Newsletters and Updates on CRM/Imago Christi ministry in Saint Petersburg, Russia and beyond

Monday, September 15, 2014

The Russian-Ukrainian Crisis


I certainly don’t want geo-politics to take the center stage in our missionary work, but there is no denying that this is the single greatest issue influencing our ministry context. The issue is changing the shape of the church in Russia; it is driving a wedge between the Russian and Ukrainian churches, which is very deep. The conflict is yet another reflection of the trend that authoritarianism is tightening its grasp in Russia. We have seen this happening throughout the Putin years.

But if you would have asked me back in January (2014), if a crisis of this nature and magnitude was brewing, I would have laughed! As Russia consciously returns to its Soviet roots, its policies and politics are becoming less and less transparent. It is in their best interest to keep the rest of the world (including the Russian people themselves) guessing as to what their next step is, or even their goals are. The element of surprise is always a strategic advantage.

This crisis has not had an effect on our present visa problems. In the slowly tightening grip of authoritarianism, Russia has been tightening its visa requirements across the board. Our present delay has more to do with bureaucracy both in the US and Russia, than it has to do with this crisis. The crisis would probably have to escalate into an open conflict between the US and Russia for it to affect our permission to enter Russia. If you want to read more about the visa situation, click here.

In brief, Putin began a policy to return Russia to its former glory and world power status. Without a compelling program or ideology, all Putin could do was enter into opposition against the United States. Opposing the US position every chance it got, and questioning the validity of the worldwide political and economic bodies led by the values of the US and the liberal, democratic west. In doing so, he also had to call into question the legality of the break up of the Soviet Union, blaming the United States for orchestrating its demise and keeping it weak. One writer has summed it up well:

Putin does not seek “the destruction of the hated United States,” a goal that he could achieve “only at the price of mutual suicide.” Instead, his goals are “significantly more modest: the maximum extension of the Russian World, the destruction of NATO, and the discrediting and humiliation of the US as the guarantor of the security of the West.”
To put it in simplest terms, Putin’s actions would be “revenge for the defeat of the USSR in the third (cold) world war just as the second world war was for Germany an attempt at revenge for defeat in the first.”

Ironically, this action begins 23 years after the fall of the Soviet Union (1991-2014), as Nazi Germany’s first expansionist attack on Czechoslovakia came twenty years after the Treaty of Versailles (1918-1938), both on the heals of hosting an Olympics. Are we bound to repeat history? 
On the one hand Ukraine has never been its own cohesive nation, and has never been really separate from Russian borders since the 17th century. Kiev was the capital of the Kievan Rus, where the Slavs were baptized into the Orthodox Church in 988. Ukraine contains many other cities closely tied to Russian history (Odessa, Yalta, Sevatopol, Simferopol, and Poltava among others), which it is inconceivable to Russians for them not be part of Russia. But the abuses and domination of Russia has alienated much of Ukraine (esp. western Ukraine) from Russia, which does not understand the resentment. 



But Russia has resentments of its own. All of the nations that the Soviet Union attempted to “russify” have now either joined the European Union, or NATO, or both, making the Russian ethnic contingents there persecuted minorities. Moreover the line between the Russian sphere of influence and “the west” has moved from the Iron Curtain 1100 miles from Moscow in 1989, to just 627 miles from Poland NATO, and 380 miles from the Baltic States in the EU. Now if Ukraine joined, Russia not only loses its naval ports in Crimea, and control of a major pipeline of natural gas to Europe, “the west” would them come within 285 miles of Moscow. That would be like the US having a physical border with Cuba at the tip of Florida, then letting Cuba taking Florida, then Georgia, and South Carolina, bringing its sphere of influence within the same distance (285 mi.) from Washington D.C.. We would certainly not be comfortable with that. Similarly, Putin is drawing the line with Ukraine. In hindsight, there were certainly injustices taken on by Russia in the fall of the Soviet Union, but Putin need not have gone about correcting them in this way!

Ironically, each of Putin’s goals seems to be backfiring. His attempts to reign in and subject Ukraine is galvanizing Ukrainians against Russian influence. His attempts to make NATO crumble are effecting a renewal and strengthening of NATO goals and commitments. Putin speaks of fascism in the Ukraine against Russians, but uses the language of a Russian fascist to answer it. His bravado in the face of increased isolation and sanctions, and bold faced lies to his own people about the fate of their soldiers may cause Russia to turn its back on Putin, and ironically bring about another social revolution, just as the 100th anniversary of the Communist Revolution approaches (2017). I have long said: “The only constant in Russian history is violent, unexpected change.” Up to this point we had only personally experienced mild and insignificant examples of this rule. In this case you can see and feel the attitude of a whole nation changing.

Probably the most tragic split this crisis is causing is that in the evangelical church. Ukraine was the Soviet Union’s “Bible belt.” Almost half the pastors and church planters in Russia are Ukrainian! The best analogy to this in American history would be the division of the North and South churches in during our Civil War. The Ukrainian churches want Russian churches to publically denounce Putin’s actions. Russian churches cannot make such a bold statement and risk being labeled pro-western traitors in their own country. How quickly the Russian church has remembered the fears of living under a totalitarian regime!

Below you will find a series of links to articles which I have found most helpful to understanding why this conflict has arisen, what is going on, and what are the main factors involved in its escalation or resolution.

“Putin’s Economic Confrontation with West Will Destroy His Regime, Mitrokhin Says.” Window on Eurasia. Aug 9, 2014. http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/08/window-on-eurasia-putins-economic.html

“Putin Believes He can Win a War with NATO, Piontkovsky Says.” The Interpreter. Aug. 10, 2014. http://www.interpretermag.com/putin-believes-he-can-win-a-war-with-nato-piontkovsky-says/

“St. Petersburg to Moscow, and Back.” Aug. 17, 2014. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/opinion/maxim-trudolyubovst-petersburg-to-moscow-and-back-.html?_r=0

“The West Forgets History. Putin Repeats It.” Kyiv Post, Aug 25, 2014. http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/matthew-kaminski-the-west-forgets-history-putin-repeats-it-362003.html

“East-West Church and Ministry Report.” Summer 2014.

“Putin Ends the Interregnum.” The American Interest. Aug 28, 2014.

“Putin’s Covert Invasion of Ukraine.” Der Speigel, Sept 2: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/russia-expands-war-in-eastern-ukraine-amid-web-of-lies-a-989290-2.html

“Everything You Need to Know about the Ukraine Crisis.” http://www.vox.com/cards/ukraine-everything-you-need-to-know/what-is-the-ukraine-crisis

1 comment:

  1. Thanks, Bill, for such an informative article and all those great links! May God bless you!

    ReplyDelete