Call the War for what it is: A War for Ukrainian Sovereignty
The war that is taking place on the territory of Ukraine is nearing 1,000 days since the Moscow unleashed its full-scale invasion in Feb 2022, an escalation of the invasion of Crimea and 8 years of fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine.
During this time, if only for convenience, many people, including myself, to the events as the Ukraine War. That seemingly innocuous term is correct geographically since the fighting was taking place on Ukrainian territory. Of course, Ukraine did not start this war nor do Ukrainians want this war. The fighting, death and destruction was unleashed by Putin and the Russian government based on their belief that Ukraine is not a sovereign nation. In order to prove that conjecture, Russia strategy is to destroy the physical state and kill as many Ukrainians as needed.
In Kyiv and Lviv, the fighting is most often referred to as the Full-scale Invasion which provides clarity and stresses continuation of the first invasion of Crimea and 2014 and the continuing invasion of the Eastern provinces of Ukraine which resulted in 10,000 Ukrainian casualties from 2014 through 2022.
I have had endless conversations pointing out that the war did not begin in February 2022. Contrary to claims, Russia did continue to invade Ukraine during the Trump Administration and the Obama Administration abandoned Ukraine, in defiance of the Budapest Memorandum when Russian troops parachuted into Crimea and no aid was forthcoming despite Security guarantees signed by the UK and the USA.
Sovereignty simply means the supreme power or authority. A government represents the sovereign authority inside its borders. Each of the justifications put forth by Putin for the launch of the full-scale invasion are based on the premise that, in fact, the Ukrainian government is not the sovereign power inside Ukraine. Whether it concerns what language schools are taught or what alliances Ukraine can join, Russia insists on a veto over the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian citizens wishes as well as the ability to move borders as necessary.
As the fighting continued, the came to be referred to as the Russia-Ukraine war, as in this recent headline in the WSJ: One Million are now dead or injured in the Russia-Ukraine War. This descriptor highlights the two nations who are fighting but it seems to draw some equivalence between the two sides. It seems to say that no one really knows why these two sides are fighting but both are equally to blame. Even worse, if the war is two-sided, then the solution is to split the difference 50/50. Ukraine should give some territory and Russia can demand less. Ukraine renounces NATO and Russia gives a security guarantee. The two sides should meet in the middle to end the Russian-Ukraine War.
The great Ukrainian scholar Serhii Plokhy uses the term the Russo-Ukrainian War to highlight the ethnic and imperial underpinnings of the War. As he wrote, “The current conflict is an old-fashioned imperial war conducted by Russian elites who see themselves as heirs and continuators of the great-power expansionist traditions of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.”
Sadly, these terms obfuscate the reasons for the war and how we should respond to it. The war is being fought not over geographic borders nor over alliances. Not for language in schools nor for the rights of national minorities. This war is fought to challenge the idea that Ukrainians should be sovereign in their state. Free to govern as they fit. Free to set alliances as they see fit.
By focusing of the issue of Ukrainian sovereignty the question about how the war ends become clearer. So long as Russia refuses to accept Ukrainian sovereignty, Ukraine must be prepared to defend itself militarily. Any half measures focused on armistice lines, promises of neutrality are hollow promises. Despite signing treaties and Pacts of Friendship upholding Ukraine’s right to self-determination and guaranteeing its borders in 1991, 1994 and 2003, Russia methodically undermined Ukraine’s sovereignty in the decades leading up to 2022 by poisoning Ukrainian Presidential candidates, challenging Ukraine’s borders and, finally, invading Crimea.
Putin’s key talking points are refuted by the focus on Ukrainian sovereignty.
What will be the status of Ukraine in NATO after the war ends? If you believe in Ukrainian sovereignty, it will be decided in discussions between NATO and Ukraine, a sovereign without a Russian veto.
What should the borders be? What about the status of Russian language in Ukraine? The Russian Orthodox Church? All to be decided by the sovereign power of the Ukrainian state.
What is the strategy for the war. Not so long as it takes to survive, but whatever is needed to ensure Ukraine remains a sovereign country.
Names matter and calling it the War for Ukrainian Sovereignty focuses our attention on the real issues which led to Russian invasion and its continued fighting in this war.
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