Since the start of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there have been numerous attempts to negotiate a truce, ceasefire, armistice, or peace agreement. However, none of these initiatives can be taken seriously. This is not because peace is never eternal, but because Russia does not value it due to its dual political and historical behavior. First, Russia only respects the great powers and the agreements made with them. It relentlessly seeks to be recognized as a great power in its own right. Second, Russia subjugates its less powerful neighbors, considering them prey and fundamentally not recognizing their sovereignty. This attitude involves systematically challenging their independence and any agreement Russia signs as soon as any aspect of it becomes unfavorable to Russia.
From this perspective, international law has no value; it is merely one means to achieve these goals among others. This attitude is not unique to President Vladimir Putin. Rather, it is part of a centuries-old tradition of the Russian state.
Over the past few centuries, Russian expansionism in Europe has taken three main forms: territorial appropriation outside the law, signing and then violating international agreements, and politically destabilizing its desired neighbors, combined with opportunistic constitutional claims. All of this has been made possible, in part, by Western inaction.
Illegal Territorial Appropriation: A Long Expansionist Legacy
For centuries, Russia has not waited to formally possess a territory before appropriating it. During the Third Russo-Ottoman War (1686–1700), for example, Russia founded the city of Taganrog in 1698, complete with a military port. This occurred two years before the Ottoman Empire ceded the territory to Russia in the Treaty of Constantinople, which ended the conflict. Thus, Russia gained access to the ice-free Sea of Azov for the first time. Russia started this policy of appropriation outside the law during the Great Northern War (1700–1721) against Sweden. The Russian government occupied the Swedish region of Ingria in 1702 and formally acquired it with the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, nineteen years later. However, Peter I, known as “the Great”, founded the city of Saint Petersburg there in 1703 and made it the imperial capital in 1712. This is particularly revealing: the new city, the center of Russian power, was located on territory that did not belong to Russia. The message was political and symbolic. Russia will never relinquish this city and its territory, regardless of the law.
The term “brutal annexation” applies to both regions and states bordering Russia. At the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, the two belligerents signed the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, recognizing the independence of the Crimean Khanate, which had been a vassal of the Ottoman Empire until then. However, Russia’s true objective was to seize the Tatar country and its extensive coastline along the northern shore of the Black Sea. Empress Catherine II waited nine years, until 1783, to annex Crimea, thus reneging on the treaty. In 1783, Russia and the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (Georgia) signed the Treaty of Georgievsk. Under this treaty, Russia was responsible for ensuring the territorial integrity of Georgia, which was caught between the Persian and Ottoman empires. In return, Georgia ceded control of its foreign policy to its huge northern neighbor. However, in 1801, after eighteen years of protectorate, Russia ceased recognizing Georgian independence and annexed the kingdom to the empire.
Signing and Violating International Agreements
At the end of World War I (1914–1918) and during the Russian Civil War (1918–1921), the new Bolshevik regime in Moscow signed a series of agreements with its former possessions, championing the principles of peace and freedom of nationalities. In reality, however, the Bolsheviks failed to restore the borders of the Russian Empire. The goal of Lenin’s regime was actually to ensure its own survival.
Thus, peace and mutual recognition treaties were signed in 1920 with Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Latvia, and Lithuania, followed by Poland in 1921. These treaties included provisions for cooperation, good neighborliness, conflict prevention, protection against third countries, military neutralization, and the renunciation of all rights dating from the imperial period. However, as early as 1921, Russia violated its first treaty by invading and annexing Georgia, which had been an independent state since 1918 with a democratic and progressive constitution.
Despite this disastrous experience, several new European states continued their policy of signing agreements with the former dominant power. Consequently, the Soviet Union signed “non-aggression and peaceful dispute settlement” pacts with Lithuania in 1926 and 1931, as well as with Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Poland in 1932 and 1934. The Soviet Union adopted supplementary agreements to these peace treaties, including the delimitation of borders with Finland in 1922 and Estonia in 1927, a procedure for preventing border conflicts with Poland in 1933, and a “Convention Defining Aggression” with Lithuania in 1933.
In 1939, the Soviet Union began a series of treaty breaches, followed by annexations. After signing a non-aggression and partition pact with Nazi Germany—known as the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact—the communist power seized the eastern part of Poland as planned in the early days of World War II in September 1939.
A few days later, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia “chose” to align with the Soviet Union against Germany. The three young republics signed mutual assistance pacts, which included military assistance in the event of aggression, the supply of war materials, the establishment of military bases by the Red Army, and the prohibition of alliances with states that would threaten any of them. Unsurprisingly, the Georgian scenario of 1921 was repeated. Despite the recent protection agreements, the three former Russian possessions were attacked and annexed in 1940. Meanwhile, Finland resisted the Soviet attempt at total reconquest during the Winter War (November 1939–March 1940), though it had to cede part of its territory.
Political Destabilization and Opportunistic Constitutional Claims
In 1991, the recognition of the independence and borders of the fourteen republics that comprised the Soviet Union, along with the Russian Republic itself, appeared to decisively halt Russia’s expansionist desires. However, the following year, President Boris Yeltsin’s government began to undermine the territorial sovereignty of its neighbors through destabilization and legal means once again.
Since 1992, Russia has maintained its army in the Transnistria region of Moldova and supported a secessionist, self-proclaimed republic that has held sham referendums requesting annexation to Russia despite being more than 550 kilometers away.
During the same period in Georgia, Russia supported separatism in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which resulted in a war. Russia provided “peacekeeping” troops and took the opportunity to establish military bases there. Then came the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. At the war’s end, French President Nicolas Sarkozy (in his capacity as the six-month president of the European Council) and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to a security plan overseen by the European Union and applicable to Georgia’s internationally recognized territory, including the two secessionist regions. However, Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia a few days later, nullifying the plan.
A similar process was used in Ukraine between 2014 and 2022 for the regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, but it was taken further. Russia led, armed, and supervised separatist groups that proclaimed the independence of puppet republics. Russia recognized these republics, organized sham referendums on their accession to the Russian Federation, and then “agreed” to incorporate them. This move violated the 1997 bilateral treaty of friendship, cooperation, and partnership, by which Russia formally recognized Ukraine’s borders. The treaty expired in 2019 as it was not renewed. In this regard, the Minsk 1 agreement signed with Ukraine in 2014 and the Minsk 2 agreement signed in 2015, which were intended to establish a ceasefire, organize a troop withdrawal, and grant autonomy to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions within Ukraine, were nothing more than a facade for integrating these regions into the Russian Federation.
In 1994, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed the Budapest Memorandum with Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. In exchange for dismantling their nuclear arsenals, the three states were guaranteed independence, territorial integrity, and protection against any military or economic attack by the three powers. These commitments also equally applied to the three guarantor powers. However, Russia waged two “gas wars” against Ukraine: the first in 2005–2006 and the second in 2008–2009. The first interruption of supplies occurred against a backdrop of disagreements over gas prices, unpaid bills, and accusations of theft. Economic aggression was followed by territorial aggression.
In 2014, Russia adopted a constitutional reform that marked a new stage in its territorial history. The Federation amended Article 65 of its constitution, which provides for the integration or creation of new regions among the “subjects.” This article lists the “constituent entities of the Russian Federation”—a federation in name only. Russia thus integrated Crimea as a region and Sevastopol as a city with a federal status, placing it on the same level as Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 2022, Russia did the same with the oblast of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia without occupying all of them. This allows Russia to claim that Ukraine occupies part of “its” regions from the perspective of its constitution. Currently, the Russian army occupies only a small part of the Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Sumy. All the Russian authorities need to do is follow the same procedure as in 2014 and 2022 to officially annex the territory. They could do the same with any country’s territory, even without occupying it.
Today, as in the past, the treaties and agreements that Russia signs with its neighbors are merely a preparatory step for the future annexation of these territories as soon as the conditions are right.
Western Inaction
This chronology shows the depth and consistency of Russia’s foreign policy intentions and should not obscure the repeated weaknesses and full responsibility of the Western camp, which is characterized by double standards, democratic proselytism, and the inconsistency of its rhetoric and conduct towards people it purports to support and defend.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Western states recognized the Soviet Union and signed mutual assistance treaties, abandoning their support for the Georgian government in exile, which had fled to France in 1921. Although the West never recognized the Soviet Union’s annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940, this did not prevent the establishment of bilateral relations and cooperation with the communist empire during and after World War II.
In 1941, the United Kingdom and the United States adopted the Atlantic Charter, which prohibited territorial conquests or border changes without the free consent of the affected peoples. The Soviet Union also joined the Atlantic Charter on 24 September 1941. However, at the Tehran Conference in 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted Joseph Stalin’s territorial claims on the European possessions of the Tsarist Empire. Even more damning, in the case of Poland’s future borders, they even supported him. Furthermore, in 1975, the West tacitly endorsed the Soviet territorial conquests and acquisitions after 1939 with a nonbinding text. Indeed, in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki in 1975, Western and Eastern bloc states declared their respect for “the territorial integrity of each of the other participating states” and the “inviolability of borders” on the continent.
The United Kingdom and the United States have failed to honor their role as guarantors of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which is still in effect. Furthermore, the agreements lack a mechanism to monitor and sanction the signatory states or third parties, which renders them ineffective.
Despite its declared support for Georgia, the West continued to do business with Russia after the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. The economic sanctions adopted against Russia following the brief war in Crimea in 2014 and its subsequent annexation of Ukrainian territory did not halt relations between the West and Putin’s regime. In 2014 and 2015, Germany and France sponsored the two Minsk agreements concerning the separatist republics in eastern Ukraine, which are controlled by Russia. While these texts are open to criticism, their violation by both the Ukrainian and Russian sides was tolerated by Western capitals. This once again undermined Europe’s credibility and flexibility with regard to international law, which Europe nevertheless holds up as an absolute value.
The real turning point came with the escalation of the Ukraine war in 2022. In response to Russia’s invasion, the West severed political, cultural, and sporting ties with the aggressor and reduced economic and diplomatic relations. Faced with Russia’s constant expansionism, the West and the Europeans adopted a consistent policy towards Russia. However, they must be prepared to go all the way in supporting Ukrainian sovereignty and military effort and that of all European countries bordering Russia.
Given the consistent expansionist ambitions of the Russian Tsardom (1547–1721), the Russian Empire (1721–1917), the Soviet Union (1917–1991), and the Russian Federation (since 1991), Europeans have three main options to truly protect and ensure the sovereignty and independence of the states and peoples of the continent coveted by their huge neighbor. The first option is to support a peace treaty and uphold it under international law, even if Russia inevitably violates it. The second option is to support a peace treaty while deliberately not respecting its terms, knowing that Russia will do the same. This would further devalue the credibility of European states and weaken international law. The last option is to do everything possible to lead Russia to military and subsequent political defeat while preserving what remains of international law, knowing that Russia is not negotiating in good faith and only seeks to impose its views and will.
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