Putin’s War of Recolonization

Renée de Nevers, Brian Taylor

Journal of Democracy, March 2023

Renée de Nevers

Brian Taylor

Political Science Department

Public Administration & International Affairs Department

Social Science Ph.D. Program

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict & Collaboration

Conflict

International Affairs

Russia

Ukraine

Journal of Democracy

Renée de Nevers

Brian Taylor

The story of the Russia-Ukraine War is different. It is, in essence, a war of recolonization by the former imperial power. Further, and a critical and consequential feature of this case, Ukraine is a full-fledged member of the UN whose 1991 borders were explicitly affirmed by Russia on no fewer than four occasions before 2014: the Alma Ata Declaration (1991), the Budapest Memorandum (1994), the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Russia and Ukraine (1997), and the Treaty Between Russia and Ukraine on the State Border (2003). This last treaty was signed personally by Vladimir Putin. As recently as 2008, Putin said, “Russia has long recognized the borders of modern-day Ukraine,” and “Crimea is not a disputed territory.”

This Russian invasion, then, is distinctly different from other post–World War II land grabs. A reasonable analogy would be if, several decades after Irish Independence (1922) or Algerian Independence (1962), the United Kingdom or France declared that it no longer recognized the agreed-upon borders and then tried to recolonize those countries and seize big chunks of their territory.