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Strategic Vision vol. 11, no. 54 (October, 2022)
Point of No Return Seeking to define Putin’s ‘point of no return’ in Russia’s war against Ukraine Dmytro Burtsev
photo: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine When Russian forces attacked the independent nation of Ukraine in February, many expected the war to be over in a matter of days.
T
he Russian invasion of Ukraine has raised many questions, from the implications it will have on the international system to the basic reasoning and motivation of the regular Russian troops who crossed the Ukrainian border, to the perceptions of the conflict among Russian citizens, the latter of whom appear to support their government’s act of aggression. The general political motivation is obvious and can perhaps best be described as an act of international revenge-seeking by post-Soviet elites. These elites appear to be pushing back against changes in the social and international order that began to emerge during the first decade of the Russian Federation, after the dissolu-
tion of the Soviet Union. Initial attempts to change the operation of the political system and regime in Moscow by adopting, and adapting to, liberal values ended in failure. Attempts at a decentralization of power collapsed under the pressure of a corrupt political regime, which reverted to old methods of controlling the masses using brute force exerted by security, defense, and law enforcement agencies, shored up by propaganda disseminated by a compliant media and an ideology of dominance based on the purity of the Russian culture. The Russian Federation became the primary successor state after the collapse of the Soviet Union in a succession that included the transfer of financial, political, military, and nuclear assets. On the latter issue,
Dr. Dmytro Burtsev is a visiting scholar from Ukraine currently attached to the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica. He can be reached for comment at: dmytro_burtsev@yahoo.com