Introduction

The following is an overview of the recent events and present state of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. We observe movement towards the end of the conflict in its present configuration and in two new directions simultaneously—a race to the final resolution of the NATO-Russia question. One direction consists of movement towards peace negotiations. The other is toward escalation into a open, direct NATO-Russia war likely to expand beyond the borders of Ukraine and far western regions of Russia. The race to resolution is on and it remains anyone’s guess whether peace or greater war will win the day.

Russia Proposes Diplomacy…Again

On June 14 Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a roadmap for ending the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War during a speech at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He called the “Ukrainian crisis” “a tragedy for us all” and the result not of a Russo-Ukrainian conflict per se but “of the aggressive, cavalier, and absolutely adventurous policy that the West has pursued and is pursuing.” He proposed what he called “a real peace proposal” for establishing a permanent end to the Ukrainian conflict and war rather than a ceasefire. Putin based his proposal on principles he has reiterated numerous times, most of which were agreed upon by Kiev and Moscow in Istanbul in March-April 2022; a process scuttled by Washington, London, and Brussels (https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1746596120971673766.html; see also https://x.com/i_katchanovski/status/1750362694949966291?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ). In particular, he has now offered “simple” conditions for the “beginning of discussions.” They include: the full withdrawal of all Ukrainian troops from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhia oblasts as they existed as of 1991—that is, Russia would receive all the oblasts’ territories not just those now controlled by Russian troops. Immediately upon agreeing to this condition and a second requiring Kiev’s rejection of any NATO membership (Ukraine’s “neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status”), from the Russian side “immediately, literally the same minute there will follow an order to cease fire and begin negotiations” and Moscow “will guarantee the unhindered and safe withdrawal” of Ukrainian units. However, he expressed “huge doubts” that the West would allow Kiev to agree to this. If his offer is rejected, Putin emphasized that all future blood-letting in Ukraine would be the West’s and Kiev’s “political and moral responsibility” and that Kiev’s negotiating position would only deteriorate as its troops’ position at the front (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/74285).

To be sure, Putin’s offer was not made under the illusion that it would be taken up within the next few months and was certainly another effort to lay blame for the conflict at Washington’s, Brussels and, less so perhaps, Kiev’s doors. Nevertheless, Putin’s public offering before Russia’s Foreign Ministry personnel is a most authoritative and official statement of a specific proposal from Russia; one that included paths to both a ceasefire and permanent peace, if Washington and/or Kiev choose to take them as Ukraine continues to crumble at the front, in the political sphere, and economically throughout this year. The pressure from the Western and Ukrainian publics to negotiate with Moscow will continue to mount through the U.S. presidential elections, as Ukraine deteriorates and the risk of direct, open, full-scale NATO-Russia war grows. It is possible that if US intelligence concludes and reports to the White House that the Ukrainian front and/or army and/or regime will collapse before the November elections, then the Biden administration may be moved to open talks or force the Ukrainians to do so. 

Putin’s territorial demands are not likely to be static, as the territorial configuration changes rapidly on the ground. Russia seizes more territories beyond the four oblasts and Crimea, and the negotiating algorithm changes. Thus, the seizure of areas in Sumy and Kharkiv may not just be an attempt to begin establishing a broad ‘buffer zone’ to move more Ukrainian artillery and drones out of range. The Sumy, Kharkiv, and areas near, say, areas of Nikolaev and Odessa in the south can serve as trading cards to entice acquiescence to talks, as long as Russia makes no claims on those territories. In other words, the Ukrainians could have inferred and were perhaps supposed to infer that they could demand a request for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Sumy and Kharkiv simultaneously with Kiev’s withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the four Novorossiyan regions. The incursions into Sumy and Kharkiv in May might reflect preparation then already for Putin’s official reiteration of the peace proposal in June. Putin’s call for Ukrainian withdrawal from the four noted ‘Novorossiya’ regions implies the ‘return’ of any and all other areas occupied by Russian troops. Continued refusal to talk with Moscow and any further Russian gains give Putin flexibility in enticing or threatening Washington, Brussels, and/or Kiev to the negotiating table. Refuse talks and lose non-Novorossiyan lands; accept talks and Kiev gets them back.        

Also, both subjectively (with Putin’s intent) and objectively (without Putyin’s intent) the proposal undermined Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s ‘disnamed’ ‘peace summit’ in Switzerland which was nothing other than an exercise in rallying support among supporters for the beleaguered Maidan regime. Tied to this issue is the Russian president’s assertions in the speech both Zelenskiy and the Maidan regime are illegitimate. Putin got mired down in some self-contradictions here. His assertion that the Maidan regime is illegitimate, since it came to power by an illegal “armed putch” – an absolutely correct one – contradicts his other claim that only Ukraine’s parliament or Supreme Rada is now a legitimate authority and representative of the Ukrainian people. According to Putin, Zelenskiy is not Ukraine’s legitimate authority according to the Ukrainian constitution and thus the Rada is, because Zelenskiy’s first five-year term expired without his being re-elected, but this is a plausible but debatable conclusion regarding a now extremely complicated legal issue. The key point here is that if the Maidan regime that arrived in power in February 2014 by way of an illegal coup is illegitimate, then the organs of power elected under it are equally as illegitimate, putting aside the issue of creeping legitimization by time (still too early) and international recognition. Indeed, it was a decision of the Rada on 21 February 2014 ostensibly impeaching the already overthrown (for all intents and purposes) President Viktor Yanukovych, without a quorum moreover, that gave a quasi-legal veneer of legitimacy to the Maidan coup, as Putin himself notes in his June speech (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/74285).

However, it should be noted that Putin’s raising of this issue is probably less driven by legalities than politics. Putin may be trying to drive a wedge between parliament and the Office of the President in order to strengthen any coup d’etat being planned in the wings by those such as former president Petro Poroshenko and former Chief of the General Staff Valeriy Zaluzhniy. In Putin’s interpretation of Ukraine’s “unique juridicial situation” as well as that of some Ukrainians, Poroshenko’s or Zaluzhniy’s legitimacy to rule is no less and indeed greater than that of Zelenskiy’s own.

It appears that Zelenskiy’s increasingly weak position at home, which I have discussed numerous times elsewhere, declining support for Ukraine abroad and most importantly in the U.S., Ukrainian forces’ dire situation all along the front and in the rear (lack of men and weapons to fight), the threat of a Russian summer offensive (see below), and Putin’s June proposals had their effect. As Zelenskiy arrived in Brussels on the eve of the NATO summit in Washington DC, a series of events confirmed the likelihood that Putin’s speech reflected developments in secret US-Russian talks, and Zelenskiy suddenly moved to suggest Kiev prepare (https://ctrana.news/news/467522-zelenskij-nameren-ustroit-perehovory-ob-okonchanii-vojny-chto-eto-znachit.html). In the days prior, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin telephoned Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and supposedly discussed measures to prevent a US-Russian clash that could lead to war likely motivated by the ATACMs attack on Crimea that killed some ten beach-goers, including children, and wounded some 40. It seems almost certain that there was some discussion of negotiations on war and peace. This was followed by rumors that a Russian plane had departed to Washington DC on June 25th. Now, just days later, Zelenskiy said in Brussels that Kiev “must put a settlement plan on the table within a few months.” This followed a statement weeks earlier by Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba and Office of the President Andriy Yermak that the next Ukrainian peace summit following the failure of early June’s session should lead to a peace agreement and include Russia directly or indirectly for the first time and lead to a peace agreement (https://ctrana.news/news/466816-kuleba-dopustil-prekrashchenie-vojny-v-ukraine-posle-sammita-s-uchastiem-rossii.html; see also https://ctrana.news/news/467121-v-kakom-formate-mohut-sostojatsja-perehovory-s-rossiej-na-novom-sammite-mira.html). This confirms my sense that the Ukrainian war will end one way or the other this year unless NATO intervenes directly with troops on the ground.

Moscow’s Military Plans: Reject Talks and War You Shall Have

Moscow’s military plans for the remainder of the year can be summed up as continuity in Ukraine and preparations for war beyond Ukraine against the West. Thus, in Ukraine Russia will continue its more offensive strategy of ‘attrit and advance’ upgraded from, an intensification of what Alexander Mercouris calls ‘aggressive attrition’ (https://gordonhahn.com/2024/02/02/russian-strategic-transformation-in-ukraine-from-aggressive-attrition-to-attrit-and-advance/). Under attrit and advance, Russian forces still emphasize destruction of Ukraine’s armed forces over the taking and holding of new territory. The attrition of massive, combined air, artillery, missile, and drone war supersedes the advances on the ground by armor and infantry in this strategy. Thus, territorial advance is slow, but personnel losses are fewer. The Russians do not have their eyes on Kharkiv and may not even be attempting to create a border buffer zone. The main military strategic goal of the Kharkiv, now Kharkiv-Sumy offensive likely is to stretch the frontlines and thus resources of the Ukrainian armed forces. Building a buffer zone is secondary and concomitant with the military-political strategy of attrit, advance, and induce Kiev to talk. Look south in summer or autumn for offensives or very heightened activity in Kherson and/or, perhaps, Zaporozhia. The goal of this will be to stretch out the length of the entire war front beyond that which is being accomplished by the attacks on Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts. The Russian strategy at this higher level is to stretch and thin out the Ukrainian forces’ already exhausted personnel, weapons, and equipment resources in the hope that a whole can be punched deep into Ukrtainian lines and the rear at some overstretched point, allowing a major, perhaps even ‘big arrow’ breakthrough aimed at some key Ukrainian stronghold or an encirclement of a large number of Ukrainian troops.

Despite the calls of some Russian hawks, Putin will never acquiesce to bomb Ukraine, no less Kiev ‘into a parking lot’ or ‘the stone age.’ For Russians, Ukrainians are a fraternal eastern Slavic people, with long-standing ties to Russia. Most Russian families have relatives or friends from or in Ukraine. Kiev is ‘the mother of all Russian cities’, and despite Russia’s possession of precise smart weapons, the risk of destroying Orthodox holy sites and other historical monuments in Kiev is too high. Russia’s overwhelming strength in weapons and manpower, despite Western inputs into Ukraine’s armed forces, could allow Russian attrit and advance to persist for many years—more than will be necessary to force negotiations or seize much of Ukraine.

Boiling the Russian Frog – Escalation by Any Other Name

There has been much talk about the US repeartedly stepping over Russian red lines. The most recent is Washington’s and Brussels’ (NATO’s) grant of permission to Kiev to target the territory of Russia proper (1991 territory) with Western-made weapons. The West itself has drawn many red lines that it said could spark direct war with Russia and, therefore, should not be crossed: offensive weapons, artillery, tanks, aircraft, various types of missiles, cluster munitions, etc., etc. Most recently, Washington crossed two red lines in rapid succession by approving Kiev use of U.S missiles, such as ATACMs to target Russian territory across the border in Kharkov and, presumably Sumy, where Russian forces have made a new incursion in order to develop a buffer zone so that Ukraine cannot target civilians as it has been doing in cities in Belgorod, send Ukrainian and Russian-manned pro-Ukrainian units across the border into Russia, and otherwise target Russian territory from northeastern Ukraine. It then expanded approval of the use of such missiles against any Russian territories from which attacks in Ukraine are being supported  (www.politico.com/news/2024/06/20/us-says-ukraine-can-hit-inside-russia-anywhere-00164261). Days later Ukraine fired 5 ATACMs (4 were intercepted) at Sevastopol which hit beach-goers far from any military target, wounding 46 and killing 3, including 2 children. The potential escalation of the overall war resulting from this Ukrainian target was compounded when on the same day jihadi terrorists attacked the ancient Muslim city of Derbent in Dagestan, long a hotbed of global jihadi terrorism in Russia. The terrorists, likely from Central Asia or Afghanistan’s ISIS-affiliated Islamic State of Khorosan, attacked an Orthodox church and a Jewish synagogue, killed several civiulians, 15 policeman, and cut the throat of an Orthodox priest. This attack will likely be conflated with the Sevastopol attack. Recall the jihadin attack on Moscow’s concert venue, Crocus City Hall, which Russian authorities immediately suspected to be one involvomng Ukrainians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has drawn few if any clear red lines, but several have been implied. Cautious and cagey Putin has never explicitly promised a particular response to any particlar crossing of a red line. Instead, he has invoked Russia’s great military potential, including nuclear, as sufficient reason for rational leaders to cease and desist. The assumption – both Putin’s and observers’ – is that this is a spontaneous, gradual escalation, driven by panic over Kiev’s deteriorating military, political, and economic situation as Russia marches forward, expanding the war front. The likelihood is that this is not a spontaneous response to conditions at the battlefront but rather a calculated policy of ‘boiling the frog’, and the ‘frog’ is as much Western publics as it is Russian political and military planners. After all, it matters less to Russian military planners at least why NATO is escalating the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War than the fact that NATO is escalating, crossing red lines. For Western publics, however, the approach of war needs to go unnoticed until it is too late. Whether by hook or crook, a false flag operation or a provoked Russian overreaction, Western NATO leaders seem intent on expanding the war beyond Ukraine’s borders and that will require Western public support and thus a vaccum of public discussion of NATO actions and national interests. Even if the constant escalation is ‘simply’ a game of chicken, upping the ante to see if Putin blinks or if the war can be dragged out past the November U.S. elections, there are many in U.S. intelligence and other departments, who are itching for a war against Russia who may escalate or enable Kiev to do so, intentionally or not, such that one is provoked. Unintentionality comes in, as Kiev has been anxious to force NATO or at least NATO member-states into direct involvement in the war. Ukraine has achieved some success in this, but so far such Western involvement has been limited, intially, to secret injections of Western troops and mercenaries, and then to open advisory roles. The summer and fall of 2024 will be a dangerous window in which a spark can detonate the larger war that such mad men and women are playing with.

To the extent that the West remains intent on continuing the escalation of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, Moscow will engage in asymmetrical escalation targeting Western forces outside of Europe and prepare for possible full-scale war with NATO or NATO members in and beyond Ukraine. Putin recently noted that asymmetrical escalation would be Moscow’s choice should the Werst continue escalating against Russian in Ukraine. Many commentators have noted what such options might be: arming the Houthis with missiles or air defense, supporting Hezbollah and/or Hamas against Israel, arming terrorist groups in the Middle East to attack U.S. bases, say, in Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere. Given the thousands of U.S bases around the world, American and other Western forces are eminently vulnerable. Moscow only needs the will and networks for deploying its ample means in the necessary directions. Moscow has the will. It is building networks.

Towards a Eurasian Security Pact: Getting Ready for Direct War with NATO

With war with NATO now firmly in the cards, a distinct possibility, the Kremlin is intensely set on military and military-political preparations. The rejection of Putin’s next peace proposal was likely the last straw that will set in motion the next phase in Russia’s diplomatic offensive in tendem with China aimed it rallying the Rest against the West. This new phase will focus on developing military partnerships and alliances. This was signalled most notably in the same June 14th speech in which Putin made his peace offering, evidencing the connection between it, the West-Ukraine rejection, and Russia’s first diplomatic move in this security direction. 

For years, particularly after the Maidan coup, Putin has been conducting Russian diplomacy with the goal of creating a Great Eurasian and global alternative to the West’s ‘rules-based world order’, seeking to base a new, alternative international system of political, economic, financial, and monetary institutions on different rules written by all the great powers – the ‘Rest’ – rather than just the West. This ‘democratization’ or a certain ‘de-hierarchization’ or ‘levelling’ of the international system is to be organized on the principle of multipolarity and diversity for the world’s major civilizations. Putin’s model has come to mirror the ideas of the late Russian neo-Eurasianist Aleksandr Panarin in many ways. It has taken years for Putin to arrive firmly at the idea of an interconnected Greater Eurasia as the core of a global community of civilizations, preferably ‘traditional’ (i.e. non-postmodernist Western ones) as a kind of ‘Russian idea.’

However, in his February 29th annual address to both houses of the Russian Federal Assembly, Putin introduced the idea of creating a Eurasian security system. He reiterated his idea of “democratizing the entire system of international relations,” by which he means dismantling Western hegemony or ‘rules-based world order.’ However, he also proposed replacing it with a “system of unidivided security,” under which “the security of some cannot be secured at the expense of the security of others,” and gave marching orders to Russia’s diplomatic corps and other departments to what in effect would culminate in a Greater Eurasian security ‘architecture’ or pact (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73585).

On June 14th, Putin declared the death, the “collapse of the system of Euro-Atlantic security,” and repeated his call for the international security architecture to be “created anew.” He instructed the government and foreign ministry to work out “jointly with partners, with all interested countries…their version of guaaranteeing security in Eurasia, proposing them then for a wide international discussion.” He revealed that during his May visit to China he discussed this with PRC Chairman Xi Jinping, and they “noted that the Russian proposal does not contradict, but, to the contrary, compliments and is fully in agreement with the basic principles of the Chinese initiative in the sphere of global security.” Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy responded to the summit by criticizing China for being Putin’s tool, contributing further to the anti-diplomatic dynamic and isolation of the West from the Rest (https://breakingdefense.com/2024/06/in-surprise-singapore-visit-zelenksyy-asks-for-asian-support-in-peace-talks-accuses-china-of-disruption/). China responded by declaring its geopolitical military solidarity with Russia. Nevertheless, in his June speech Putin stated that Russia “future architecture of security is open to all Eurasian countries,” including “European and NATO countries.” This Greater Eurasia security pact is thus also a mechanism for splitting NATO, particularly Europe from the U.S. This is to be achieved by networking and lobbying all the international organizations in Eurasia that Russia has been building for decades now: the Russia-Belarus Union, BRICS+, SCO, EES, CSTO, and the CIS—all specifically mentioned by Putin in his speech behind such a project—as well as “influential international organizations of Southeast Asia and the Middle East.” According to Putin, the “states and regional structures of Eurtasia should determine concrete sphers of cooperation in the area of joint security. Proceeding from this: that they themselves should build a system of working institutions, mechanisms, and agreements that would really serve the attainment of the common goals of stability and development.” In this regard, he supported the Belarus’s proposal “to work out a programmatic document: a charter of multipolarity and diversity in the 21st century” (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/74285). The Belarusian proposal was made by Minsk’s Foreign Minister in 23 October 2023 speech and envisaged what Putin discussed on June 14 but included the OSCE as a potential participant (https://ont.by/news/belarus-predlagaet-miru-razrabotat-hartiyu-mnogoobraziya-dlya-xxi-veka).

It is likely no coincidence that Putin openly supported Belarus’s idea of such a charter ten days before Belarus, with Russian sponsorship, was set to become a member of SCO on June 25th. Belarus’s membership in the largely Asian based organization founded by Moscow and Beijing places SCO’s flag farter west than ever before. This comes days after Putin’s visit to North Korea and the agreement to establish a de facto Russo-North Korean alliance. Thus, the gorwing network of theb Sino-Russian-organized networks of international networks based in Eurasia but extending globally through BRICS+5 to every continent is growing apace and now includes a robust security component.

         Putin suggested in his June 14th speech that building an “undivided system of Eurasian security” and in fact global security architecture would be a post-Ukrainian war focus, again implying possible inclusion of the West or elements thereof, in any such architecture. But the train of the Rest’s rejection of the Western worldview has left the station, and, with the danger of escalation in Ukraine, Israel, and elsewhere afoot, it seems more likely that the new Eurasian-South bloc will be an alternative to, possibly a foe of the West’s ‘rules-based world order’ rather than a partner (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/74285). 

Conclusion

         Again, the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War – the current war with militay combat confined largely to Ukrainian and far western Russian territory — will end this year or very early next year. However, a new broader war can take its place, if the peace fails or is never agreed upon. Such a broader war could be confined to the present war’s territorial parameters in Ukraine, while expanding to a worldwide proxy war led by Russia and its direct or indirect allies against Western foreigbn bases and/or spreading to western Ukraine as a result of a NATO military intervention across the Dniepr’s Right Bank. A NATO fighter jets, such as F-16s, based outside Ukraine, could make Romanian or Polish air bases or other facilities targets for Russian missiles and drones. A NATO or Russian no fly zone of one kind or another could lead to NATO-Russian air combat. A Russian shootdown of the U.S. intelligence drone Global Hawk could be the spark for such tensions in the air.

         The hope is that cooler heads will prevail, but the U.S. is in the midst of a deep and potentially explosive political crisis in which bureaucratic politics can become highly cryptic, conspiratorial, chaotic, and irrational, provoking new more dangerous conflict. Similarly, in Kiev a meltdown of the Maidan regime could be imminent and will likely come as a shot in the dark, unexpected by all. That could lead to the same kind of breakdown of bureaucratic, state discipline, and the rule of law – something far weaker in Ukraine than in the `U.S. – and lead to clandestine adventures of desparation, such as a false flag on a nuclear plat in Ukraine’s Energodar or elsewhere or ‘Hail Mary’ operation targeting a Russian nuclear or other strategic object, sparking a Russian overreaction and a full-scale NATO-Russian war. Worse still, state organizational (as opposed to territorial) breakdown in Ukraine could bring a complete political, economic, social, and state breakdown, with opposing Ukrainian partisan armies, warlords, and ultranationalist/neofascist formations fighting between themselves and carrying out guerilla and terrorist warfare against Russian and even Western occupiers. That Zelenskiy is now broaching peace talks with Putin is a reflection of the opportunity and dangers that are in the offing.  

NEW BOOK

EUROPE BOOKS, 2022

RECENT BOOKS

MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2021

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MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2018

About the Author – 

Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu

Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media. 

Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.

INTRODUCTION

            Reading perhaps Russia’s greatest thinker, Nikolai Berdyaev, during the horrors of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian war, I thought it might be of some interest to examine Berdyaev’s views on war, Russia, and Ukraine. Berdyaev was born near Kiev, in Obukhov, Kiev Oblast’, lived in Kiev and its environs, and attended a series of educational institutions in Kiev, including Kiev University. However, like many born in Ukraine over the centuries, he identified exclusively as a Russian, having no Ukrainian but rather noble Russian, noble French, as well as Polish and Tatar ancestry.

Living in the Russian Empire, he was caught up in many of its intellectual trends and political events. Drawn to Marxism in his university days and exiled to Vologda in 1897 for anti-Tsarist activity, Berdyaev soon abandoned such thought in favor of a moderate conservatism and revival of his Orthodox faith. He was very much opposed to the atheistic communist Bolshevik regime, and was arrested and interrogated by Cheka chief Felix Dzerzhinskii and deported from Soviet Russia along with hundreds of other philosophers and conservative intelligents in 1922. Berdyaev remained loyal but critical both of the Tsarist regime and Orthodox Church. As a thinker, he produced a free religious, historical, and political philosophy, with his greatest contributions being made to philosophy of history, so popular among the Russian intelligentsia both in his and our time. His thought reflected many of the elements extant in Russian culture and thought during the late 19th century, as I have analysed in my Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Culture, Thought, History and Politics (Europe Books, 2022) and my working paper “Russian Historical Tselostnost’” (https://gordonhahn.com/2023/04/13/working-paper-russian-historical-tselostnost-parts-1-3-conclusion/, 13 April 2023), including: monism, universalism, communalism, solidarism, messianism, historicism, transcendentalism and anti-bourgeoisism.

Berdyaev’s monism, like that of most of Russian religious and philosophical thought, held that God was present in the world and the Heavenly Kingdom and Divine were interconnected with the material world, humankind, and individual persons’ lives. Humankind’s purpose should be to prepare for the full unity of the universe and the Heavenly Kingdom, between spirit and matter, God and humankind. Berdyaev’s very Russian belief in or aspiration to unity or wholeness or tselostnost’ enveloped other types of tselostnost’: universalism, communalism, solidarism, and historical unity (Hahn, Russian Tselostnost’, pp. 138-42, 380-2, 567-8, 725-6, and “Russian Historical Tselostnost’”). As an Orthodox Christian, Berdyaev believed in the ultimate unity of all humankind in Christ—putting his Russian univeralist and monist tselostnost’ in brief (Hahn, Russian Tselostnost’, pp. 138-42, 380-2).

Similarly, Berdyaev shared the Russian aspiration to and belief in the propriety of communalism—the priority of the group’s interest over individual interests and the benefits of this to individuals and humankind (Hahn, Russian Tselostnost’, pp. 567-8). Although he was critical of Slavophiles, he saw their belief and that the Russian agrarian socialists in the advantages and moral superiority of the village commune as a reflection fo Russians’ preference for a communalist rather than individualist culture. He also endorsed Slavophile Aleksei Khomyakov’s views of spiritual communalism or sobornost’ – ‘communitarianism’ or ‘conciliarism’ – under the protective divine wing of Christian love in the community of Orthodox believers and the Church (Nikolai Berdyaev, “Slavyanskaya ideya,” in Nikolai Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii (St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2016, pp. pp. 161-70, at p 162. )].

The Russian preference for political, social, cultural, and ontological (identitarian) unity or solidarism is also present in Berdyaev’s work as an aspiration, since he was well aware of the great schisms that plagued Russia historically and in his own time. As I discuss below, these foundational elements of Russian tselostnost’ in Berdyaev’s thinking accompany his equally Russian messianism, historical tselostnost’, his vision of Ukraine, and his views on war. 

Berdyaev, Russia, and its Fate

Berdyaev was neither a revolutionary nor a reactionary. He was, rather, a Russian patriot, Orthodox believer, a moderately conservative for his time and place, but he was critical of the Russian elite, intelligentsia, people, and orthodox Church. Presaging Soviet culturologist Yurii Lotman’s work on Russian duality, he was particularly struck by and quite penetrating and eloquent in describing the stark contradictions in the Russian character—its abundant antinomies: “In other countries one can find all these contradictions, but only in Russia does the thesis turn into its antithesis, the bureaucratic state is born from anarchism, slavery is born from freedom, and extreme nationalism from supra-nationalism” (universalism) [Nikolai Berdyaev, “Sud”ba Rossii,” republished in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii), pp. 11-44, at p. 29]. He points to other antinomies. Russian nationalism also coexists, it not produces Russian universalism: “Supra-nationalism, universalism” is “an essential trait of the Russian national spirit… The national in Russia is precisely supra-nationalism and its freedom from nationalism; in this Russia distinctive and unlike any other country in the world. Russia is called upon to be the liberator of nations” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 20). In this last phase we see one way in which one particular trait generates Russian messianism, a belief in a special global mission for Russia in shaping world history. In another antinomy, “(t)he other side of Russian humility is an unusual Russian self-opinion. The humblest Russian is the greatest, most powerful, and uniquely called” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 21). Here again, another essential trait leads, in Berdyaev’s thinking, to Russian messianism. In order to attain its proper status in the world and have its say in History’s course and outcome, it needed to overcome the negative sides of these antinomies.

Being a Russian patriot and imbued by Russian monist Christian, teleological historicism, Berdyaev, much like Fyodor Dostoevskii, developed a faith that Orthodox Russia would overcome its shortcomings and play an important role in leading humankind to Christian unification at the end of History. He certainly saw Russia as properly a “great Empire” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 276) and was supportive of Russia’s colonial advancement of less developed peoples and of Russia’s “heroic” army in World War I (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 100). At times, he wrote as if Russia was destined to overcome its insufficiencies and play a pivotal or leading role in history, but at other times he was urging changes to achieve this, thus implying an element of uncertainty in his own mind. For example, in his article “Spirit and Machine,” Berdyaev wrote: “If Russia wants to be a great Empire and play a role in history, then this lays on it the obligation to start on the path of material-techonological development. Without this decision, Russia will fall into a situation without exit. The soul of Russia will be freed and its depths disclosed only on this path (of material development)” (Nikolai Berdyaev, “Dukh and mashina,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 266-76, at p. 276).

Berdyaev’s own nationalism and messianism were reflected in his belief in a special historical role of the Slavs—his “Slavic idea.” He was no enemy of the West but was highly critical of its bourgeois materialism, which he blamed for the outbreak of World War (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 207, 217-18). “Russia is the most non-bourgeois country in the world,” lacking the “despotism” of the bourgeois family life and concerns Berdyaev averred. He conterposed to this Western ‘bourgeoisism’ the transcendence of the world exemplified by Russians: “The Russian person with ease of the sul overcomes any bourgeoisness and departs from any custom and from any normed life. The wanderer (strannik) type is so characteristic of Russia and so wonderful. The wanderer is the freest person on earth. …The greatness of the Russian people and the calling of it to a higher life are concentrated in the strannik type. … Russia is a fantastic country of spiritual drunkenness. … The Russian spirit cannot sit in place, it is not )of) the shopkeepers’ soul, not a local soul. In Russia, in the soul of (its) people there is a kind of endless searching, a searching for the invisible city of Kitezh, and unseen home. … Before the Russian soul open great exapanses, and there is no marked horizon before its spiritual eyes. The Russian spirit borns in a fiery pursuit of the truth, absolute, divine truth and salvation for the whole world and the universal resurrection to a new life” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 24-6). Here, in Berdyaev’s perspective, is a classic Russian vision of the Russian soul, replete with its monist, universalist, transcendental, and messianic expanse. Berdyaev was himself typically Russian in his tendency towards transcendentalism and wholeness, preferred over the everyday mundanity of Western bourgeois life and understanding. Berdyaev’s very Russian transcendentalism, symbolized by and reflected in the strannik, is evidenced by his own belief in and aspiration to wholeness in its various forms as well as by his messianic hopes for Russia (see Hahn, Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Culture, Thought, History and Politics).

Oddly enough Berdyaev did not view Russia’s main opponent in World War I, Germany, as having been soiled by its very bourgeois life and even denied it had a fundamentally materialist culture. German culture and messianism derived from a far deeper cause, its own peculiar idealism. German bourgeoisism, industrial-techological advancement were the consequence of the German spirit. “The German is a metaphysician” (Nikolai Berdyaev, “Religiya Germanizma,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 195-204, especially p. 197). In contrast to Russian idealism’s humility, however, German culture, in Berdyaev’s view, is imbued with an egocentric nationalism and aspiration to instill rationality, organization, and order in the world. While Russian messianism and universalism accepted chaos as the nature of human history before salvation, German messianism and universalism pursued humankind’s salvation through the willful elimination of chaos, and only Germany, Germans thought, can accomplish this task (Berdyaev, “Religiya Germanizma,” pp. 195-204, especially p. 200). In this way, like Russian nationalism, German nationalism contained and indeed nurtured the germ of universalism, however different a species of universalism it might be, not to mention imperialism.

Despite its own sprituality, Germany had chosen the path of “prideful” nationalism and the machine in excess and thus was in conflict with Russia and potentially could be better opposed by the Slavic idea, Slavic unity, and Slavic messianism. In his earlier writings, which have been the focus herein so far, Berdyaev adhered to some pan-Slavist tendencies and even proposed Slavic unity and messianism as an antidote and counterforce against German militaristic messianism. For example, in his article, “The Slavic Idea” (“Slavyanskaya ideya”), he emphasized that two of the 19th century Slavophiles’ and pan-Slavists’ shortcomings was to ignore or underestimate as well as a failure to address divisions between the various Slavic peoples and to harbor an inappropriate disdain for Poland because of its Catholicism, leaving the “Slavic idea” in a “sad condition” (Nikolai Berdyaev, “Slavyanskaya ideya,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 161-70, at pp. 162 and 163-5). Instead, Russia ought endeavor to unify the Slavs under the “Slavic idea” against the threatening danger of Germanism”, should emphasize ethnicity over religion in order to unify Slavdom, particularly its two greatest states, against Berlin (Berdyaev, “Slavyanskaya ideya,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 161 and 168). Indeed, Russia must, according to Berdyaev, “redeem its historical guilt” before the Polish people (Berdyaev, “Slavyanskaya ideya,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 165). “The idea of Slavic unification, first of all Russian-Polish unification, should not be external-political, utilitarian-statist” but rather “spiritual and focuses on internal life” in the Slavic world, which presumably means a concentration on overcoming religious schism, cultural differences, and historical grievances (Berdyaev, “Slavyanskaya ideya,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 170).    

One cannot help but be struck by the analogous configuration of the contradiction and conflict between Berdyaev’s view of world affairs, World War I, the idealistic orgins of German militarism in the aspiration to organize and order humankind, and the Slavic idea he counterposed to German imperialism, on the one hand, and Russia’s perception of American hegemony, Washington’s rules-based new world order, and Russian neo-Eurasiainism and Sino-Russian-led, Greater Eurasian-centered alternative multi-civilizational model for the international system, on the other hand,   reflected by BRICS+, the One Belt One Road Initiative, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Indeed, Berdyaev perhaps presaged Eurasianism in writing that “Russia should be demonstrate types of eastern-western cultures and overcome the one-sidedness of Western European culture with its positivism and materialism and the self-satisfaction of limited horizons. … We should move out into the worldly expanse. And in this expanse the ancient wellsprings of culture should be visible. The East should become of equal value to the West again” (Berdyaev, “Slavyanskaya ideya,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 159).  

Berdyaev’s endearment to the “Slavic idea” centered on a Russo-Polish rapprochement and alliance and his disdain for Germany’s imperialism and war machine suggest that similarly he would have rejected American positivism, materialism, and hegemony, NATO expansion, and its splintering of Slavic peoples away from Russia and if alive today would accept Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to block NATO expansion even at the cost of war in Ukraine. It is reasonable to conclude, in fact, that Berdyaev’s views of Ukraine, if held in comparably relative form today, might have facilitated not just his acceptance, nut perhaps even support for Russia’s ‘special military operation’ against Kiev.

Berdyaev, Ukraine, and Russia

As noted above, Berdyaev was born and lived his youth and young adult years in Ukraine, indeed even attending university in Kiev. So he could have succumbed to ideas of Ukrainian nationalism which intensified at the time or rejected them based on his essentially Russian ethnicity and identity as well as his later adult life’s deep imbeddedness in the life and culture of Russia in its imperial centers, St. Petersburg and Moscow. Initially, he dabbled in Marxism as much of his generation did but then turned to a religious idealism rooted in Russian Orthodoxy. The issue of Ukrainian nationalism and separatism was already a burning issue in the Russian Empire by World War I and was intentionally aggravated before and during by Vienna, and Berdyaev did not shy away from blaming St. Petersburg’s policy for damaging Russia’s prestige and strengthening separatism in Galicia (Nikolai Berdyaev, “Natsionalizm i Imperializm,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 132-40, at p. 139).

Berdyaev’s preference for and perhaps belief in Slavic unity would naturally have been predisposed him to oppose Ukrainian separatism. At the same time, in discussing the divisions in the Slavic world, he noted the tendency of ethnically close or related peoples to be less able to understand each other and so to more easily reject each other than peoples culturally and linguistically more distant from each other. (Nikolai Berdyaev, “Rossiya i polskaya dusha,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 187-95, at p. 188). This dynamic can be seen in stark relief nowhere better than in Russo-Ukrainian relations, though, to be sure, much of the antagonism has been seeded by Russia’s foes, seeking to sow separatism for centuries there—not to mention Poland’s and Austro-Hungaria’s own colonial relations with Ukraine. Therefore, Berdyaev was and would be today keenly attuned to the complexities of the Russian-Ukrainian relationship – compounded after his writing on the subject by the Soviet experience in a myriad of ways – and its role in fomenting the crisis that led to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian war.

Consistent with his pan-Slavist idea, Berdyaev fully rejected in his time the idea of a separation of Russia and ‘Malorossiya’ (Little Russia) or Ukraine. In his 1918 article “Russia and Great Russia” Berdyaev denied both the Great Russians and “Little Russians” any status as separate nations or peoples. Just as there is no separate Ukrainian nationality, he aasserted, so too there is no separate Great Russian nationality; there is only a single, united Russian nation, with “tribal differences” between Russians and Ukrainians (N. A. Berdyaev, “Rossiya i Velikorossiya,” Nakanune, No. 3, April 1918 republished in A. Yu. Minakov, ed., Ukrainskii Vopros: V russkoi patritiocheskoi mysli (Moscow: Knizhnyi mir, 2016), pp. 413-19, at pp. 413-14.). In other words, he perceived solidarist tselostnost’ and supported solidarism of the Russian nation as a united ethno-cultural entity, noting its centuries’ long continuity until 1917. He did so in the unique way of denying the Great Russians any national status separate from its union with Ukraine and other traditional territories and even Russia’s colonized peoples. Berdyaev was prepared to sacrifice even the well-being of each of the eastern Slavic nations for the sake of a unified Russia. “A suffering, sick, misfit Russia would be better than well-off and self-satisfied states of Great Russia, Little Russia, Belorussia, and other regions, thinking themselves independent wholes” ( Berdyaev, “Rossiya i Velikorossiya,” p. 418). For him, “(i)t is not possible to think of Great Russia without the south and without its riches. And it is impossible not to see a terrible betrayal and terrible crime in the destruction of the entire cause of Russian history which carried out the idea of Russia” (Berdyaev, “Rossiya i Velikorossiya,” p. 419). Assuming Berdyaev would not have acquiesced to constructivist arguments regarding nations, his pan-Slavism would have inclined him to refuse to recognize the formation of a separate Ukrainian identity and the idea of a separate Ukrainian nation and state. Moreover, Berdyaev asserted that annexations can be historically useful and condemned Europe for failing to help the Christians of the Ottoman Empire and wrote of Russia’s historical “calling” in his discussion (Nikolai Berdyaev, “Dvizhenie i nepodvizhnost’ v zhizni narodov,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 227-33, at pp. 229-32). Given his pan-Slavism, one can suspect that he had in mind any future Russian attempt during the war to help Turkey’s Slavic Christian peoples breakaway from Constantinople. Although whether Berdyaev, if he was alive today, would have or would not have backed Russia’s ‘special military operation’ into Ukraine is a considerably different matter, by all appearances he could very well have accepted it and the annexations of Ukrainian territory both in 2014 and 2022.

Berdyaev on War

In numerous articles written during World War I and before the fall of the Romanov dynasty and Imperial regime, Berdyaev discussed nationalism, imperialism, universalism, messianism, the role of words in politics and society, war, and Russia’s relations to all these elements (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii). The theme of war was directly related to the time in which he was writing, during World War I, when Russia was in the midst of a mammoth struggle of competing imperialisms of which Russia’s was but one and hardly focused on Europe proper. Berdyaev’s monist tselostnost’ was reflected in his belief that war was a reflection not just of humankind’s inner, spiritual world but of the divine world (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 205-18). War is material reflection of spiritual world, a symptom of internal disease in humankind, a reflection not cause of evil. In this way, all were to blame and responsible for and participates one way or another in the ‘Great War’ (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 205-7, 210-11). But most of all, it seems, materialism in its most concentrated social form – bourgeois life and values – was responsible for the outbreak of WW I. Here, Berdyaev’s very typical Russian transcendentalism emerges to indict non-spiritual, bourgeoisie life, which, he argued, kills human spirituality (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 207).

But on the grander scale of things, war is inevitable, an integral part of tragic nature of human history, which Berdyaev emphasized in his monist philosophy of history and historicism (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 217). His religiosity availed him to parse differing attitudes towards war he perceived in Russians and perhaps others between materialists and positivists. Berdyaev asserted that materialists’ greater fear of death more contributed to their greater fear of war and therefore their pacifism. Consistent with his monism, Christians (such as he himself), he argued, see war more deeply as a symptomatic expression of “spiritual violence”, which all inflict on others (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 208). There is a “dark irrational source” in the depths of humankind from which comes “the deepest tragic contradictions.” Evil in humankind was gaining full reign in the absence or insufficient ubiquity of the Divine. Yet war is a mix of good and evil. In terms of the latter, it involved violence and death inflicted by man against man. A truly Christian war (and state) were impossible for Berdyaev.  In terms of the good, war moved the tragedy of history forward towards its apocalyptic apotheosis of all humankind and the advent of the ultimate triumph of “Christ’s sword”, the Second Coming, and Heavenly Kingdom (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 209). Thus, Berdyaev’s views on war are based on his Christian philosophy of history and historicism intermixed with his Orthodox monism and universalism.  

Later, Berdyaev would develop a sophisticated religious philosophy of history in which he elaborated on the connection between the worldly and spiritual worlds’ struggle between good and evil and its relationship to world history and its ultimate apocalyptic, yet Christian outcome with the second coming of Christ and the advent of the Heavenly Kingdom to the material world. Here was a mix of beliefs in monism and historical unity. A hint of his subsequently more deeply developed Christian eschatology and teleology of History’s ultimate outcome and the following salvation can be seen in a religiously and metaphysically philosophical passage on war:

The responsibilityof man (for the war) should be broadened and deepened. Truly, man is violent and a murderer more often than he suspects and than (others) suspect about him. It is impossible to see violence and murder only in war. All our earthly life rests on violence and murder. Even before the beginning of today’s world war we were violent and murdered in the very depths of life more than during the war. The war manifested on the material plane our old violence and murder, our hatred and antagonism. In the depths of life there is a dark, irrational wellspring. The most profound tragic contradictions are born from it. And humankind, not enlightened within itself divine light because of this dark ancient element, inevitably is passing through the baptismal horror and death of war. There is an inherent redemption of ancient guilt in war. There is something foolish in the abstract wishes of pacifism to avoid war, leaving humankind in its previous condition. This is the wish to remove responsibility from oneself. War is intrinsic punishment and intrinsic redemption. In war, hatred is remolded into love, and love into hatred. In war the furthest extremes touch, and the devilish dark intersects with divine light. War is the material manifestation of the ancient contradictions of being and the revelation of the life’s irrationality. Pacifism is the rationalistic negation of the irrational dark in life. And it is impossible to believe in an eternally rational world. It is not for nothing that Apocalypse prophecies about wars. And Christianity does not foresee a peaceful and painless end of world history. Below is reflected that which is above, and on earth it is at it is in Heaven. And above, in Heaven, God’s angels fight with Satan’s angels. In all spheres of the cosmos there is fiery and furious elements, and war is conducted. And on earth Christ brings not peace but the sword. The deep antinomy of Christianity is in this: Christianity cannot answer evil with evil, resist evil with violence, and Christianity is war, the division of the world and its outgrowth until the end of the redemption of the cross in dark and evil (Nikolai Berdyaev, “Mysli o prirode voiny,” in Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 205-13, at pp. 208-9).

The above exegesis is not only Berdyaev’s metaphysical analysis of the meaning of World War I and war in general. It is Berdyaev’s recommendation to Russians on how they should interpret the apocryphal events they were witnessing.

Indeed, Berdyaev argued that Russians’ failure to adopt such a religious-metaphysical attitude towards the war that recognizes the “(c)reative historical tasks” related to the war led to a need for self-justification for Russia’s involvement. Self-justification was achieved by placing themselves above the Germans, who were portrayed as morally inferior. Russia’s “hasty justifications for the war or, more precisely, our self-justifications came to one conclusion: we are better than the Germans, moral right is on our side, we are defending ourselves and others” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 220). He continued: “For some (Russians) the German people were acknowledged as the bearer of militarism and reaction, and that is why it is necessary to fight with them—it is a progressive cause. Even anarchists such as Kropotkin stood for this point of view. For many the German people seemed the bearer of the anti-Christian principles and a false spiritual culture, and that is why war with them is a holy war” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 221). Berdyaev would likely see this less the less than humble and sufficiently arrogant and self-righteous today in both the Western and much of Russia’s perceptions, proclamations, and propaganda surrounding the NATO-Russia Ukrainian war.

There was no shying away from criticism of Russians’ behavior at the outbreak of the war, on Berdyaev’s part. He castigated the bloodthirsty nationalism that swept through Russia at the time as it did throughout Europe: “The orgy of chemical instincts and the ugly profiting and speculation in the days of the great war and the great trials for Russia are ourgreat shame and a black stain on national life” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 99). He saw this as a consequence of Russia’s weak moral education, lack of a civil society and civic honesty and honor, and one alternative side of Russian smirenie: susceptibility to the “temptation of easy gains,” which he saw elevated by in Russia’s bourgeois-philistine layer” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, pp. 99-100). Thus, he today would be dismayed by similar war mongering and the like coming from the ultra-patriotic wing of Russia’s political spectrum as well as from more ‘bourgeios-philistine’ elements such as Russian Security Council Secretary, Chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission, and former Russian president Dmitrii Medvedev.

Finally, Berdyaev placed the war in another larger context of the struggle between peoples for a “dignified national existence” that was part of the development of the world’s historical tragedy in which no nation had a monopoly on morality in war. “Тhe historical struggle is a struggle for being and not for forthright justice, and it is implemented by the comprehensive spiritual forces of nations. (The historical struggle) is a struggle for national being and not a utilitarian struggle, and it is always a struggle for values, for creative strength and not for the elementary fact of life and not for simple interests. One can say that the struggle among nations for historical being has deep moral and religious meaing, and it is necessary for the higher goals of world process. But it is impossible to say that in this struggle one people wholly represents the good, and another people wholly represents evil. One people only can be more right than another relatively speaking. The struggle for historical existence of each people has an internal justification” (Berdyaev, Sud”ba Rossii, p. 223).

CONCLUSION

Berdyaev’s thought on Russia, Ukraine, and war are a clear function of his Russianness and Orthodoxy filtered through his own personal struggle to understand the visible and invisible world and cosmos around him. In Berdyaev’s Christian eschatology, teleology, and soteriology dictated an even-handed treatment of the relative good and evil of the world’s peoples in the making of humankind’s tragic history, which was to end in apocalypse ushering in Christ’s second coming and the Heavenly Kingdom. This even-handedness is reflected in Berdyaev’s harsh criticisms of Russia alongside his attribution of a special mission. It is also evident in Berdyaev’s refusal to support Russian chauvinist positions in relation to Ukraine as well as Poland and even Germany. Great and Little Russians are co-equals in the Russian nation, in Berdyaev’s view. Finally, all are responsible and participate in the human evils of hate, violence, and war through which humankind must suffer to attain a divinely determined, not any man-made worldly and metaphysically historical outcome on earth as in Heaven.

I have frequently noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not the Stalin or Hitler of today. He is not an irrational, radical, bloodthirsty dictator or imperialist. Nor is he a liberal, democratic republican. Rather, Putin is a moderate authoritarian leader, who will democratize or authoritarianize dependent on what is beneficial for social and political stability, state integrity, and preservation of his and his allies’ hold on power. He is a balancer, who weighs and counterbalances various political forces rather than crushing them. The latter choice is made only when there is no other way to protect the cardinal goals mentioned above. This is true for Putin’s conduct of both domestic and foreign affairs. Putin always tries to find the golden mean, a fair compromise in any dispute between Russia and other states, between himself and other forces comprising the Russian elite clans, and between competing groups. These orientations were on display in the way Putin dealt with Wagner chief Yevgenii Prigozhin’s armed revolt against the top military brass, in particular Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valerii Gerasimov.

Rather than crushing the rebellion immediately, which would have been relatively easy for the Russian army to accomplish, Putin hoped and sought to avoid ‘major bloodshed’ in a way similar to the way Mikhail Gorbachev rejected the January 1991 Baltic coups attempted by Soviet Party-state loyalists against the secessionist Baltic republics. This was one of the final straws that drove the Party-state to direct a coup against Gorbachev himself seven months later in Moscow—a coup Putin played no small in helping to quell in St. Petersburg. Putin’s political career in a reunifying Germany, a collapsing Soviet state, and the disorderly Yeltsin years of organized crime violence and the Chechen war familiarized Putin with the dangers of rebellion—a lesson he had long ago drawn from his reading of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the treasonous role played by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks during World War I.

Now Putin was facing a far more ticklish situation than that of January 1991 but not as global yet as that of the August coup, no less 1917. The situation can be described as the following. A long-time acquaintance and political ally had betrayed his direct subordinates in the military chain of command – the two top military officials in the Russian state, Shoigu and Gerasimov – and two key pillars of both Putin’s political power and the most important operation in Putin’s political lifetime. There was the risk that had Prigozhin’s march proceeded much longer or actual large-scale conflict exploded inside Russia that morale at the front would have plummeted, risking the success of the special military operation. Moreover, the ‘special military operation’ (SVO) or war in Ukraine provoked by NATO expansion will determine whether the new Russian state – one Putin has spent nearly three decades rebuilding – will survive in its present form and how Putin will go down in history.

In this high-tension situation laced with the sense of personal and political betrayal how did Putin respond? He did not panic, he did not overreact, he methodically employed a sound strategy to keep the crisis from escalating into massive domestic military battle with some, not great, but some potential to spread and even devolve into civil war, depending on his and others’ next steps after a major battle around Serpukhov. He deployed the stick and the carrot, he posed a threat and took the way out. He positioned forces both in Serpukhov and along the other main artery leading to Moscow from the south where some 5,000 Wagner forces were moving on the capitol. He then issued a televised address in which he designated Prigozhin a traitor threatening the Russian state’s stability in a time of war. In other words, Prigozhin could make no mistake in concluding that should he continue the rebellion, he (and his forces) would face certain death or lifetime imprisonment (there is no death penalty in Russia) and go down in history as a modern day Mazepa or Tsarevich Aleksei, both of whom betrayed Russia under Peter the Great by going over to the side of the Swedes and Hapsburgs, respectively. In this situation Prigozhin had little choice but to accept the exit Putin agreed to—his exile to Belarus rather than arrest, trial, and prison for he and his Wagner forces.

Putting aside the risks involved in allowing Prigozhin and Wagner to remain free and intact, albeit trapped abroad, we are told that Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenka phoned Putin and proposed this way out from the crisis. However, it cannot be excluded that it was Putin who phoned Lukashenka, who Putin knows is a friend of Prigozhin of even greater duration and who might be willing to help his friend Prigozhin out of the bind he got himself into. Remember Putin needed an off ramp as desperately as Prigozhin. If it was Lukashenka who phoned Putin and proposed the way out, Putin theoretically could have rejected it. Certainly, a less discerning and balanced leader might have. But Putin is not that leader, and this was not theory. The moderate, careful, and methodical Putin who seeks to avoid extremes in solutions and outcomes was the Russian leader in a very real situation.

Despite Putin’s balanced leadership in this crisis, there can be no doubt that in certain, mostly ultra-nationalist, hardline circles, he has lost some of his authority. Prigozhin was popular among them, and Putin did not allow him to reveal an even uglier side that surely would have come out if the crisis would have ever devolved into a wider rebellion or civil war and Prigozhin came to believe he should and could succeed in seizing power. For these radical circles and perhaps even among others, Prigozhin remains a hero. His survival and potential revival in Belarus, which has shown some ability to destabilize, remains something Putin (and Lukashenka) will have to keep an eye on, as his most recent statements are not repentant (https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/3815). For the present, Putin emerges from the crisis somewhat tainted politically. Hardliners and less discerning Russians will ask why he did not crush Prigozhin or address Prigozhin’s complaints. Others will rightly say that Prigozhin and his revolt are a consequence of Putin’s ill-advised patronage and tolerance of Prigozhin.

Indeed, Putin tried yesterday and today to shore up solidarity between state and society and inside the state, convening and addressing an assembly of security forces as a show of unity and loyalty to him, the state, and the law. First, last night he gave a short address thanking the people and soldiers under arms for unity and support for the state and its president in the face of the potential instability posed by Prigozhin’s march (www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71528). That the people’s support is his central concern at this point and more generally is reflected by the fact that this address remained first on the official Kremlin site of the Russian president even after subsequent address were made today (see below), breaking the usual chronological order of videos and news on the site (www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71528). Should Putin’s popularity fall below 50 percent and with his aging, there might be some in his inner circle who would be willing to send him into retirement should such crises or debacles at the front become routine. Thus, Putin also checked in with the leaders of the seven main ‘siloviki’ (organs of coercion and law enforcement) departments the same day in a mostly closed meeting devote, according to Putin, to addressing issues related to the recent days’ events, including likely domestic political stability and implications for foreign affairs and the war (www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71530). Present was Defense Minister Shoigu, who might be a little concerned reasonably about the recategorization of the criminal case opened against Prigozhin as an “intraelite conflict,” investigation of such a case could determine or be arranged to put forth a conclusion that Shoigu was perhaps in some way also responsible for the conflict, leading to his dismissal a few months down the road.

This morning Putin addressed briefly an assembly of units of the military, National Guard, FSB, MVD, and FSO troops and officers praising their unity and support of the state and social order during the revolt, “standing in the way of troubles (smuta) that inevitably would have led to chaos” and having “ defended the constitutional order, the life, security and freedom of our citizens, saved our homeland from disturbances, and actually stopped a civil war. After a minute of silence for the some 20 pilots killed in fighting the advancing Wagner rebels, he emphasized: “Your determination and courage, as well as the consolidation of the entire Russian society, played a huge, decisive role in stabilizing the situation.” (www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71533). A few hours later he addressed a select group of what appeared to be young unit commanders, seemingly pilots, to thank them for their service. In the process, he underscored the state’s financing of both Wagner and Prigozhin’s catering company ‘Concord’, while implying that Prigozhin, whom he identified as “the owner” of Wagner and Concord, may have stolen some of those funds, which he said would now be investigated (www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71535). Analysts and Russian citizens might ask themselves what Putin and other members of his government knew about Prigozhin’s misuse of funds earlier and when did they know it.

Despite the bad residue and stain on Putin’s authority left by the Wagner revolt, any objective analysis of his handling of it has to conclude that Putin managed the crisis capably, calmly, carefully, and conservatively. He made no rash moves, demonstrating a desire to save lives rather than exact revenge and found a moderate, peaceful solution to a conflict fraught with potential for great bloodshed. If only NATO had been as judicious and balanced from 1995-2023, then we might have seen the great bloodshed that has resulted in Ukraine since 2014.

The only way Ukrainians will see anything approximating a holiday season is if a ceasefire can be arranged by New Year’s Day, and it just might happen, regardless of President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s repeated assertions that there will be no negotiations with Russia until it withdraws all its troops from all occupied territories, including Crimea. There are several reasons for the possible ceasefire.

First, the Russian hammer is about to fall on Ukraine. The gloves are coming off; electric energy stations, bridges, and even ‘decision centers’ such as central Kiev’s government buildings are being targeted. Russia is one or two more massive bombing attacks on Ukraine’s energy and transport infrastructure from permanently disabling Ukraine’s electricity, water, and railroad systems. With ‘only’ 50 percent of Ukrainian electricity infrastructure knocked out by the first three widespread bombings of electricity grid components, demonstrations are already breaking out in Odessa and other places over the deteriorating humanitarian situation, with Zelenskiy sending the Ukrainian KGB, the SBU, in to break up the protests and banning coverage in media. The Office of the President was reportedly recently informed by technicians that the electricity system has entered the stage of ‘arbitrary and uncontrolled imbalance,” and one official has urged Ukrainians to be prepared to leave the country in winter. What will the sociopolitical situation be like when these critical infrastructures are in complete collapse and temperatures are 20 degrees colder? Russia will be moving closer to the strategy of ‘shock and awe’, fully destroying all infrastructure – military or otherwise – as the US did in Serbia and Iraq and will likely take less care now to avoid civilian casualties.

After the infrastructures are completely destroyed or incapacitated, Russia’s reinforcements of 380,000 regular and newly mobilized troops will have been fully added into Russia’s forces across southeastern Ukraine. Even without these reinforcements, Russian forces continue to make small gains in Donbass around Ugledar, Bakhmut (Artemevsk), as withdrawals from and stabilization of the fronts in Kharkiv and Kherson have led to a redeployment and thus concentration of forces in Zaporozhe, Donetsk, and Luhansk. A winter offensive by some half a million troops will make substantial gains on those three fronts and multiply Ukrainian losses in personnel and materiel`, which are already high. This could lead easily to a collapse of Ukrainian forces on one or more front. On the backs of such a success Russian President Putin might also make another attempt to threaten Kiev by moving a much larger force in from Belarus than the small 30-40,000 force that advanced and then withdrew from Kiev’s surrounding districts in the first months of the war.  

Second, the West is suffering from Ukraine fatigue. NATO countries’ arms supplies have been depleted beyond what is tolerable, and social cohesion is collapsing in the face of double-digit inflation and economic recession. All this makes Russia the winner on the strategic level and is forcing Washington and Brussels to seek at least a breathing spell by way of a ceasefire. This is evidenced by the plethora of Western leaders calling on Zelenskiy to resume talks with Putin and the emergence of the ‘Sullivan plan’. Most recently, rumors have it that new British PM Rishi Sunak used a package of military and financial aide he announced during his recent trip to Kiev to cover up his message to Zelenskiy that London could no longer bear the burden of leading the European support for Kiev and that Kiev should reengage wirh Moscow. There has been a several day delay in the fourth round of rocket sorties against Ukrainian infrastructure, suggesting Putin is waiting to to see if Zelenskiy will cave and offer talks before unleashing the major assaults on Ukrainian infrastructure and the Russian winter offensive.

Third, Ukraine’s greatest political asset – Zelenskiy himself – just got devalued, putting at even greater risk Ukraine’s political stability. The Ukrainian air defense strike on Poland (accidental or intentional) and the Ukrainian president’s insistence that it was a Russian air strike, despite the evidence and nearly unanimous opposing opinion among his Western backers, has hit Zelenskiy’s credulity hard. Zelenskiy’s insistence on the Russian origins of the missile and technical aspects of Ukrainian air defense suggests that the event may have been an intentional Ukrainian false flag strike on Polish/NATO territory designed to provoke NATO or Poland into entering the war. Some in the West are beginning to wake up to the dangers of Ukrainian ultranationalism and neofascism, not to mention the growing megalomania of Zelenskiy, who has appeared on ore than one occasion to be willing to risk the advent of a global nuclear winter in order to avoid sitting at the negotiating table across from Putin. Some may now come to understand that claims that Putin wants to seize all Ukraine and restore the USSR if not conquer Europe are yarns spun by Kiev to attract military and financial assistance and ultimately draw NATO forces into the war. There remains a danger that Kiev’s dream of a NATO intervention might come to fruition is the following temptation. NATO has declared that a defeat of Ukraine in the war is a defeat for NATO, and NATO cannot be allowed to lose a war to a Russia because that would accelerate the coming of the end to U.S. hegemony. It cannot be excluded and may even be likely that should Kiev appear to be losing the war that Polish forces, NATO or some ‘coalition of the willing’ will move military forces into western Ukraine up to the Dnepr but do so without attacking Russian forces. This would force Russia to cease much of its military activity or risk attacking NATO forces and a larger European-wide war. This or something like it is probably already being considered in Washington.

For now, in order to keep the West on board, Zelenskiy is rumored to be pushing Ukrainian armed forces commander Viktor Zalyuzhniy to start a last pre-winter offensive in northern Donetsk (Svatovo and Severodonetsk) or Zaporozhe in order to put a stop to the West’s ceasefire murmurs and reboost support. At the same time there is talk of continuing Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy tensions over the latter’s good press and star status in the West. Tensions first emerged over disagreements of previous offensives and Zalyuzhniy’s earlier entry on the Western media stage. On the background of the deteriorating battlefield and international strategic situation, such civil-military tensions are fraught with the potential for a coup. Much of Zelenskiy’s strategy and tactics is driven more by political than by military considerations. Not least among the former is Zelenskiy’s political survival, which any ceasefire or peace talks requiring Kiev to acquiesce in the loss of more territory certainly will doom. Neofascist, military, and much of public opinion will not brook the sacrifices made in blood and treasure bringing only additional ones in Ukrainian territory. Others will ask why was not all of this averted by way of agreeing to Ukrainian neutrality and fulfilling Minsk 2 could have avoided it all.

We may be reaching the watershed moment in the Ukrainian war. No electricity, no army, no society. But here, as with any Russian occupation of central or western Ukrainian lands (not planned but perhaps a necessity at some point down the road for Putin), a quagmire awaits the Kremlin. Russia can not allow complete societal breakdown and chaos to reign in Ukraine anymore than it could tolerate a NATO-member Ukraine with a large neofascist component next door. All of the above and the approaching presidential elections scheduled in Moscow, Kiev and Washington the year after next make this winter pivotal for all the war's main parties.

Recently, I argued that Russia was provoked into beginning the ‘special military operation’ (SMO) by a series of events stretching from initial NATO claims of its goal to expand to Ukraine, NATO-Ukrainian cooperation, the Western-cultivated and ex post facto fully supported Maidan revolt (despite the neofascist Ukrainian element’s false flag snipers terrorist attack) to which Putin responded by annexing Crimea, Western support for Kiev’s attack on Donbass (including civilians), deeper Western and NATO involvement in Ukraine, Kiev’s failure to implement its obligations under the Minsk Donbass peace accords, and much else [see Gordon M. Hahn, Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West and the ‘New Cold War’ (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Books, 2018); https://gordonhahn.com/2022/02/24/coercive-diplomacy-phase-2-war-and-iron-curtain-descended/; https://gordonhahn.com/2016/01/21/report-the-russian-american-reset-nato-expansion-and-the-making-of-the-ukrainian-crisis/; https://gordonhahn.com/2016/03/09/the-real-snipers-massacre-ukraine-february-2014-updatedrevised-working-paper/; and https://www.academia.edu/37784742/Shooting_of_Maidan_Protesters_from_Maidan_Controlled_Locations_Video_Appendix_C_2018_?email_work_card=title%5D. As far as I am concerned, the ‘West/NATO expansion provoked the Ukrainian crisis and war’ is an incontrovertible fact.

More recently, I also argued, Putin decided to call off coercive diplomacy begun in spring 2021 and escalated in autumn through January 2021 by massing tropps at the Ukrainian border, when the West rejected Moscow’s appeals to end NATO expansion and sign a draft treaty on security agreements for Kiev and a European security architecture (https://gordonhahn.com/2022/01/31/putins-coercive-diplomacy/). The West’s rejection was accompanied by a major escalation in the Ukrainian military attacks along the Donbass line of contact and a threat by Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy to abandon the Budapest Memorandum, implying an attempt to acquire nuclear weapons (https://gordonhahn.com/2022/02/24/coercive-diplomacy-phase-2-war-and-iron-curtain-descended/). Zelensky said at the annual meeting of the Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2022: “I, as president, will do it for the first time. But Ukraine and I are doing it for the last time. I am launching consultations within the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has been asked to convene them. If they do not happen again or if their results do not guarantee the security of our country, Ukraine will have the right to think that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and that all the comprehensive decisions of 1994 are being questioned” (“Speech by Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the 58th Munich Security Conference”, by Volodymyr Zelensky, Voltaire Network, 19 February 2022). The Munich conference is attended by all the leaders of the NATO alliance and other parties interested in European security issues, and yet not one Western leader questioned the appropriateness of what would be a violation not just of the Budapest Memorandum but of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. That these immediate provocations were a direct cause of Putin’s decision to begin the SMO is not possible to prove, but the thesis is highly plausible if not likely a fact. Putin responded to Zelenskiy’s nuclear demache, saying that the only thing Ukraine needs is a uranium enrichment system, but this technical issue “is not an insoluble problem” for Ukraine, especially given the support Kiev enjoys from some nuclear powers (www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/putin-says-minsk-agreement-on-ukraine-exists-no-more/2510573). Incidentally, this is not only pertinent to Putin’s February decision but also provides some context for the struggle surrounding the Zaporozhe Nuclear Power Plant.

Now new evidence suggests that perhaps, perhaps, the West and Kiev intentionally or not engaged in additional provocations that prompted Putin’s SMO on 24 February 2022. For example, former President Petro Poroshenko has suggested that Kiev never intended to follow through on the Minsk accords and sought only to buy time for Ukraine to strengthen its military through training and weapons supplied by the West for an offensive to take back Donbass and Crimea. In a June interview to Radio Free Europe’s Ukrainian language service and the German Deutsche Welle, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the Minsk accords were intended to “delay the war” and “create powerful armed forces”: “Our goal was to, first, stop the threat, or at least to delay the war – to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces” (www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/272589263/minsk-deal-was-used-to-buy-time-ukraines-poroshenko). Then in an August 2022 interview advisor to Zelenskiy and his Office of the President of Ukraine, Aleksei Arestovich revealed that in December 2021 the Ukrainian armed forces deployed additional troops to the Donbass contact line under the cover of a training exercise “despite the damage (the deployment) did to the economy” (https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/8504). Perhaps this is what led Zelenskiy to tell the Ukrainian tntelligence services a month before Putin’s SMO began the following: “”We have learned to deter and counter external aggression quite effectively. I am convinced that the time has come to move to offensive actions to defend our national interests” (www.president.gov.ua/en/news/zovnishnya-rozvidka-vidigraye-vazhlivu-rol-u-protidiyi-zagro-72517). Then throw into the mix the aforementioned exponential increase in firing across the contact line undertaken by Ukrainian forces first and Zelenskiy’s threat to pursue nuclear capability.

I am saying ‘provoked Putin intentionally or not’ because we do not know what Moscow knew about these new deployments. Moscow did claim that Ukraine was preparing an attack on Donbass, especially after the SMO began, even claiming that it discovered documents proving Kiev was planning an attack. But it remains unclear whether these Russian claims pertain to the newly revealed secret depoloyment. Certainly, Moscow would had Donbass and Ukraine crawling with intelligence operatives and well-covered with electronic and satellite data collection and would likely have observed the ‘secret’ deployment. Then the issue might be whether Kiev and/or the West wanted Moscow to uncover the deployment, so as to provoke Putin into attacking. Or perhaps they did not want this, but Russian intelligence nevertheless did discover it, which along with other immediate challenges noted above prompted Putin’s decision to begin the SMO.

If the provocation theory is correct than it would also be correct that the West wanted Putin to invade, and if that is so then it would be logical that the West would want the war to continue. We now know that the West directly intervened with Zelenskiy to prevent Russia and Ukraine from finalizing a tentative agreement that would have ended the war in April. A recent article in the establishment flafship foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs written by two rusologists with deep ties to the ruling Democrat Party-state revealed this: “According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries” (https://archive.ph/kxfbG and https://raheemkassam.substack.com/p/russia-and-ukraine-came-to-peace?fbclid=IwAR0n03z7v-tJOjIOFC4_eXZCjvzyJbwzcgjycFbFigo9a9LV_FOA439_o74). This is one piece of evidence that the West wants the war to continue. NATO expansion and weakening Russia trump international security and Ukrainians’ well-being. The West’s massive supply of weapons, intelligence, military expertise, training, strategic planning, and financial support and Washington’s and Brussels’s lack of any effort in the diplomatic sphere to encourage negotiations further demonstrate that the West wants the war to continue.

At the same time, there is reason to believe that Zelenskiy himself may have been manipulated by the West, there is a new video circulating that shows French President Emmanuel Macron in discussion over the phone with Zelenskiy as the Russian invasion began on February 24th. Zelenskiy can be heard pleading with Macron to organize US President Joe Bden and European leaders to make a phone call to Putin and urge him to stop the military action, claiming that if this is done, then Putin “will stop” (https://t.me/stranaua/62507). On the other hand, Zelenskiy’s suspicions regarding Biden’s and other US officials’ claims of an imminent invasion and reports that Russia engaged in a massive bribery and recruiting campaign among Ukrainians before the war, which would have almost certainly led to some reporting the effort to the authorities and tipping off the possibility of a Russian invasion suggest that the Ukrainian leadership should have been well aware of the likelihood of an attack. Yet Zelenskiy showed no desire to negotiate with Putin on the key issues Moscow sought to have addressed: NATO expansion, direct talks between Kiev and the Donbass, the incomplete Minsk peace process, and so on.

In sum, there is some reason to believe that the escalation of the Donbass war ordered by Putin in February has a more interesting pre-history and causal chain than might be assumed even those who understand that Putin did not wake up one morning and decide to seize Ukraine in some master plan to ‘reestablish the Soviet Union’ and other such delusions. At any rate, the new war’s start needs more investigation and its origins are likely only to be revealed many years from now.

About the Author

Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, http://www.canalyt.com and a Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, www.cetisresearch.org. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu

Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.

Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, and the Hoover Institution.