Andrew Alexis Varvel

Bismarck

What are America’s victory conditions in Ukraine?

We know what Russia’s victory conditions are – conquering all or part of Ukraine. Down the road, Russia would like to conquer the rest of eastern Europe and central Asia. And cow the Taliban.

We know what Ukraine’s victory conditions are – liberating all Ukrainian territory from Russian occupation. And receiving security guarantees from the United States and other NATO countries.

We know what Communist China’s victory conditions are – to solidify Russian conquests, make itself look like a peace maker, and ensure a century of humiliation for the United States of America.

Yet, what are America’s victory conditions? I’m not so sure that most Americans have any idea of what the victory conditions of the United States actually are. President Trump and Governor DeSantis would apparently equate those America’s victory conditions with capitulating to Russia. President Biden would equate America’s victory conditions with supporting Ukraine to the hilt. Yet, what should the United States try to achieve with its Ukraine policy?

From my point of view, the United States has an interest in ensuring that Russia does not conquer Ukraine, ensuring that Ukraine has an ability to defend itself from Russian aggression, and helping Ukraine maintain its territorial sovereignty. That includes an interest in ensuring that Russia does not gain international recognition, or even acquiescence, for its conquests of Ukrainian territory.

Yet, what does this mean for Crimea? 94.3% of voters supported Crimean autonomy in 1991. In 1994, 78.4% of voters supported greater autonomy from Ukraine, 82.8% of voters supported the right of citizens of the Republic of Crimea to dual Russian and Ukrainian citizenship, and 77.9% of voters supported giving the force of law behind edicts of the President of Crimea. In 2008, an opinion poll taken by the Razumkov Center in Kyiv found that 63.8% of Crimeans wanted Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

So, the situation in Crimea is tricky. Yes, Crimea’s referendum in 2014 to join Russia should be regarded as a sham, given that voters were living under duress under Putin. That said, we should not automatically presume that it would be just to force Crimeans to live under Ukrainian authority. Although there clearly ought to be a recognized right of return for Ukrainians and Tatars in Crimea, it would not be in America’s interest to de-Russify Crimea.

And neither would it be in America’s interest to humiliate Russia.

A massive military defeat for Russia might actually be in President Putin’s best interests, and here is why. His war on Ukraine might not be just about conquering Ukraine, but may also be about altering Russian demography to suit his chauvinist purposes. When appalling casualties among Russian troops have already succeeded in emptying Russian prisons, non-Russian conscripts are systematically over-represented among the cannon fodder, and major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg have been largely immune from conscription, an obvious conclusion can be made.

For Putin, it’s heads I win, tails you lose. Conquering Ukrainian land with non-Russian conscripts would kill two birds with one stone. More dead non-Russians mean fewer men to challenge his regime.

One complicating factor in dealing with Russia is that while Tatars see themselves as the indigenous people of Crimea, Russians see Tatars as invaders. In Russia’s traumatized past, Russians remember how a Crimean raiding army burned Moscow to the ground in 1571.

The city of Chersonesus, later called Cherson (not to be confused with the modern city of Kherson in Ukraine!), was established as a Greek colony in the outskirts of modern-day Sevastopol in the sixth century BC. Greek colonists established similar outposts of Panticapaeum and Myrmekion where the modern-day city of Kerch is now. They founded Nymphaeum, Kimmerikon, and Theodosia, which later become known as Kaffa during the Middle Ages and is now known as Feodosia during the Russian/Ukrainian era.

From the fifth to the second centuries BC, the Bosporan Kingdom, a kingdom based on both sides of the Kerch Strait with a bilingual culture of Greek and Scythian, conquered the Greek city states in modern day Crimea. The Bosporan Kingdom became client state of the Roman Empire. Huns and Goths conquered Crimea sometime in the fourth or fifth century AD. The Byzantine Empire under Emperor Justinian I reconquered Crimea in the early sixth century.

Greek political power continued on the Crimean Peninsula through 1475, when the Ottoman Empire conquered the Principality of Theodoro, the last independent Greek state of the medieval era.

With the Mongol invasion of Russia in the thirteenth century, a branch of the Tatars made Crimea their home, from which they conducted slave raids into Russia and Ukraine for centuries. It is this iteration of Crimean history that Tatars consider to be indigenous.

Crimean Gothic was spoken as late as the late eighteenth century in Crimea. In the early nineteenth century, Germans emigrated to Crimea under Russian immigration schemes, and would become known as “Crimea Germans” or “Germans from Russia”.

So, if Russia were serious about questioning the indigenous character of Crimean Tatars, rather than merely relying upon the right of conquest, Russia would be emphasizing the historically Greek character of Crimea. Instead, Putin’s atrocities have kindled a strong Ukrainian spirit among Russian speakers of Ukraine.

I think the United States ought to be seeking an equitable solution which reflects this historical demography of Crimea. If the people of Crimea do not want to stay part of Ukraine, it should not be the policy of the United States to subjugate them to Ukrainian rule. The relationship between Russia and Crimea could be analogous to the relationship between Germany and Austria – sister states with similar language and culture, but with different governments.

The equitable solution means a complete Russian military withdrawal from Crimea, full stop. It also means that Ukrainian forces would not enter Crimea either. Instead, Crimea would become a territory under the interim administration, supervision, and control of the United Nations, and patrolled by UN forces.

In keeping with Crimea’s Greek past, the official language of Crimea would be Greek and its official religion would be Greek Orthodoxy. During two years of United Nations administration, there would be a right of return for those with documented ancestry in Crimea. This would include Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Greeks, Armenians, and Germans-from-Crimea, among others. Once the two-year period is over, the United Nations would administer an independence referendum to decide whether residents of Crimea would prefer to return Crimea to Ukrainian sovereignty or whether the residents of Crimea would prefer Crimea to become an independent country.

If Crimea independence is achieved, there would then be a ten-year time span under which the right of return would continue. Once this ten-year time span has ended, Crimea would have the right to conduct a referendum on whether to join another country.

This proposal should be America’s war aim, not Ukrainian revenge.

President Putin is an angry old man past his prime, driven by visions of imperial nostalgia to roll the dice to restore his beloved Russian Empire of yesteryear. War criminal as he is, he will eventually die. We will still need to deal with the Russian bear down the road. Our quarrel with Putin must not become a quarrel with the Russian people. Our enemy is not, and must not become, the Russian bear.

International relations are not about right and wrong. International relations are about keeping the peace within a realm governed by the law of the jungle, international law notwithstanding. To this end, the United States needs to promote its own victory conditions for Ukraine and Crimea which advance America’s national interests.