Don Trump chose the wrong spot to host Vladimir Putin—Alaska, a gold- and oil-rich land Russia had lost to the US 158 years ago. The sight of several Russian Orthodox churches—80 including a 230-year-old cathedral in Kodiak—if Putin saw them from the air, would only have steeled his resolve not to concede any more land to the west.
Alaska was once Russia’s. After his defeat at the hands of the British in the 1854-56 Crimean War, Tsar Alexander II worried that Britain would next invade Alaska from Canada. Instead of losing it in war to an enemy, he thought it prudent to sell Alaska to the neutral US for $7 million. Russian nationalists are yet to forgive the tsar for the folly.
How the atlas misleads us! It shows Russia and America hemispheres apart. We think they are poles apart, too. Quite contrary! They are hemispheres apart politically, but poles together geographically. In winter, when the Bering Strait freezes, you can walk from Russia’s Big Diomede isle to the US’s Little Diomede, only three miles away. It could take you a day—the international dateline passes through the strait.
Illustration: Deni Lal
Let’s leave geography and talk geopolitics. The world thinks that Russia had been annexing lands, first as the tsarist empire and then as the communist empire. But Russians think they have been losing lands—Alaska to America and Crimea to the British in the 19th century, and all the ex-Soviet republics to the nasty west in the post-Cold War 20th century.
Russians believe they did a good thing to Europe by disbanding the Warsaw Pact, the military alliance they had with the East Europeans during the Cold War. In return, they expected the west to disband NATO. But NATO cheated. They not only refused to disband but expanded towards Russia roping in Russia's ex-allies, and placing troops, tanks and atomic arms at Russia's doorstep.
The west has been painting Putin as the sinner in the Ukraine war—he invaded a weak neighbour. But Russians feel the west has been sinning against them in the last three post-Cold War decades, breaking every promise they had made, cheating on every deal, and damning every covenant.
Even the little kind deeds of the past were now proving to be Russia's curse. Back in 1954, Russia had gifted Crimea, where Russia has been berthing its Black Sea fleet, to Ukraine. But when Ukraine threatened to ‘sell’ those ports to the west, Putin annexed Crimea in 2014.
In Russia’s eyes, Ukraine is at the nasty NATO game again. It was when the next-door neighbour threatened to join NATO and sell its sovereign soul to the west that Putin said, enough is enough and invaded Ukraine. The war made him a global pariah; the west imposed sanctions on him and tariffs on those who bought his arms and oil; the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on him for war crimes. Now with the leader of the western world hosting him in Alaska, where he said no to a ceasefire till he got a final truce, he has left the west holding the bomb with a burning fuse.
What does Putin want? He wants Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern lands, most of which he has already captured. He might let Ukraine have all the security guarantees from the west against an invasion from Russia, but Ukraine shouldn’t join NATO as a member. For, a membership would entail stationing US, British, French and German tanks, guns and missiles on Ukraine territory from where Moscow is only a short march away.
Little Ukraine may be seeking security guarantees against Russia; Russia is seeking guarantees against a nasty west.
prasannan@theweek.in