The post-Soviet roots of the war in Ukraine

In his hour-long speech earlier this week setting out why he was invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin blamed Vladimir Lenin, the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian nationalists and the West for starting the conflict. Meanwhile, many in the West believe that the conflict is entirely the creation of one man, Putin himself. It’s worth though remembering the post-Soviet roots of the current Russian-Ukrainian war and how close the two nations came to blows 30 years ago.

After the failure of a reactionary coup in Moscow in August 1991, the victorious Russian democrats led by Boris Yeltsin wanted to dismantle the Soviet Union’s ‘totalitarian empire’ and join Nato. The main challenge to their plans was not the Soviet Union’s defeated KGB and generals, but the ever-present danger of Russian nationalism filling the vacuum left by communism. The fear was that the Soviet Union would follow the path of Yugoslavia and descend into violent ethnic conflict.