In a recent Pearls and Irritations article Jon Richardson has sought to make the argument that the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO played no part in Russia’s 2022 invasion but that this was a product of Russian imperialism. Why supporters of this line of argument seek to attribute the invasion to only one factor – Russian imperialism – is a mystery.
No other historical event has been the result of only one cause, so why should this be any different? The imperialism argument alone is unable to explain the 2022 invasion.
Part of the problem seems to be that proponents of this view see imperialism as being manifested only in terms of armed intervention. But while invasion might be propelled by imperialistic sentiments, military conquest is not the only way an imperial hangover may be satisfied; economic dependence, political dependence, or a strongly pro-imperialist power government are other ways such an imperialist outlook could be met.
There has clearly been a Russian imperial hangover since the fall of the Soviet Union, and because of the long-established sense of ethnic, cultural and historical association (accepted in an extreme form by Vladimir Putin), Ukraine has been a major focus of this.
The desire in Moscow since 1991 has been to have a government in Kyiv that was, if not completely subject to its will, at least always sensitive to its interests. This was consistent with........