Public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation.
But do we know where we are going? In my life, I have seen four wars begun with
great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end
and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it
ends, not how it begins.
Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown:
whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and
thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should
function as a bridge between them.
Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a
satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to
repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with
Europe and the United States.
The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can
never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called
Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of
Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of
the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 ,
were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of
projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol,
in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph
Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and,
indeed, of Russia
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