Why Putin Wants Ukraine. How Russia Lost It Twice. Wednesday’s Edition.

The Long Chain: Russia and Ukraine. Series 29 #2

On June 9, 2026, the leaders of eight northern European countries, the Nordic and Baltic states, called for Ukraine to be put on a fast track into the European Union. They backed Ukraine’s “irreversible path” toward full membership in NATO. The European Union prepared to open membership talks in the weeks that followed. Four years into a war meant to stop exactly this, Ukraine was advancing toward membership in the European Union and NATO faster than ever.

Monday’s Edition traced why Russia considers Ukraine to be Russian. Two forces, faith and security, set in motion centuries ago, that make Ukraine indispensable to Russia. Russia sees Kyiv as the birthplace of its faith and nation (Schwartz’s Embeddedness). And it sees Ukraine as a buffer guarding its open western border, a need driven by its fear of encirclement (Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance). For more than three hundred years, Russia held Ukraine in various ways. This edition covers how Russia lost Ukraine and why Russia’s cultural perspective requires its return.

The first loss came in 1991. The Soviet Union broke apart, and Ukraine voted for independence, with more than ninety percent in favor. That vote stripped Russia of its largest buffer, its bread basket, and its spiritual center. Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

That loss of control over the buffer states between Europe and Russia led Russia to view every nation that joined NATO as part of the encirclement it had always feared. Russia’s former satellite states joined NATO in 1999, then the Baltic states, which had been part of the Soviet Union, in 2004. From Russia’s perspective, the encirclement was happening.

The breaking point came in 2008, when NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia would become members. That declaration, in part, caused Russia to invade Georgia a few months later. That conflict is widely seen as a warning of what would happen if Ukraine joined NATO.

Despite the warning, Ukraine increased ties to the West. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, who aligned with Moscow, rejected a deal to deepen integration with the European Union in 2013, largely under heavy pressure from Russia. This prompted Ukrainians to protest for months, driving Yanukovych from power in early 2014. Russia read his fall as a takeover staged by the West to secure Ukraine. This drove Russia to seize Crimea, home to its Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol, and start a war in eastern Ukraine.

The seizure of Crimea was also a message to Ukraine: back off from integrating with Europe and return to Russia. It had the opposite effect. It turned most Ukrainians against Russia. With that pro-Western majority, Ukraine wrote its goal of joining the European Union and NATO into its constitution in 2019. It also rebuilt its army with Western training and weapons, not Russian.

That same year, Russia lost control of the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church in Ukraine won its independence from the Russian church when the senior church in Constantinople recognized Ukraine. This ended Moscow’s authority over the church that it had held since 1686.

Russia was losing Ukraine as a buffer to NATO and as the cradle of its faith to a rival church. This caused Putin to publish an essay in July 2021 arguing that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. He questioned whether Ukraine had any right to exist as a separate country. As he made that case, he prepared a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s cultural perspective could not deal with these losses. A nation driven by an Embedded Culture is divine to hold onto the birthplace of its faith. A nation driven by a High Uncertainty Culture is driven to defend itself against the loss of its buffer states and perceived encirclement. From Russia’s cultural perspective, Ukraine moving West was not a nation’s free choice. It was a threat to Russia’s safety and a theft of Russian faith.

The line from 1991 to 2022 is clear. The Soviet collapse led to Ukraine's independence, which removed Russia's largest buffer. NATO's expansion carried the West to Russia's border. The promise of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine was the final straw. Putin invaded Georgia as a warning of what would happen if Ukraine joined NATO. Russia's next warning, the seizure of Crimea, turned Ukraine decisively toward the West. The loss of the Ukrainian church took the cradle of Russia's faith. This prompted Putin's essay, written as the troops gathered, declaring that Ukraine is not an independent nation.

Friday’s Edition covers what came next: the full invasion of February 2022, how Russia’s church recast the war as a holy fight against the West, and where this chain of events is most likely to go.

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