Go no further

The crisis over Ukraine is now close to a tipping point. By recognising the two breakaway regions of Ukraine and sending troops into the “independent republics”, Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown complete disregard for the consequences of his actions. His televised speech, filled with nationalist grievances and the ahistorical denial of Ukrainian statehood, the claim that modern Ukraine was created by Communist Russia — specifically by Lenin, Stalin and Krushchev, by “separating, severing what is historically Russia’s land” — and the allegation that Gorbachev allowed Ukraine to slip out of Moscow’s grasp, provided an insight into the mind of a leader whose only plan to make Russia great again is to hark back to a grandiose past. This is the kind of nationalism that seeks to redraw borders and rewrite history, imagining that this will somehow restore lost glory. If countries across all of Europe, or indeed across Asia and Africa, whose borders were arbitrarily drawn at the time they shook themselves free of colonial rule, were to start reclaiming what they lost in history, there would be no end to irredentist claims and the world would find itself in perpetual conflict. From his brinkmanship, it appears that Putin is unafraid of war or the devastation it can bring to his own country and people, as well as to the rest of Europe, with the impact extending far beyond the theatre of conflict. This is why even China, which always cites respect for territorial integrity on the question of Tibet and Taiwan, has issued a cautious statement asking all parties to “exercise restraint”, as it tries to balance its blossoming friendship with Russia with its concerns about what Putin has done.