if it was asked to fight. But if on the other hand it was obviously Russia that was attacking us, say if some madman like Zhirinovsky came to power and started threatening us and demanding or invading Ukrainian territory, maybe trying to throw us out of Crimea by force, then I think Ukrainians would be so angry they would fight very hard. I would, certainly. After all, Ukraine is my home. I won't allow anyone to disturb its peace, to kill its people. But we really don't want to fight Russia, and I'm convinced the vast majority of Russians don't want to fight us either.

And the second reinforces my priors that any peace deal will not return Crimea to Ukraine, and indeed it likely will never rejoin:

In the words of one Moscow-based military attaché from a NATO country in 1995,"I don't know if the Russians would go to war for Sevastopol, but there's no doubt whatsoever that it is of enormous emotional significance to them. A Russian city, built by Russians, inhabited by Russians, defended by Russians. Twice defended, twice lost, twice regained-one of their great heroic episodes. The British would have said just the same about Gibraltar forty years ago. But now, of course, most British couldn't give a damn."

Russian public opinion polls show a majority of Russians opposed to the stationing of Russian troops outside Russia if this is liable to lead to armed clashes and the loss of Russian lives. But Sevastopol is not regarded as "outside Russia," and contemporary history suggests that while weary former imperial nations will in the end give up imperial territory with out a fight, they may fight very hard to keep national territory.

Sevastopol is indeed just about the only territory outside Russia's borders for which one can imagine Russian soldiers and the Russian population actually wanting to fight and being willing to fight hard; even then, for this to happen, they would have to see Russia as having been directly attacked. As Chechnya shows, the very tired, apathetic, and deeply unmilitary Russian people and their extremely cynical, demoralized, and disorganized armed forces are really in no mood for a fight if they can help it.

Short and sweet. Well worth reading now.

[Serian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously this is now fairly out of date (Putin is literally never mentioned) but it's very interesting to see the basis of the current situation being developed. I liked seeing the contemporary situation and viewpoint. It's also really interesting as (from my rather uneducated viewpoint) he wasn't far off the mark in a lot of his points and predictions. It is very short and it's very readable (though backed up by his experiences as a journalist as well as academic references) so it was a nice overview for me, so I feel a little less ignorant!

[Nikita Vasilev · Rating 5 out of 5]

I RECOMMEND IT TO FOREIGNERS who wish to learn about myths Russians and Ukrainians carry about each other.
"Ukraine and Russia..." is still a solid choice as it gives a broad depiction of what post-soviet Russia and Ukraine were before Putin. This book will be inconvenient both for Russian "zetniks" and Ukrainian "ultranationalists" as it defines Ukrainian core nation as something that lives between those radical ideas and doesn't want to pick sides.

[Thomas Ray]

The author explains the situation in Ukraine in this article https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2... in Current Affairs magazine, 2022.05