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The Crimean Nexus: Putin’s War and the Clash of Civilizations
How the West sleepwalked into another Cold War
A native of Yalta, Constantine Pleshakov is intimately familiar with Crimea’s ethnic tensions and complex political history. Now, he offers a much-needed look at one of the most urgent flash points in current international relations: the first occupation and annexation of one European nation’s territory by another since World War II.
Pleshakov illustrates how the proxy war unfolding in Ukraine is a clash of incompatible world views. To the U.S. and Europe, Ukraine is a country struggling for self-determination in the face of Russia’s imperial nostalgia. To Russia, Ukraine is a “sister nation,” where NATO expansionism threatens its own borders. In Crimea itself, the native Tatars are Muslims who are vehemently opposed to Russian rule. Engagingly written and bracingly nonpartisan, Pleshakov’s book explains the missteps made on all sides to provide a clear, even-handed account of a major international crisis.
A native of Yalta, Constantine Pleshakov is intimately familiar with Crimea’s ethnic tensions and complex political history. Now, he offers a much-needed look at one of the most urgent flash points in current international relations: the first occupation and annexation of one European nation’s territory by another since World War II.
Pleshakov illustrates how the proxy war unfolding in Ukraine is a clash of incompatible world views. To the U.S. and Europe, Ukraine is a country struggling for self-determination in the face of Russia’s imperial nostalgia. To Russia, Ukraine is a “sister nation,” where NATO expansionism threatens its own borders. In Crimea itself, the native Tatars are Muslims who are vehemently opposed to Russian rule. Engagingly written and bracingly nonpartisan, Pleshakov’s book explains the missteps made on all sides to provide a clear, even-handed account of a major international crisis.
216 pages, Hardcover
Published January 10, 2017
13 people are currently reading
100 people want to read
About the author
Constantine Pleshakov
13 books7 followersConstantine Pleshakov emigrated to America in 1998 and is a former foreign policy analyst at the Institute of U.S. and Canada Studies in Moscow. In 2012, The Princeton Review named him one of the 300 best college professors in the U.S. He lives in Amherst, MA.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 20, 2023
if you’re like me and know fuck all about post-Soviet separatism &/or the current conflict in Ukraine, this is a great intro to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 & subsequent invasion of Eastern Ukraine. highly rec for its critical analysis of US interventionism + the eastern expansion of NATO.
also didn’t realize that this guy is a 5 college consortium professor until later, but that’s fun
also didn’t realize that this guy is a 5 college consortium professor until later, but that’s fun
January 26, 2023
I found this to be very educational considering how little I knew about Ukrainian history and Crimea in particular. There's a lot of very important historical context to the ongoing military conflict that I hadn't heard about in coverage of the invasion last year, most importantly the US's heavy involvement in two coups in Ukraine in the last twenty years. The book provides a good counter to the simplistic telling that Russia's actions are completely unprovoked and came out of nowhere, and that this is a battle of "good vs evil" or whatever. The conversational tone makes for easy reading but he jumps around in a confusing way that kept making me lose focus on the larger narrative. And at such a low page count, a couple chapters felt wedged in just to fill it out and justify its publication.
February 9, 2017
A very thorough look at the Crimean situation. I learned a lot about the region's history, how diverse and fractured the peoples are, even about the topography of the Crimean peninsula. This is a great read if you want to get a good perspective on how and why the annexation happened, and who all the players were.
June 2, 2025
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Такое чувство, что я прочитал текст, написанный такими видными российскими пропагандистами как Соловьёв/Киселёв. Эта книга является не просто позицией другой, т.е. российской стороны, а эта книга является банальной российской пропагандой. Есть люди, которые пытаются быть объективными, критикуя и украинскую и российскую сторону, показывая тем самым, что абсолютно правых в этом конфликте нет, и быть не может. Изначально может кому-то показаться, что автор этой книги хочет показать альтернативную точку зрения, но на самом деле автор даже не пытается играть в объективность. Пример? Вот автор упоминает знаменитое событие – суд над участницами «Pussy Riot» и пишет следующее:
In 2010, the members of Pussy Riot staged a flash mob performance in the national cathedral in Moscow, chanting “Mother of God, kick Putin out.” It is most unlikely that the action was intrinsically political: the group’s prior performances had included copulation in a natural history museum. The event was more in the vein of Marina Abramovic’s artistic provocation than Andrei Sakharov’s ideological dissent. No matter how we define it, however, it involved the desecration of a holy site.
<…>
Washington seemed willing to support any dissent in Russia—pro-church under Communism, anti-church under Putin — so long as it undermined existing authority.
Однако автор не пишет, что эта акция была ответом на многолетние действия российских властей по уничтожение тех остатков демократии, свободы СМИ и свободы волеизъявления, что оставались с 90-ых годов. Эта акция носила не антицерковный и даже не антигосударственный характер, а исключительно антипутинский. Это очень примечательно, что автор ни слова не сказал об авторитарном, диктаторском характере путинского правления. И действительно как бы он тогда оправдывал действия России в 2014 году? В таком случаи, кого автор обвиняет в событиях 2014 года на территории востока Украины? США и НАТО. У автора во всех бедах виноваты либо США, либо неполноценное украинское государство, которое никогда не имело независимости, а получив её в 1991 году, как я понял автора, и привело страну в 2014 году к войне с Россией. Именно такой вывод и можно сделать из этой книги.
Difficult for Russians, nation-building is precarious for Ukrainians. Contrary to the well-meaning patriotic mythology, Ukraine was never independent prior to 1991. Its territory is a quilt of lands ceded by (in chronological order) Turkey, Poland, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.
<…>
Transition to sovereignty can be (relatively) smooth only when the birth of a nation state is preceded by the emergence of a nation. That was certainly not the case with Ukraine. A state but not yet a nation, Ukraine struggles like a forced bulb. In this condition, encouraging it to choose between Russia and Europe means exerting too much pressure on the fragile domestic balance. In 2013–2016, that pressure brought unendurable distress.
<…>
Every attempt by a foreign power, whether the United States, China, Iran, Germany, or Turkey, to step into Russia’s backyard was deemed poaching, a provocation, brinkmanship. When in 1995 NATO announced plans to expand eastward, Russians reacted as Americans did when Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba.
<…>
For Russia in the 1990s, the ideological challenge was the worldwide triumph of Western universalism, with NATO a new Holy Alliance.
Конечно, с моей точки зрения ни языковой вопрос, ни расширения НАТО не было той причиной, по которой Путин вторгся в Украину. В Грузии нет никакого языкового вопроса, в Грузии подавляющее большинство говорят на грузинском, однако сей факт не спас Грузию от российской агрессии в 2008 году. Да, я знаю, что часть вины лежит и на Саакашвили, но большая часть ответственности несёт именно России, как страна, которая больше Грузии и сильнее. Имея возможность предотвратить кровопролитие, Россия не только не предотвратила это, а она сделала всё возможное, чтобы убитых было ещё больше. То же самое и в ситуации Украины, ведь если дело исключительно в расширении НАТО, то, во-первых, никто ни Грузию, ни Украину не берёт в НАТО, ибо все разговоры и все встречи с представителями НАТО носили исключительно формальный (декоративный) характер. О реальном принятии этих стран в тот период речи не шло, а поэтому это не могло быть угрозой России. Теоретически Украину и Грузию могли принять в НАТО через много лет, когда и Путина в живых уже не было бы. Поэтому аргумент, связанный с НАТО нельзя рассматривать серьёзно. Более того, вторжения 2022 года которое осуществила Россия, доказало, что дело вовсе не в расширении НАТО, ибо уже на тот период Украина никак не могла стать членом НАТО по той причине, что часть территорий, международно-признаваемых за Украиной, находились под российским контролем, а устав НАТО прямо заявляет, что страна не может быть принята в НАТО, если имеется неразрешённый территориальный конфликт.
Ну, и в качестве вишенки на торте вот эта цитата, которая особенно…интересно смотрится сегодня
A Russian ambassador to the United States said that Russia’s relations with Ukraine were “identical to those between New York and New Jersey.” A deputy foreign minister warned: “Remember, anything between us and the Ukrainians is a family affair, and any disagreement we have is a family feud.”
Как вы думаете, стала бы американская армия делать со своими городами и своим населением то же самое, что делает российская армия с городами и сёлами Украины и с гражданами Украины?
Да, я согласен с тем, что для России Украина, так же как и Беларусь, является не просто ещё одним соседом, но именно поэтому то, что делает сегодня российское правительство с Украиной, с её городами и сёлами и с людьми, что проживают на этой территории, является преступлением государственного масштаба и явно всё это не в интересах российского государства и российского народа.
I feel like I have read a text written by prominent Russian propagandists like Solovyov/Kiselev. This book is not just the position of the other, i.e., the Russian side, but this book is banal Russian propaganda. There are people who are trying to be objective, criticizing both the Ukrainian and Russian sides, thus showing that there is no and cannot be absolutely right in this conflict. Initially, it may seem to some that the author of this book wants to show an alternative point of view, but in fact, the author doesn't even try to play objectivity. An example? Here the author mentions a famous event - the trial of the Pussy Riot participants and writes the following:
In 2010, the members of Pussy Riot staged a flash mob performance in the national cathedral in Moscow, chanting “Mother of God, kick Putin out.” It is most unlikely that the action was intrinsically political: the group’s prior performances had included copulation in a natural history museum. The event was more in the vein of Marina Abramovic’s artistic provocation than Andrei Sakharov’s ideological dissent. No matter how we define it, however, it involved the desecration of a holy site.
<…>
Washington seemed willing to support any dissent in Russia—pro-church under Communism, anti-church under Putin — so long as it undermined existing authority.
However, the author fails to mention that this action was a response to the long-standing actions of the Russian authorities to destroy the remnants of democracy, media freedom, and freedom of expression that had remained since the 1990s. This action was not anti-church or even anti-state but exclusively anti-Putin. It is very remarkable that the author did not say a word about the authoritarian, dictatorial nature of Putin's rule. Indeed, how would he justify Russia's actions in 2014 then? In this case, who does the author blame for the events of 2014 in eastern Ukraine? The USA and NATO. The author blames either the U.S. or the inferior Ukrainian state, which never had independence, and having received it in 1991, as I understood the author, led the country to war with Russia in 2014. This is the conclusion that can be drawn from this book.
Difficult for Russians, nation-building is precarious for Ukrainians. Contrary to the well-meaning patriotic mythology, Ukraine was never independent prior to 1991. Its territory is a quilt of lands ceded by (in chronological order) Turkey, Poland, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.
<…>
Transition to sovereignty can be (relatively) smooth only when the birth of a nation state is preceded by the emergence of a nation. That was certainly not the case with Ukraine. A state but not yet a nation, Ukraine struggles like a forced bulb. In this condition, encouraging it to choose between Russia and Europe means exerting too much pressure on the fragile domestic balance. In 2013–2016, that pressure brought unendurable distress.
<…>
Every attempt by a foreign power, whether the United States, China, Iran, Germany, or Turkey, to step into Russia’s backyard was deemed poaching, a provocation, brinkmanship. When in 1995 NATO announced plans to expand eastward, Russians reacted as Americans did when Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba.
<…>
For Russia in the 1990s, the ideological challenge was the worldwide triumph of Western universalism, with NATO a new Holy Alliance.
Of course, from my point of view, neither the language issue nor NATO expansion was the reason why Putin invaded Ukraine. There is no language issue in Georgia, the vast majority of Georgian speakers speak Georgian, but this fact did not save Georgia from Russian aggression in 2008. Yes, I know some of the blame lies with Saakashvili as well, but most of the responsibility lies with Russia, as a country that is bigger and stronger than Georgia. Having an opportunity to prevent bloodshed, Russia not only did not prevent it, but it did everything possible to make the number of people killed even greater. It is the same in the situation of Ukraine because if it is only about the expansion of NATO, then, first of all, no one is taking either Georgia or Ukraine into NATO because all talks and meetings with NATO representatives were only formal (decorative) in nature. There was no talk of actually accepting these countries at that time, and therefore, it could not be a threat to Russia. Theoretically, Ukraine and Georgia could have been admitted to NATO many years later, when Putin would no longer alive. Therefore, the NATO-related argument cannot be taken seriously. Moreover, the invasion of 2022, which was carried out by Russia, proved that it was not about NATO expansion because already at that time, Ukraine could not become a member of NATO because part of the territories internationally recognized by Ukraine were under Russian control, and the NATO charter explicitly states that a country cannot be admitted to NATO if there is an unresolved territorial conflict.
Well, and as a cherry on the cake, here's this quote, which is particularly...interesting looking today.
A Russian ambassador to the United States said that Russia’s relations with Ukraine were “identical to those between New York and New Jersey.” A deputy foreign minister warned: “Remember, anything between us and the Ukrainians is a family affair, and any disagreement we have is a family feud.”
Do you think the U.S. Army would do to its cities and its population what the Russian Army does to the cities and villages of Ukraine and to the citizens of Ukraine?
Yes, I agree that for Russia Ukraine, as well as Belarus, is not just another neighbor, but that is why what the Russian government is doing today with Ukraine, with its cities and villages and with the people who live on this territory, is a crime of state scale and it is clearly not in the interests of the Russian state and the Russian people.
Такое чувство, что я прочитал текст, написанный такими видными российскими пропагандистами как Соловьёв/Киселёв. Эта книга является не просто позицией другой, т.е. российской стороны, а эта книга является банальной российской пропагандой. Есть люди, которые пытаются быть объективными, критикуя и украинскую и российскую сторону, показывая тем самым, что абсолютно правых в этом конфликте нет, и быть не может. Изначально может кому-то показаться, что автор этой книги хочет показать альтернативную точку зрения, но на самом деле автор даже не пытается играть в объективность. Пример? Вот автор упоминает знаменитое событие – суд над участницами «Pussy Riot» и пишет следующее:
In 2010, the members of Pussy Riot staged a flash mob performance in the national cathedral in Moscow, chanting “Mother of God, kick Putin out.” It is most unlikely that the action was intrinsically political: the group’s prior performances had included copulation in a natural history museum. The event was more in the vein of Marina Abramovic’s artistic provocation than Andrei Sakharov’s ideological dissent. No matter how we define it, however, it involved the desecration of a holy site.
<…>
Washington seemed willing to support any dissent in Russia—pro-church under Communism, anti-church under Putin — so long as it undermined existing authority.
Однако автор не пишет, что эта акция была ответом на многолетние действия российских властей по уничтожение тех остатков демократии, свободы СМИ и свободы волеизъявления, что оставались с 90-ых годов. Эта акция носила не антицерковный и даже не антигосударственный характер, а исключительно антипутинский. Это очень примечательно, что автор ни слова не сказал об авторитарном, диктаторском характере путинского правления. И действительно как бы он тогда оправдывал действия России в 2014 году? В таком случаи, кого автор обвиняет в событиях 2014 года на территории востока Украины? США и НАТО. У автора во всех бедах виноваты либо США, либо неполноценное украинское государство, которое никогда не имело независимости, а получив её в 1991 году, как я понял автора, и привело страну в 2014 году к войне с Россией. Именно такой вывод и можно сделать из этой книги.
Difficult for Russians, nation-building is precarious for Ukrainians. Contrary to the well-meaning patriotic mythology, Ukraine was never independent prior to 1991. Its territory is a quilt of lands ceded by (in chronological order) Turkey, Poland, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.
<…>
Transition to sovereignty can be (relatively) smooth only when the birth of a nation state is preceded by the emergence of a nation. That was certainly not the case with Ukraine. A state but not yet a nation, Ukraine struggles like a forced bulb. In this condition, encouraging it to choose between Russia and Europe means exerting too much pressure on the fragile domestic balance. In 2013–2016, that pressure brought unendurable distress.
<…>
Every attempt by a foreign power, whether the United States, China, Iran, Germany, or Turkey, to step into Russia’s backyard was deemed poaching, a provocation, brinkmanship. When in 1995 NATO announced plans to expand eastward, Russians reacted as Americans did when Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba.
<…>
For Russia in the 1990s, the ideological challenge was the worldwide triumph of Western universalism, with NATO a new Holy Alliance.
Конечно, с моей точки зрения ни языковой вопрос, ни расширения НАТО не было той причиной, по которой Путин вторгся в Украину. В Грузии нет никакого языкового вопроса, в Грузии подавляющее большинство говорят на грузинском, однако сей факт не спас Грузию от российской агрессии в 2008 году. Да, я знаю, что часть вины лежит и на Саакашвили, но большая часть ответственности несёт именно России, как страна, которая больше Грузии и сильнее. Имея возможность предотвратить кровопролитие, Россия не только не предотвратила это, а она сделала всё возможное, чтобы убитых было ещё больше. То же самое и в ситуации Украины, ведь если дело исключительно в расширении НАТО, то, во-первых, никто ни Грузию, ни Украину не берёт в НАТО, ибо все разговоры и все встречи с представителями НАТО носили исключительно формальный (декоративный) характер. О реальном принятии этих стран в тот период речи не шло, а поэтому это не могло быть угрозой России. Теоретически Украину и Грузию могли принять в НАТО через много лет, когда и Путина в живых уже не было бы. Поэтому аргумент, связанный с НАТО нельзя рассматривать серьёзно. Более того, вторжения 2022 года которое осуществила Россия, доказало, что дело вовсе не в расширении НАТО, ибо уже на тот период Украина никак не могла стать членом НАТО по той причине, что часть территорий, международно-признаваемых за Украиной, находились под российским контролем, а устав НАТО прямо заявляет, что страна не может быть принята в НАТО, если имеется неразрешённый территориальный конфликт.
Ну, и в качестве вишенки на торте вот эта цитата, которая особенно…интересно смотрится сегодня
A Russian ambassador to the United States said that Russia’s relations with Ukraine were “identical to those between New York and New Jersey.” A deputy foreign minister warned: “Remember, anything between us and the Ukrainians is a family affair, and any disagreement we have is a family feud.”
Как вы думаете, стала бы американская армия делать со своими городами и своим населением то же самое, что делает российская армия с городами и сёлами Украины и с гражданами Украины?
Да, я согласен с тем, что для России Украина, так же как и Беларусь, является не просто ещё одним соседом, но именно поэтому то, что делает сегодня российское правительство с Украиной, с её городами и сёлами и с людьми, что проживают на этой территории, является преступлением государственного масштаба и явно всё это не в интересах российского государства и российского народа.
I feel like I have read a text written by prominent Russian propagandists like Solovyov/Kiselev. This book is not just the position of the other, i.e., the Russian side, but this book is banal Russian propaganda. There are people who are trying to be objective, criticizing both the Ukrainian and Russian sides, thus showing that there is no and cannot be absolutely right in this conflict. Initially, it may seem to some that the author of this book wants to show an alternative point of view, but in fact, the author doesn't even try to play objectivity. An example? Here the author mentions a famous event - the trial of the Pussy Riot participants and writes the following:
In 2010, the members of Pussy Riot staged a flash mob performance in the national cathedral in Moscow, chanting “Mother of God, kick Putin out.” It is most unlikely that the action was intrinsically political: the group’s prior performances had included copulation in a natural history museum. The event was more in the vein of Marina Abramovic’s artistic provocation than Andrei Sakharov’s ideological dissent. No matter how we define it, however, it involved the desecration of a holy site.
<…>
Washington seemed willing to support any dissent in Russia—pro-church under Communism, anti-church under Putin — so long as it undermined existing authority.
However, the author fails to mention that this action was a response to the long-standing actions of the Russian authorities to destroy the remnants of democracy, media freedom, and freedom of expression that had remained since the 1990s. This action was not anti-church or even anti-state but exclusively anti-Putin. It is very remarkable that the author did not say a word about the authoritarian, dictatorial nature of Putin's rule. Indeed, how would he justify Russia's actions in 2014 then? In this case, who does the author blame for the events of 2014 in eastern Ukraine? The USA and NATO. The author blames either the U.S. or the inferior Ukrainian state, which never had independence, and having received it in 1991, as I understood the author, led the country to war with Russia in 2014. This is the conclusion that can be drawn from this book.
Difficult for Russians, nation-building is precarious for Ukrainians. Contrary to the well-meaning patriotic mythology, Ukraine was never independent prior to 1991. Its territory is a quilt of lands ceded by (in chronological order) Turkey, Poland, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.
<…>
Transition to sovereignty can be (relatively) smooth only when the birth of a nation state is preceded by the emergence of a nation. That was certainly not the case with Ukraine. A state but not yet a nation, Ukraine struggles like a forced bulb. In this condition, encouraging it to choose between Russia and Europe means exerting too much pressure on the fragile domestic balance. In 2013–2016, that pressure brought unendurable distress.
<…>
Every attempt by a foreign power, whether the United States, China, Iran, Germany, or Turkey, to step into Russia’s backyard was deemed poaching, a provocation, brinkmanship. When in 1995 NATO announced plans to expand eastward, Russians reacted as Americans did when Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba.
<…>
For Russia in the 1990s, the ideological challenge was the worldwide triumph of Western universalism, with NATO a new Holy Alliance.
Of course, from my point of view, neither the language issue nor NATO expansion was the reason why Putin invaded Ukraine. There is no language issue in Georgia, the vast majority of Georgian speakers speak Georgian, but this fact did not save Georgia from Russian aggression in 2008. Yes, I know some of the blame lies with Saakashvili as well, but most of the responsibility lies with Russia, as a country that is bigger and stronger than Georgia. Having an opportunity to prevent bloodshed, Russia not only did not prevent it, but it did everything possible to make the number of people killed even greater. It is the same in the situation of Ukraine because if it is only about the expansion of NATO, then, first of all, no one is taking either Georgia or Ukraine into NATO because all talks and meetings with NATO representatives were only formal (decorative) in nature. There was no talk of actually accepting these countries at that time, and therefore, it could not be a threat to Russia. Theoretically, Ukraine and Georgia could have been admitted to NATO many years later, when Putin would no longer alive. Therefore, the NATO-related argument cannot be taken seriously. Moreover, the invasion of 2022, which was carried out by Russia, proved that it was not about NATO expansion because already at that time, Ukraine could not become a member of NATO because part of the territories internationally recognized by Ukraine were under Russian control, and the NATO charter explicitly states that a country cannot be admitted to NATO if there is an unresolved territorial conflict.
Well, and as a cherry on the cake, here's this quote, which is particularly...interesting looking today.
A Russian ambassador to the United States said that Russia’s relations with Ukraine were “identical to those between New York and New Jersey.” A deputy foreign minister warned: “Remember, anything between us and the Ukrainians is a family affair, and any disagreement we have is a family feud.”
Do you think the U.S. Army would do to its cities and its population what the Russian Army does to the cities and villages of Ukraine and to the citizens of Ukraine?
Yes, I agree that for Russia Ukraine, as well as Belarus, is not just another neighbor, but that is why what the Russian government is doing today with Ukraine, with its cities and villages and with the people who live on this territory, is a crime of state scale and it is clearly not in the interests of the Russian state and the Russian people.
October 11, 2025
I checked out this book because I was interested in learning about Crimea and Russia’s invasion and occupation of the peninsula. The first third of this book has nothing to do with Crimea at all, focusing instead on the author’s opinions on NATO and the Maidan revolution. Much of the end of the book is also unrelated, leaving perhaps only half the book devoted to the actual subject matter. The book would have been much improved by cutting these sections, which are filled with glaring errors, omissions, and misunderstandings.
The famous “Nuland call” is a good example of this. The author devotes over two pages to this topic, using it as their prime evidence for the US engaging in regime change. But for such a key piece of evidence, they do almost no research on the context or details of the call. They mistakenly claim that it isn’t clear when the conversation took place (it took place January 25), get the date wrong for when it was leaked (it was leaked February 4, not February 6), and make several unverified statements about it. For example, they claim that Russia leaked it, which is the consensus view for the most likely culprit, but certainly not confirmed; and then they fabricate a story based on this, saying, “After the sandwiches saga, Russian secret services started monitoring Nuland’s every move.” This tactic of simply making up stories is baffling and exists throughout the book. (Very reminiscent of the meme: Source? I made it up.) Worst of all, they imply it was about the removal of Yanukovych (“We know that neoconservatives regard unseating a democratically elected president as permissible in a third-world country”, “any attempt at ousting Yanukovych”, etc.), when in fact it was almost the exact opposite. The discussion was over Yanukovych’s offer that same day to appoint opposition leaders to cabinet positions. Had it been successful at resolving the crisis, it would have ended the protests and Yanukovych would have remained as president. Leading diplomats supporting this deal in private is suggestive *against* US involvement in removing Yanukovych.
These issues recur throughout. The author makes a claim (Russia’s foreign policy is reactive), omits major contradictions to the narrative (like Russia’s threat to invade over the EU Association deal), and then backs up the claim with imagined anecdotes when the evidence is insufficient (Putin “sat calmly through the Winter Games”).
The parts on Crimea and the Tatars were much more informative, although one can’t help but wonder if there are similar issues in these sections that I am simply not knowledgeable enough to pick up on.
The famous “Nuland call” is a good example of this. The author devotes over two pages to this topic, using it as their prime evidence for the US engaging in regime change. But for such a key piece of evidence, they do almost no research on the context or details of the call. They mistakenly claim that it isn’t clear when the conversation took place (it took place January 25), get the date wrong for when it was leaked (it was leaked February 4, not February 6), and make several unverified statements about it. For example, they claim that Russia leaked it, which is the consensus view for the most likely culprit, but certainly not confirmed; and then they fabricate a story based on this, saying, “After the sandwiches saga, Russian secret services started monitoring Nuland’s every move.” This tactic of simply making up stories is baffling and exists throughout the book. (Very reminiscent of the meme: Source? I made it up.) Worst of all, they imply it was about the removal of Yanukovych (“We know that neoconservatives regard unseating a democratically elected president as permissible in a third-world country”, “any attempt at ousting Yanukovych”, etc.), when in fact it was almost the exact opposite. The discussion was over Yanukovych’s offer that same day to appoint opposition leaders to cabinet positions. Had it been successful at resolving the crisis, it would have ended the protests and Yanukovych would have remained as president. Leading diplomats supporting this deal in private is suggestive *against* US involvement in removing Yanukovych.
These issues recur throughout. The author makes a claim (Russia’s foreign policy is reactive), omits major contradictions to the narrative (like Russia’s threat to invade over the EU Association deal), and then backs up the claim with imagined anecdotes when the evidence is insufficient (Putin “sat calmly through the Winter Games”).
The parts on Crimea and the Tatars were much more informative, although one can’t help but wonder if there are similar issues in these sections that I am simply not knowledgeable enough to pick up on.
October 17, 2020
The book focuses a lot on what Crimea is and was in its previous history, which is not really what I was expecting but still interesting. By taking the historical view that the author does, it allows one to see just how complicated the situation in Crimea was and is today
June 16, 2022
This is a well-written history of the Crimean peninsula, which will give the reader an excellent idea as to why Russia considered it imperative to seize control of Crimea after the 2014 coup in Kiev, which installed leadership more or less hand-picked by the US State Department. Crimea has a long history - is definitely a contested area since antiquity- but was the site of a number of conflicts such as the Crimean War, and is indelibly connected with war/sacrifice/national heroism for Russians, since at least the 19th Century. It also contains Russia´s only warm-water port - in Sevastopol - where Russia´s Black Sea Fleet is based. There are many reasons connected to historical events dating back hundreds, why Russia would not wish to be separated from Crimea, but access to the Black Sea from Sevastopol must have been at the top of the list when it decided to nudge the separatists there into action in 2014. The writer indicates that the peninsula was mostly pro-Russian prior to its annexation by Russia, and so even if the referendum after the seizure of power there wasn't monitored by the UN or any other international organization, the pro-Russia results were probably correct that is in the ballpark. The subsequent anti-Crimea retaliation by Ukraine (cutting off water and electricity, both of which must pass thru Ukraine in order to get to Crimea) probably unfortunately was another reason for the invasion this year of Ukraine by Russia - of course, there was already a war going on in Eastern Ukraine with no doubt similar retaliation/reprisals against the pro-Russian population in the Donbas; from Russia´s perspective, these factors were enough to ¨justify¨ the invasion. Personally I think Russia decided to invade when it did because it has sized up President Biden a certain way, ditto the will of the nations of Europe to risk all to defend Ukraine. Perhaps Russia thought it could actually get away with the invasion this year, since other than sanctions, nothing happened when it encouraged both the declaration of independence of Crimea, its subsequent alignment with Russia in a referendum, and its support for the separatist areas of E. Ukraine. Since nothing happened in 2014 - that is, no war - they must have reasoned nothing would happen in 2021, especially with the seemingly less-belligerent Biden in office as opposed to the ¨tough-guy¨ former President Trump.
This is a very interesting book in terms of conveying a lot of information about Ukraine in general, its contested history and continuing deep divisions between its Western half which is more oriented toward Europe, as opposed to its Eastern half, which looks toward Russia and the Orthodox East with respect to religion/customs etc. It does seem like the country was created as a sort of buffer zone from random areas of Eastern Europe - and that the contradictions it contains mean it might have come apart anyway eventually. Unfortunately, Ukraine was the scene of anti-Jewish pogroms before the Second World War; that it was also the scene of the Holocaust by Bullets during WWII, in which the locals assisted the SS, is tragically not surprising, considering the prior horrific history of anti-Jewish pogroms there. A discussion of this aspect of Ukrainian history is omitted - perhaps it is irrelevant to the subject of Crimea (although there were pogroms in Crimea as well) except that Russia does say it wishes to roll back the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Although I´m not sure there are neo-Nazis throughout Ukrainian government or even society as Russia contends the fact is Ukrainians helped Germans exterminate hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Jews during the German occupation, and there are skinheads and ne0-Nazis in Ukraine, although there are also right-wing extremists in Russia. The ¨deNazification¨ of Ukraine was another reason given by Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Lately, though, President Putin admitted that revanchist thinking was the overriding reason for the invasion - the wish to regain territory or countries lost when the Soviet Union disintegrated. If Russia does win its war against Ukraine, which at this point seems likely, given the response of NATO to the invasion, I do not see how Russia will not continue on its present roll and find a way to re-amalgamate the Russian Empire, or Union, or whatever it will call its ¨reborn USSR.¨ Sadly, the risks to both sides are lopsided: If there is an all-out nuclear conflict, there are around 600,000,000 Europeans vs around 143,000,000 Russians. The Russians are mostly concentrated in a few urban centers but the Europeans are even more compactly packed into Europe. Russians would have a huge country to evacuate into and that is not the case with Europe. A nuclear war would devastate the European West including Russia but Russia would have more of a likelihood of surviving given its huge ¨backyard.¨ Somehow I do not see any American president making the decision to risk all by launching a nuclear attack on Russia - although the USA and Russia are more evenly matched with respect to land area in which to evacuate surviving remnants of the population into. Is destroying civilization as we know it worth fighting over former Soviet republics - like Ukraine, Latvia, or Georgia? Are we willing to trade the future of the world in order to keep countries like Lithuania ¨free¨ - that is, under NATO´s umbrella as opposed to under Russia´s umbrella? (Even if Russia is no longer communist, the same democracy vs dictatorship theme would be trotted out, as was used during the Cold War, the Free World vs. the Iron Curtain countries and so forth.) If the US doesn't launch a nuclear strike against Russia, and I highly doubt they would do it, that means NATO basically would sit on its hands if Russia proceeded to regain control of former Soviet republics that have subsequently joined NATO, namely, the Baltic States, probably using the same combination of methods it used in Ukraine - hybrid warfare including cyberwar, encouragement of the separatist aspirations of Russian minorities in each country, including them taking up arms, and so forth. Other republics could be expected to voluntarily re-align with Russia since Russia is positioning itself as the bulwark of tradition and religion vs what it says is the decadent and degraded West. This formulation is especially appealing to authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian systems in a number of post-Soviet, post-communist E. European countries, such as Poland and Hungary - countries that may have been whipsawed by laissez-faire capitalism and globalization, and then believe they see their societies (or what is left of them) further disintegrating due to what they see as pernicious Western social values, such as feminism, divorce, and so forth. The anti-Western backlash practically could have been predicted 30 years ago when the Iron Curtain fell - at least in certain E. European countries - as societies woke up to what belonging to the West entailed. The preservation of the patriarchy dovetails exactly with authoritarian rule - a few NATO countries such as Turkey and Poland are already taking what we in the West would call this reactionary path. The patriarchal system leads to a rejection of the advances of the West with respect to the destruction of the cis-gender system, the destruction of the family or rather, the conventional family headed by a married male and female couple, the assertion of children´s rights and even emancipation as opposed to parental control, and so forth. The destruction of the existing social system is perhaps the direst threat the social order has faced - right up there with the threat to private property posed by communism in the 20th Century, because the patriarchal system is set up to ensure that property is passed on to descendants, who can of course only be created under the conditions of a standard or conventional male-female marriage. This is one of the historically critical reasons for the creation of progeny - so that property and wealth can continue to be passed on and benefit ones descendants in theory indefinitely. Therefore the wave of what appears to be the revolutionary gender- and family-destruction movement that is now a hallmark of the West probably will run aground in traditional societies of the East - Mid-East - E. Asia - S. Asia, which also are areas where families are perhaps less fragmented than in the West, perhaps also in Latin America and Africa too considering that many of those societies are religious and traditionally-oriented. Strongly Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Islamic societies will tend to reject the new strongly individualistic gender-bending, ethos of alternative or no families, emanating from the West - probably more from self-interest, that is, the wish to sustain the social structures whereby wealth is passed on to descendants, than from rigid adherence to religious precepts. This is also perhaps why the collective impulse of communism went over like a lead balloon in a number of these areas, even if communism actually arose from a similar self-effacing humanitarian place as Christianity (the meek shall inherit the earth is quite similar to workers of the world unite). The Western social threat - which we instead see as self-liberation and progressive - may indeed rally the Eastern ex-Soviet republics to Russia´s banner as allies, and indeed may explain why so many countries have not signed on to the NATO/US/EU sanctions leveled against Russia. The East-West dichotomy or at least contradiction may be more severe these days than in the days of the Cold War, even if Russia is no longer supporting communist insurgencies around the world, because the stakes are potentially higher. Communism after all was originally a strain of Western intellectual thought, originating from Western European thinkers, that sought to achieve a socio-economic Utopia through the elimination of private property, money, and eventually, the state. Under communism, there could be no consideration of passing on wealth to descendants because private property that could be passed on was not allowed. That was the theory, but in practice, there were modifications to the rules - under communism, Russians could have modest country homes (dachas) and even in Mao´s China, farmers were allowed some strips of land they could individually farm, and thus subsequently sell the produce they might grow thereon. But, nonetheless, there was no question that communism in Russia and China resulted in a drastic of course intentional flattening of income inequality such that most people had next to nothing that could possibly have been passed on to descendants. The system of communism did not go over well in traditional societies for the reasons outlined above - and despite decades of communist rule and indoctrination in Eastern Europe, communism crumbled after the passing of the first generation of Russian communist rulers, and the ascension of the next generation to leadership positions, leaders such as Gorbachev who were unable to update the communist system in Russia and eventually simply gave up on the project and agreed to the end of communism and even the end of the Soviet federal state. Long story short, the dissolution of the Soviet Union likely would not have occurred had it not been for the system the first generation of Soviet leadership created under which the energy of nationalism - unleashed by the disintegration of a number of empires post the First World War - was channeled into a number of autonomous, more or less self-governing Soviet republics, based on national or ethnic identity, under the aegis of the Soviet Union. Prior to the creation of these states or republics by Lenin, Russia was centrally ruled by the Tsar and his Court - power was not dispersed to local councils (Soviets). Lenin´s cry of ¨All Power to the Soviets¨ at the time of the Russian Revolution was truly the opposite of how things stood under the Tsar, when there was no question that territory Imperial Russia had conquered was subsequently simply part of Russia. Local Soviet control grew into local state autonomy, hence the creation of the republics. The fever throughout Europe however at the end of the First World War was pro-independence and in favor of national self-determination and so Lenin included a clause in the Soviet constitution he wrote guaranteeing the newly created republics the right to secede anytime - a right they of course did not have when ruled by the Tsar - likely because of the theory under Marxism that the state would eventually wither away when communism was achieved. Lenin expected all nations to have their own communist revolutions and that once communism took hold everywhere, the state everywhere would just disappear, such that there would be no need to secede from any Union, Soviet or not. This did not happen - Lenin prematurely died from a stroke, perhaps from the stress of realizing his dream of world communism was not in the cards. In short, the clash was over who would control the wealth generated in countries: Would it be the state, as under communism, or would it be individuals, as under capitalism? It appears more or less inevitable that the forces of tradition would one day prevail - the idea that wealth could be passed on to descendants cannot be erased, even after decades of indoctrination to the contrary in E. Europe, every single communist country there elected to do away with communism when they had a chance. There was a reassertion of nationalism, tradition, religion, as the guiding principles of the state - it was as if the ¨modernity¨ of both communism and Western liberalism were rejected one after another. This goes to show you how stubborn the attachment is to tradition and patriarchy - it never dies out, and continues to be a driving force even after decades of communism and then 30 years or so of Western liberal democracy. And why this ¨clash of civilizations¨ as Pleshakov puts it in the title of his book, was bound to happen in Ukraine.
Here are some quotes from the book:
¨Depending on where Ukrainian [political leaders] ... currently strand on NATO and the European Union, U.S. media tend to describe them as either ¨pro-Western¨ good people or ¨pro-Russian¨ bad types.¨ ¨...[Post World War I] the decision [as to which units were worthy of self-determination] lay with foreign sponsors naturally swayed by self-interest and prejudice, [and so] verdicts were arbitrary.¨ ¨...Ukraine was never independent prior to 1991. Its territory...a quilt of lands ceded by (in chronological order) ...Turkey, Poland, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. ...a battlefield for the past six centuries.¨ ¨[In response] ... to the collapse of the USSR, [Russia asserted its own version] ... of the Monroe Doctrine]: all ...former Soviet republics ...defined as the ¨near abroad,¨ ... part of Russia´s exclusive sphere of influence.¨ ¨Aggressive [American] ... nation-building in the post-Soviet space [began under] ... Bill Clinton´s presidency.¨ ¨...for Russians, Ukraine is part of their continuous national space, [like] ...Canada...for the United States, but even closer.¨ ¨...president...Yeltsin, seemed to regard Clinton´s ...endorsement of NATO expansion as a ... betrayal.¨ ¨[Former pro-American Ukrainian president] ... Yushchenko´s wife was an American citizen and ...former U.S. State Department official.¨ ¨[In connection with the American response to the Pussy Riot anti blasphemy law arrests, in stark contrast to America´s former support for churches when Russia was communist-ruled] Washington [appeared to be] ... willing to support any dissent in Russia--pro-church under Communism, anti-church under Putin--so long as it undermined existing authority.¨ ¨Russia and Ukraine are...more...tightly [linked] than England and Scotland or the United States and Canada.¨ ¨Ivan the Terrible of Russia claimed ...direct [descent from] ...the Kievan [Rus´] dynasty [which first developed on the upper Dnieper River in the 880s]. ¨...most of Ukraine fell under Polish rule [in the 16th C].¨ ¨[Once the Soviet Union fell apart only] ...Novorossiisk ([near].. Sochi) [remained in Russian hands on the Black Sea]. [But, because of nor'easters] ...called bora (from Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind), Nororossiisk [must shut down] ... [around] two months a year. ...the bora [may pack] ... winds exceeding one hundred miles per hour, turning the harbor into a boiling cauldron and tossing smaller vessels ashore like toys. ...a bora sank a Russian fleet in 1848, [and that was when] the Admiralty [forbade]... the navy from anchoring in Novorossiisk between November and March.¨ ¨[Senator] McCain ... [mingled] with the people on the [Euromaidan] barricades and [urged] ... them to overthrow the democratically elected president [Yanukovych - because Yanukovych had rejected an aid package offered by the EU in favor of a better deal offered by Russia].¨ ¨...on December 13, 2013, speaking [in Washington, State Dept. official Victoria] Nuland revealed that since 1991, the United States had ¨invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine¨ in building ¨democratic skills and institutions.¨ ¨Russians [believed] ... they had caught Nuland and [State Dept. official] Pyatt red-handed at [pushing] ... regime change in Ukraine.¨ ¨...neoconservatives [think that] ... unseating a democratically elected president ...in a third-world country [is OK].¨ ¨[During] ...World War I, to keep Russia [on their side].., Britain and France promised Tsar Nicholas II Constantinople, the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles.¨ ¨[Catherine the Great´s Crimean modernization]... project anticipated later Western efforts in the non-Western world. ....to raise a junior ally whose new (Westernized) elites would be completely dependent on the creator.¨ ¨In Russia, the person who put Sevastopol on the literary map was Leo Tolstoy, a veteran of the [Crimean War 1854-55] siege.¨ ¨On June 22, 1941, [Sevastopol] ... became the first Soviet city bombed by the Germans...¨
This is a very interesting book in terms of conveying a lot of information about Ukraine in general, its contested history and continuing deep divisions between its Western half which is more oriented toward Europe, as opposed to its Eastern half, which looks toward Russia and the Orthodox East with respect to religion/customs etc. It does seem like the country was created as a sort of buffer zone from random areas of Eastern Europe - and that the contradictions it contains mean it might have come apart anyway eventually. Unfortunately, Ukraine was the scene of anti-Jewish pogroms before the Second World War; that it was also the scene of the Holocaust by Bullets during WWII, in which the locals assisted the SS, is tragically not surprising, considering the prior horrific history of anti-Jewish pogroms there. A discussion of this aspect of Ukrainian history is omitted - perhaps it is irrelevant to the subject of Crimea (although there were pogroms in Crimea as well) except that Russia does say it wishes to roll back the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Although I´m not sure there are neo-Nazis throughout Ukrainian government or even society as Russia contends the fact is Ukrainians helped Germans exterminate hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Jews during the German occupation, and there are skinheads and ne0-Nazis in Ukraine, although there are also right-wing extremists in Russia. The ¨deNazification¨ of Ukraine was another reason given by Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Lately, though, President Putin admitted that revanchist thinking was the overriding reason for the invasion - the wish to regain territory or countries lost when the Soviet Union disintegrated. If Russia does win its war against Ukraine, which at this point seems likely, given the response of NATO to the invasion, I do not see how Russia will not continue on its present roll and find a way to re-amalgamate the Russian Empire, or Union, or whatever it will call its ¨reborn USSR.¨ Sadly, the risks to both sides are lopsided: If there is an all-out nuclear conflict, there are around 600,000,000 Europeans vs around 143,000,000 Russians. The Russians are mostly concentrated in a few urban centers but the Europeans are even more compactly packed into Europe. Russians would have a huge country to evacuate into and that is not the case with Europe. A nuclear war would devastate the European West including Russia but Russia would have more of a likelihood of surviving given its huge ¨backyard.¨ Somehow I do not see any American president making the decision to risk all by launching a nuclear attack on Russia - although the USA and Russia are more evenly matched with respect to land area in which to evacuate surviving remnants of the population into. Is destroying civilization as we know it worth fighting over former Soviet republics - like Ukraine, Latvia, or Georgia? Are we willing to trade the future of the world in order to keep countries like Lithuania ¨free¨ - that is, under NATO´s umbrella as opposed to under Russia´s umbrella? (Even if Russia is no longer communist, the same democracy vs dictatorship theme would be trotted out, as was used during the Cold War, the Free World vs. the Iron Curtain countries and so forth.) If the US doesn't launch a nuclear strike against Russia, and I highly doubt they would do it, that means NATO basically would sit on its hands if Russia proceeded to regain control of former Soviet republics that have subsequently joined NATO, namely, the Baltic States, probably using the same combination of methods it used in Ukraine - hybrid warfare including cyberwar, encouragement of the separatist aspirations of Russian minorities in each country, including them taking up arms, and so forth. Other republics could be expected to voluntarily re-align with Russia since Russia is positioning itself as the bulwark of tradition and religion vs what it says is the decadent and degraded West. This formulation is especially appealing to authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian systems in a number of post-Soviet, post-communist E. European countries, such as Poland and Hungary - countries that may have been whipsawed by laissez-faire capitalism and globalization, and then believe they see their societies (or what is left of them) further disintegrating due to what they see as pernicious Western social values, such as feminism, divorce, and so forth. The anti-Western backlash practically could have been predicted 30 years ago when the Iron Curtain fell - at least in certain E. European countries - as societies woke up to what belonging to the West entailed. The preservation of the patriarchy dovetails exactly with authoritarian rule - a few NATO countries such as Turkey and Poland are already taking what we in the West would call this reactionary path. The patriarchal system leads to a rejection of the advances of the West with respect to the destruction of the cis-gender system, the destruction of the family or rather, the conventional family headed by a married male and female couple, the assertion of children´s rights and even emancipation as opposed to parental control, and so forth. The destruction of the existing social system is perhaps the direst threat the social order has faced - right up there with the threat to private property posed by communism in the 20th Century, because the patriarchal system is set up to ensure that property is passed on to descendants, who can of course only be created under the conditions of a standard or conventional male-female marriage. This is one of the historically critical reasons for the creation of progeny - so that property and wealth can continue to be passed on and benefit ones descendants in theory indefinitely. Therefore the wave of what appears to be the revolutionary gender- and family-destruction movement that is now a hallmark of the West probably will run aground in traditional societies of the East - Mid-East - E. Asia - S. Asia, which also are areas where families are perhaps less fragmented than in the West, perhaps also in Latin America and Africa too considering that many of those societies are religious and traditionally-oriented. Strongly Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Islamic societies will tend to reject the new strongly individualistic gender-bending, ethos of alternative or no families, emanating from the West - probably more from self-interest, that is, the wish to sustain the social structures whereby wealth is passed on to descendants, than from rigid adherence to religious precepts. This is also perhaps why the collective impulse of communism went over like a lead balloon in a number of these areas, even if communism actually arose from a similar self-effacing humanitarian place as Christianity (the meek shall inherit the earth is quite similar to workers of the world unite). The Western social threat - which we instead see as self-liberation and progressive - may indeed rally the Eastern ex-Soviet republics to Russia´s banner as allies, and indeed may explain why so many countries have not signed on to the NATO/US/EU sanctions leveled against Russia. The East-West dichotomy or at least contradiction may be more severe these days than in the days of the Cold War, even if Russia is no longer supporting communist insurgencies around the world, because the stakes are potentially higher. Communism after all was originally a strain of Western intellectual thought, originating from Western European thinkers, that sought to achieve a socio-economic Utopia through the elimination of private property, money, and eventually, the state. Under communism, there could be no consideration of passing on wealth to descendants because private property that could be passed on was not allowed. That was the theory, but in practice, there were modifications to the rules - under communism, Russians could have modest country homes (dachas) and even in Mao´s China, farmers were allowed some strips of land they could individually farm, and thus subsequently sell the produce they might grow thereon. But, nonetheless, there was no question that communism in Russia and China resulted in a drastic of course intentional flattening of income inequality such that most people had next to nothing that could possibly have been passed on to descendants. The system of communism did not go over well in traditional societies for the reasons outlined above - and despite decades of communist rule and indoctrination in Eastern Europe, communism crumbled after the passing of the first generation of Russian communist rulers, and the ascension of the next generation to leadership positions, leaders such as Gorbachev who were unable to update the communist system in Russia and eventually simply gave up on the project and agreed to the end of communism and even the end of the Soviet federal state. Long story short, the dissolution of the Soviet Union likely would not have occurred had it not been for the system the first generation of Soviet leadership created under which the energy of nationalism - unleashed by the disintegration of a number of empires post the First World War - was channeled into a number of autonomous, more or less self-governing Soviet republics, based on national or ethnic identity, under the aegis of the Soviet Union. Prior to the creation of these states or republics by Lenin, Russia was centrally ruled by the Tsar and his Court - power was not dispersed to local councils (Soviets). Lenin´s cry of ¨All Power to the Soviets¨ at the time of the Russian Revolution was truly the opposite of how things stood under the Tsar, when there was no question that territory Imperial Russia had conquered was subsequently simply part of Russia. Local Soviet control grew into local state autonomy, hence the creation of the republics. The fever throughout Europe however at the end of the First World War was pro-independence and in favor of national self-determination and so Lenin included a clause in the Soviet constitution he wrote guaranteeing the newly created republics the right to secede anytime - a right they of course did not have when ruled by the Tsar - likely because of the theory under Marxism that the state would eventually wither away when communism was achieved. Lenin expected all nations to have their own communist revolutions and that once communism took hold everywhere, the state everywhere would just disappear, such that there would be no need to secede from any Union, Soviet or not. This did not happen - Lenin prematurely died from a stroke, perhaps from the stress of realizing his dream of world communism was not in the cards. In short, the clash was over who would control the wealth generated in countries: Would it be the state, as under communism, or would it be individuals, as under capitalism? It appears more or less inevitable that the forces of tradition would one day prevail - the idea that wealth could be passed on to descendants cannot be erased, even after decades of indoctrination to the contrary in E. Europe, every single communist country there elected to do away with communism when they had a chance. There was a reassertion of nationalism, tradition, religion, as the guiding principles of the state - it was as if the ¨modernity¨ of both communism and Western liberalism were rejected one after another. This goes to show you how stubborn the attachment is to tradition and patriarchy - it never dies out, and continues to be a driving force even after decades of communism and then 30 years or so of Western liberal democracy. And why this ¨clash of civilizations¨ as Pleshakov puts it in the title of his book, was bound to happen in Ukraine.
Here are some quotes from the book:
¨Depending on where Ukrainian [political leaders] ... currently strand on NATO and the European Union, U.S. media tend to describe them as either ¨pro-Western¨ good people or ¨pro-Russian¨ bad types.¨ ¨...[Post World War I] the decision [as to which units were worthy of self-determination] lay with foreign sponsors naturally swayed by self-interest and prejudice, [and so] verdicts were arbitrary.¨ ¨...Ukraine was never independent prior to 1991. Its territory...a quilt of lands ceded by (in chronological order) ...Turkey, Poland, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. ...a battlefield for the past six centuries.¨ ¨[In response] ... to the collapse of the USSR, [Russia asserted its own version] ... of the Monroe Doctrine]: all ...former Soviet republics ...defined as the ¨near abroad,¨ ... part of Russia´s exclusive sphere of influence.¨ ¨Aggressive [American] ... nation-building in the post-Soviet space [began under] ... Bill Clinton´s presidency.¨ ¨...for Russians, Ukraine is part of their continuous national space, [like] ...Canada...for the United States, but even closer.¨ ¨...president...Yeltsin, seemed to regard Clinton´s ...endorsement of NATO expansion as a ... betrayal.¨ ¨[Former pro-American Ukrainian president] ... Yushchenko´s wife was an American citizen and ...former U.S. State Department official.¨ ¨[In connection with the American response to the Pussy Riot anti blasphemy law arrests, in stark contrast to America´s former support for churches when Russia was communist-ruled] Washington [appeared to be] ... willing to support any dissent in Russia--pro-church under Communism, anti-church under Putin--so long as it undermined existing authority.¨ ¨Russia and Ukraine are...more...tightly [linked] than England and Scotland or the United States and Canada.¨ ¨Ivan the Terrible of Russia claimed ...direct [descent from] ...the Kievan [Rus´] dynasty [which first developed on the upper Dnieper River in the 880s]. ¨...most of Ukraine fell under Polish rule [in the 16th C].¨ ¨[Once the Soviet Union fell apart only] ...Novorossiisk ([near].. Sochi) [remained in Russian hands on the Black Sea]. [But, because of nor'easters] ...called bora (from Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind), Nororossiisk [must shut down] ... [around] two months a year. ...the bora [may pack] ... winds exceeding one hundred miles per hour, turning the harbor into a boiling cauldron and tossing smaller vessels ashore like toys. ...a bora sank a Russian fleet in 1848, [and that was when] the Admiralty [forbade]... the navy from anchoring in Novorossiisk between November and March.¨ ¨[Senator] McCain ... [mingled] with the people on the [Euromaidan] barricades and [urged] ... them to overthrow the democratically elected president [Yanukovych - because Yanukovych had rejected an aid package offered by the EU in favor of a better deal offered by Russia].¨ ¨...on December 13, 2013, speaking [in Washington, State Dept. official Victoria] Nuland revealed that since 1991, the United States had ¨invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine¨ in building ¨democratic skills and institutions.¨ ¨Russians [believed] ... they had caught Nuland and [State Dept. official] Pyatt red-handed at [pushing] ... regime change in Ukraine.¨ ¨...neoconservatives [think that] ... unseating a democratically elected president ...in a third-world country [is OK].¨ ¨[During] ...World War I, to keep Russia [on their side].., Britain and France promised Tsar Nicholas II Constantinople, the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles.¨ ¨[Catherine the Great´s Crimean modernization]... project anticipated later Western efforts in the non-Western world. ....to raise a junior ally whose new (Westernized) elites would be completely dependent on the creator.¨ ¨In Russia, the person who put Sevastopol on the literary map was Leo Tolstoy, a veteran of the [Crimean War 1854-55] siege.¨ ¨On June 22, 1941, [Sevastopol] ... became the first Soviet city bombed by the Germans...¨
June 9, 2022
Lectura obligatoria para entender de forma clara las relaciones internacionales y geopoliticas que desembocaron entre Ucrania y Rusia, y que vienen anunciadas en este libro de 2017 después de la anexión de Crimea.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 23, 2020
This is definitely a good introduction to the subject. Even if one disagrees with some of the logic of Pleshakov's arguments, it will certainly let you appreciate things more from the "other side".
January 10, 2023
I really enjoyed this little book. I have no background in wars, but I am following the UA war. I wanted some context on Crimea. This goes way back. It starts with the physical geography of the place, and that was right up my alley because I have studied physical geog and earth science for years. I felt I was really there, at least for the moment.
Then he explains the many ethnic/cultural groups and how they lived in Crimea over thousands of years, along with their relationship to neighbouring countries. The discussion of the place's agriculture and economics was also instructive and very relevant to understanding the situation. Then he gets into the Russian invasion of 2014. Not in depth, I suppose, and I couldn't agree, necessarily, with his political analysis - but then I am not a political analyst, just a human being. And there wasn't tons and tons of that, just enough to get his point of view.
A short, interesting, informative, sometimes beautifully written read.
Then he explains the many ethnic/cultural groups and how they lived in Crimea over thousands of years, along with their relationship to neighbouring countries. The discussion of the place's agriculture and economics was also instructive and very relevant to understanding the situation. Then he gets into the Russian invasion of 2014. Not in depth, I suppose, and I couldn't agree, necessarily, with his political analysis - but then I am not a political analyst, just a human being. And there wasn't tons and tons of that, just enough to get his point of view.
A short, interesting, informative, sometimes beautifully written read.
February 13, 2017
The task facing Europe's leaders is nothing less than fashioning a new European political and military order. Main obstacle to this unity isn't Vladimir Putin, but Europe itself.
Its survival depends on Westerners accepting their civilization as unique and not universal as it's of the utmost importance to avoid top-down (geo)political engineering that tends to make un-Western countries anti-Western.
Finally, to play a somewhat decent endgame on the global platform, we should strike a fine balance between "do no harm" and "organize".
Its survival depends on Westerners accepting their civilization as unique and not universal as it's of the utmost importance to avoid top-down (geo)political engineering that tends to make un-Western countries anti-Western.
Finally, to play a somewhat decent endgame on the global platform, we should strike a fine balance between "do no harm" and "organize".
April 3, 2019
It was wonderful reading this book for my Russian politics class and having Prof. Pleshakov come to our class and speak more about his book and Crimea.
An interesting and informative look at the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. Great historical context on the peninsula and Ukraine. Definitely worth reading as a short read to understanding the region and Ukrainian-Russian ties, and what the future of European and American policies toward Russia might look like.
An interesting and informative look at the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. Great historical context on the peninsula and Ukraine. Definitely worth reading as a short read to understanding the region and Ukrainian-Russian ties, and what the future of European and American policies toward Russia might look like.
October 26, 2018
This book accomplished what I wanted it to do. I now have a fairly in depth understanding of the Russian annexation of Crimea. I appreciate that the author did not get too in depth in certain areas.
April 4, 2020
Interesting and informative book about the history of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, and how the EU and the US enter the picture. Offers some perspective about Russians/Ukrainians sometimes view the West.
September 7, 2025
wide breadth of historical and current information in a concise presentation
June 12, 2024
I think Pleshakov mischaracterizes several aspects of the Maidan protests and the various oppositional groups and other actors. Beyond that, he offers a well-crafted and succinct examination of the complexities of Crimea as a place, and of Crimean social politics. While I think he takes a more realist perspective than I do, his points are useful ones.
April 8, 2017
On the one hand, this was a very interesting exploration of the decline between Russian and US relationships focused on how Western expansion of NATO onto Russia's borders led to the annexation of Crimea. Since I've only heard the Western side (focusing on the demonization of Putin) this was a good alternative presentation that showed how the West brought much of the present trouble on itself. On the other hand, the author seemed to me to try to do too much in too little space, and the book seems disjointed. Still, as we face the investigations over Russian meddling in our election, it is good to be reminded both sides play a role, and both will have to play a role in repairing the damage.
December 10, 2017
Great non-bias look at how the Crimean crisis went down. I would recommend this book if you are looking for an objective look at the situation.
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