Oleg Zhegl | ‘Holy simplicity’ behind the grand chessboard

It was puzzling to see an article by Curtis Ward titled ‘Peace not possible if Ukraine and Palestine are occupied’ in The Gleaner of September 30. In his piece, Ward offers Jamaican readers yet another opportunity to expose themselves to the well-worn clichés reproduced by Western media about Russia’s so-called ‘aggressive’ foreign policy. At the same time, the article lumps together facts about Israel’s indiscriminate military actions in Gaza and Lebanon.

Unfortunately, the article draws parallels between fundamentally different conflicts without any proper analysis. The only noteworthy conclusion seems to be that the listed conflicts, as the author states, “are complex and have no simple solution”. However, to even begin an analysis of the Ukrainian crisis, the respected author should have looked more closely at the political and historical prerequisites for its development. Let us attempt to do so.

NATO’s LIMITLESS EXPANSION

It is well known that the modern system of international relations, centred around the United Nations, was established following World War II, when there were high hopes for broad international cooperation, primarily in the area of international security.

However, almost immediately after the Victory over Nazi Germany, those hopes were quickly dispelled, and the Soviet Union was declared the main threat to Western civilization. Winston Churchill’s notorious ‘Sinews of Peace’ speech in 1946 became a self-fulfilling prophecy, after which the Iron Curtain descended on Europe and the world. In 1949, NATO was formed, primarily to counter the USSR and its allies, known as ‘people’s democracies.’

The Alliance’s expansion has continued since the latter half of the 20th century, long after the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union — despite the West’s guarantees not to expand NATO into Eastern Europe. These guarantees are evidenced by the declassified protocols of a 1991 meeting in Bonn of US, UK, French, and German representatives, recently discovered in the British National Archives by Boston University’s Assistant Professor Joshua Shifrinson.

Then in the early 1990s, during a wave of democratic change, there seemed to be renewed hope for overcoming the former split between the political West and East. However, as history has shown, while the West assured Russia that in the realities of the new democratised world, there were no longer fundamental contradictions between them, it had no intention of abandoning Cold War logic.

Through five waves of expansion — in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, and 2020 — the Euro-Atlantic military alliance grew from 16 to 30 member countries (with Finland and Sweden joining in 2023-2024). Meanwhile, countries bordering Russia, particularly Ukraine and Georgia, which received candidate status for NATO membership, opened their borders for joint military exercises and transitioned to NATO-standard armaments. Despite Western assurances that this expansion was not directed against Russia, it effectively became an existential threat to Moscow, with NATO missile flight times decreasing to critical levels.

To summarise, the de facto NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders and the military exploitation of Ukraine’s territory by the world’s largest military bloc became the first reason for the start of the special military operation (SMO).

VIOLATION OF RIGHTS OF RUSSIAN SPEAKERS

Another crucial reason for the SMO was the long-term violation of the rights of Russian-speaking population in the former southeastern Ukraine, tied to the rise of aggressive nationalism in this country. Independent Ukraine’s search for national identity after the USSR’s collapse took a perverse turn in glorifying figures like Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, and their accomplices from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its combat wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Being Hitler’s collaborators, these ‘heroes’ were responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of peaceful civilians (Soviet citizens, Jews, Poles, and others) as a result of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ during World War II. In 2010, Bandera and Shukhevych were officially recognised as national heroes in Ukraine.

This growing nationalism in modern Ukraine led to the full-scale implementation of the so-called ‘anti-Russia’ project, resulting in systemic persecution of the Russian language, culture, and Russian Orthodoxy. In Ukraine, where, according to the last census (2001) Russian was the native language of up to 30-40 per cent of the population in southern regions and 70 per cent in Donbass and Crimea (according to the 2001 census), according to the notorious law on the Ukrainian language (2019), the Russian and other minority languages were to be gradually excluded from official use, education, and everyday life. Raids on and seizures of property from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate were carried out.

Finally, in 2014, following an anti-constitutional coup that overthrew the legitimate president, aggressive nationalist forces came to power in Kiev. That same year, the new Kiev authorities unleashed a civil war against the Russian-speaking population in the then southeastern Ukraine, with civilian infrastructure in Donetsk and Lugansk subjected to direct military strikes: residential buildings, schools, medical institutions.

Finally, after eight years (2014-2022) of Russia’s futile attempts to mediate a peaceful resolution to the conflict and the ongoing genocide of the Russian-speaking population by the Kiev authorities, Russia recognised the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in February 2022 and responded to their call for help. In his speech announcing the special military operation, President Vladimir Putin identified the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine as its primary goals, in line with the aforementioned reasons for the SMO.

BRZEZINSKI’S THE GRAND CHESSBOARD

It is worth noting that all the steps aimed at ‘tearing Ukraine away’ from Russia and using it as a battering ram against Moscow directly reflect the geostrategic concept outlined in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book The Grand Chessboard (1997). Brzezinski, one of the leading architects of US foreign policy for decades, since the 1970s, attributed an ‘imperial policy’ to Moscow while promoting American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (the book’s full title). In accordance with the logic of containing Russia, the modern system of international relations continues to develop, or rather, degrade precisely.

SANCTA SIMPLICITAS

Meanwhile, homegrown experts raised on Western political narratives continue to recycle relic accusations against Moscow, adding fuel to the fire of unbridled propaganda. O sancta simplicitas! (Oh, holy simplicity!) - this is exactly how, according to legend, the Czech thinker and religious reformer Jan Hus addressed a humble old woman who added firewood to the pyre to which he was condemned for daring to disagree with the prevailing dogma. This is precisely the kind of political dogma that is now being imposed on the world, the myth of ‘Russian imperial policy’ and ‘Russian threat’, which has replaced the mantra of the ‘communist threat’ that existed for half a century during the Cold War.

NEW WORLD ORDER

The success of future negotiations on Ukraine, as well as the stability of the future international system, will largely depend on the West’s recognition of the futility of attempts to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia, as well as the need to overcome neocolonial remnants persisting in international politics. It is time to develop principles for a new ‘peaceful coexistence’, to build a new, more just world order, where the ‘global majority’ – non-Western actors – will take their rightful place in the new global system of coordinates. In the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, “The West ruled the world for more than five centuries. This era has ended.”

Oleg Zhegl is chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Russian Federation in Jamaica. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.