For Putin, War In Ukraine Is A Means Not An End In Itself – OpEd
By Paul Goble
Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is “a means” to broader ends rather than “a goal in itself,” Dmitry Shusharin says. Indeed, as far as he is concerned, the benefits he has already received from that war in the former Soviet space and in the West are greater than any losses he has suffered on the ground.
The Russian commentator and author of a 2017 study on the nature of Russian totalitarianism argues that one of the consequences of this reality, a reality all too often ignored by his critics, is that Putin does not have to expand his aggression into other countries (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=66D2FA475AE3E).
One of Putin’s achievements in the former Soviet space is his reconquest of Georgia, Shusharin suggests, a country that “was frightened both by the Russian attack on itself in 2008 and the genocide of Ukrainians” that all too many Georgians saw as an indication of what might await them if they continue to resist.
But far greater have been Putin’s achievements in the West by means of his war in Ukraine. According to Shusharin, “Russian does not need to march to the English Channel.” Instead, it is gaining its objectives by “eroding European identity” and promoting divisions within Europe and between Europe and the United States.
Defeating Putin in Ukraine is thus about far more than saving that country from Muscovite aggression. It is about saving the former Soviet union republics from Russian revanchism and the West from the spread of Putin’s archaic values that are finding so much support there now.
