The Reason Why Putin Does Not Want Ukraine in NATO and EU

There are many reasons why Putin does not want Ukraine to go West and joing the European Union and NATO.  But I read this article and a lot of this makes sence.

Ukraine broke of from the Solviet Union.  Ukraine became independant.  Putin is betting that we will split up and we will not succeed.  If we joing EU and NATO and we succeed, then people in Russia will want the same type of independance that Ukraine has.  Thats the way I interpreted this article.

Ukraine is Russia’s best hope for geopolitical and cultural survival

Russia and the West are losing each other yet again. The process of attraction and rejection between these two has been taking place for many centuries, and the next "repulsion" phase should be taken philosophically. Historians have counted nearly 25 such phases since the reign of Ivan “The Terrible."

However, the issues prompting today's sharp anti-Western themes inside Russia are not getting addressed.

The image of the Western world as a sinking ship, unfortunately, has a right to exist, but with only one remark: Russia is a part of this ship. No matter how much we flirt with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … no matter how often we remind them of the Soviet Union’s contribution to their development … no matter how well we stand up for them in the United Nation’s Security Council, Russia remains a part of the “devilish” West from the perspective of Muslim extremists who are conducting the "holy war” against the West. And Russia could be seen by them as the most vulnerable, therefore the most attractive target for expansion and takeover.

So, how could we stop this selfdestructive movement of Russia towards such a phantom target, redirecting it from its wasteful confrontation with the West?

There is only one circumstance which is able to influence this process essentially, as well as to affect the outcome of all centuriesold conflicts between "Westerners" and "Eurasians." Ukraine must succeed on its way towards European integration.

Indeed, Ukraine is a threat, however, not to the safety of Russia, but to Vladimir Putin's authoritarian state model, which is absolutely hostile to the West. It is essential for the Kremlin masters that the experience of their former neighbors who have chosen their own directions and models will never seem appealing to Russian citizens. They fear Ukraine, and its success, because it could offer an alternative to their path for Russia.

Success of the Baltic countries is not a major concern for them, as they don’t share the Slavic blood as Ukrainians do. They were perceived as strangers in the USSR. Ukrainians, however, are seen by Russians as a nation with similar mentality and culture. “If they have made another choice and succeeded, then why can't we?” many Russians would ask. Therefore Ukraine’s success equates to the political death of Putinism.

Kremlin guards dream of resurrecting Moscow’s influence of its USSR days. In recent years, when they realized that all their efforts to steal Ukrainian freedoms were futile, they adopted a strategy to split the nation. Putin, meanwhile, tries to persuade Western colleagues that Ukraine is an artificial state that will split if accepted into NATO. 

If Ukraine survives and demonstrates viability and irreversibility of its European choice, it will become the main argument against centuriesold disputes inside of Russian culture. The best way to help Russia today is to help Ukraine to confirm the fact that it belongs to European civilization. It will have an essential impact on Russian consciousness.

This scenario would be very positive for Russia, showing the way for its northern neighbor. Moscow’s strong hatred of the West, and efforts to emphasize selfaffirmation, have driven Moscow eastwards.

Standing to the east, eager to capitalize on this eastward shift by Moscow, is China, which has adopted a policy of economic and demographic absorption of parts of Russia. The goal is to draw Russia further into an antiAmerican bloc, thereby cutting its political ties to the West only to kick­start the absorption process.

If antiWestern paranoia and Eurasian fantasies in Moscow continue, the East will absorb Russia’s energy and rawmaterial rich Siberian region. Then Russia will lose control of the Caucasus region to a growing Muslim population. The rest of Russian territories will have the only choice left—to join Ukraine, which will have become a successful member of the European Union by that time. When Moscow returns to Kyiv Rus after a 1,000year journey along Eurasia, a new page in both countries’ histories will begin.

Andrei Piontkovskiy is a member of Russia’s Yabloko party. He is currently a research fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

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Does this make sence to you?  Or do you think there are more reasons why Russia does not want Ukraine to move closer to the West.  Of course Russia might see NATO as a threat, but I think this story has a lot of truth to it.