Russia and its Neighbours

The world was shocked by the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022. However, given the history of Russo-Soviet aggression against Ukraine and other neighbouring states, the war was predictable. The Red Army has always aimed to impose their Communist ideology on the world, and Soviet leaders have heavily relied on their military, actively encouraging displays of unprecedented levels of violence as a means of striking fear into the populations they have attacked and occupied. From October 1920 during the Civil War, when the Red Army’s elite Cavalry units rampaged through the Ukrainian village of Prelacy, to the famine in Ukraine in 1946-1947, in which thousands starved to death as the Soviets forcibly exported grain and foodstuffs, to the 2014 Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea which precursor the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, this new study reveals how this invasion was a repetition of history rather than a recent, singular aberration of the Putin regime. This book shows how the current danger posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a continuation of the threats from the Communist administrations that preceded the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. In a wider context, rather than being threatened by Russian Communism, which lacked an economic base on which to leverage the West, western nations are now threatened by Russian Nationalism, underpinned by considerable economic power stemming from Russia’s vast reserves of oil, gas, timber, gold, coal and other minerals. The book argues that Putin’s long-term objective is the restoration of the boundaries of Imperial (Czarist) Russia, and that he sees himself as the Czar of a resurgent Russia, with absolute powers, rather than the leader of a government accountable to an electorate. The book also considers the role of NATO, and the greater consequences of a Russian attack on a NATO state, as well as the threats of nuclear weapons and cyber technology in modern warfare.