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Putin and Putinism are not foreover

There are things that are difficult to write, even when obvious.  People all too often mistake analytical statements for normative ones.  They fail to recognize that I can think something is likely to happen without wanting it to happen.  Let’s be clear:  what I am about to write is not what I want but what I think likely if the Russian takeover of eastern Ukraine continues.

Russian speakers, in an effort coordinated by Moscow, are seizing key government and police sites.  But most people in eastern and southern Ukraine before this crisis considered themselves Ukrainian, not Russian, even if they spoke Russian better than Ukrainian.  Anyone even remotely attached to Ukrainian identity will take offense at what Moscow is up to.  Maintaining that sense of Ukrainian identity has to be a primary objective for those who want the country to remain united.  If ever Kiev gets the upper hand, those who are today supporting the Russian takeover will find themselves unwelcome.

We’ve seen this happen in the Balkans, where Milosevic sponsored supposedly local Serb takeovers in parts of Croatia and Bosnia.  Both had ample backing from Belgrade, including from its army.  Once the Croatians got the upper hand several years later, 180,000 or so Croatian Serbs ended up leaving and entering Serbia.  In Bosnia, the 500-600,000 Serbs who lived during the war in Republika Srpska were saved from a similar fate only by the Dayton agreements.  In Kosovo, many Serbs left Albanian-controlled areas south of the Ibar once Serbian troops withdrew.

Someone more erudite than I am could extend the analogy to the Sudetenland, where Hitler’s takeover ended not so many years later with expulsion of German speakers.

I am trying in what I say above to avoid the fraught question of whether people were expelled, left of their own volition, or were summoned out.  More often than not, such mass movements of population have multiple origins.  Having mistreated others during their time in control, some people expect, justifiably or not, similar mistreatment when power is given to their enemies.  Others are expelled.  Still others respond to calls from their “homeland.”  The mix is different in different places, and exponents of opposing sides won’t readily agree on what happened.

But I can be pretty sure that if Kiev ever regains control of the sites Russia is now seizing that an outflux of Russian speakers will ensue.  Some will justifiably fear arrest or mistreatment.  Others will be expelled by hotheads on the Ukrainian side of the ethnic divide.  Still others may respond to an invitation by Moscow, which no doubt will be passing out passports to those who want them, as it did in Crimea.

The only real doubt I have is whether Kiev will ever regain control.  It seems unlikely.  Russia will always  be much stronger.  Even with a well-equipped and well-trained army that would take decades to create, Ukraine is not going to be able to defeat Russia in a slugging match.  So long as it is prepared to devote the resources required, Russia should be able to maintain control.

There’s the rub.  Moscow has a lot of problems other than maintaining dominance in Russian-speaking Ukraine.  Russia is not much different in this respect from the Soviet Union.  Its internal difficulties, both economic and political, are challenging.  While today Russians are enthusiastically backing the takeovers, they are likely to feel differently when the bills start coming in.  Putin and Putinism are not forever.