There is no short answer to the question, “Why is Russia at war with Ukraine?”
The countries share a deeply enmeshed history, throughout which there has been consistent contention regarding boundaries and sovereignty. As of 2022, it could be said that conflict stems from Ukraine’s intention to strengthen alignment with Europe and the Western world by joining NATO, colliding with Russia’s motivation to reclaim what it believes to be lost territory and resources.
But to truly understand this conflict, it’s necessary to look beyond the events of 2022.
Dr. George E. Bogden, a distinguished scholar and former government official with deep expertise in Eastern European affairs, brings unique insights to this question. His research pays special attention to the historical arc from Soviet collapse and the signing of the Budapest Memorandum to Putin's 2022 invasion, revealing how policy failures eroded Ukraine’s national security and left its distinction from Russia unresolved.
In his exploration of these themes, Dr. Bogden’s writing brings invaluable context to the reasons behind the Russo-Ukrainian War, highlighting crucial gaps in the road to peace.
"It's hard to accept that the approach that gave us the [Budapest Memorandum] can truly provide a defensible framework for U.S. policy making in the future-certainly not with the road to Kyiv as fraught with Russian aggression as in decades before."
A Brief Timeline of the Modern Relationship Between Russia & Ukraine
- 1917-1921: Following the Soviet-Ukrainian Revolution, Ukraine briefly achieves independence before being incorporated into the Soviet Union
- 1932-1933: The Holodomor famine kills millions of Ukrainians under Soviet policies, creating deep historical trauma
- 1939-1944: During World War II, Ukraine defends itself from occupations by both Germany and the Soviet Union
- 1954: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transfers Crimea from Russian to Ukrainian administration within the USSR
- August 24, 1991: Ukraine declares independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union
- 1994: Ukraine signs the Budapest Memorandum, giving up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the US, and the UK
- 2004-2005: The Orange Revolution protests bring a pro-Western government to power in Ukraine
- 2013-2014: Euromaidan protests erupt after President Yanukovych rejects an EU agreement in favor of closer ties with Russia
- February 2014: Yanukovych flees Ukraine; Russia annexes Crimea weeks later
- April 2014: Russian-backed separatists seize territory in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, beginning an armed conflict
- February 24, 2022: Russia’s Federation Council unanimously approves military operations outside of Russia, marking the beginning of a full-scale invasion
What does Russia want from Ukraine? A historical perspective
To answer what Russia wants from Ukraine, it’s important to understand what Russia lost when the Soviet Union collapsed and how it stoked the revanchist justification that drives the country’s efforts to reclaim the territory.
Bogden’s Wall Street Journal article summarizes that idea with a quote from Zbigniew Brzezinski: "Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire. But with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire."
This geopolitical reality drove Russian thinking in the 1990s and continues to drive it today. Russia's objectives in Ukraine are multifaceted:
- Territorial and Strategic Control: Crimea provides Russia with vital access to the Black Sea and its only warm-water port for the Black Sea Fleet. Control over eastern Ukraine's industrial Donbas region and southern Ukraine creates a more direct land bridge to Crimea from Russian cities located farther north, including Moscow.
- Sphere of Influence: Russia views Ukraine's movement toward Western institutions-the European Union and NATO-as an existential threat to its status as a great power. Further, Putin has explicitly framed Ukraine as historically and symbolically inextricable, arguing in his 2021 essay that "there is no historical basis for the idea of a Ukrainian nation separate from Russia."
- The "Russian World" Concept: The Kremlin promotes the idea of Russkiy mir-that Russian-speaking populations in former Soviet republics are part of a broader Russian civilization that Moscow must protect and unite.
- Buffer Zone Strategy: A Ukraine aligned with NATO and the EU eliminates the buffer zone between Russia and Western military alliances, which Moscow presents as a security threat regardless of NATO's actual defensive posture.
Why Was Russia Able to Invade Ukraine? Consequences of The Budapest Memorandum
Gaining an understanding of why Russia invaded Ukraine begs another question: how was Russia able to invade Ukraine? Bogden’s reporting suggests Russia was able to invade Ukraine in 2022 primarily because Ukraine lacked the military deterrent capability to make such an invasion prohibitively costly for Moscow. When Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal in 1994 through the Budapest Memorandum, it gave up the world's third-largest nuclear stockpile in exchange for promises of security that weren’t properly certified.
"Vladimir Putin's carnage in Ukraine and threats of nuclear escalation cast a haunting shadow over the Budapest Memorandum,” Bogden wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “By its terms, Ukraine forfeited an inherited Soviet arsenal in exchange for Western pledges of aid and 'assurances' from Russia, the US and the UK that its borders would remain intact. Disarmament experts hailed the pact, but it invited Mr. Putin's revanchism."
In the years following independence, Ukraine also struggled to build a conventional military force capable of deterring Russian aggression, lacking both the immediate economic capacity and the sustained Western military support that might have filled the gap left by denuclearization. By the time of the 2022 invasion, while Ukraine had improved its military capabilities since 2014, it still faced a massive disparity in firepower, personnel, and resources compared to Russia's military.
In Search of a Solution: What’s Next for Russia & Ukraine?
The Russo-Ukrainian War is not a sudden eruption of violence but the predictable result of decisions made three decades ago. When Western powers prioritized Ukrainian denuclearization over Ukrainian security, they created the conditions for today's conflict.
As peace talks take place, historical research from George Bogden provides the evidence base for understanding how we arrived at this crisis and what lessons we must learn to rectify the situation long-term.