The current Ukranian crisis is but the continuation of that of 2014, when the first pro-Western government sweared in after the Maidan riots.

Eight years ago, Russia halted with the sneaky annexation of Crimea. Due to its location, the peninsula is a crucial port for a mainly land- or ice-locked country. As such, it hosted a prominent Soviet naval base, and it has been the first target of Putin’s recovery strategy.

Today, the scale of operations seems wider, and targeted at multiple fronts. From the Russian territory in the east, Crimea in the south, Belarus in the north and Transnistria in the west, Russian and allied troops are encircling Ukraine.

Therefore, a first question emerges: What has changed since 2014?

In 2019, Ukraine elected Volodymyr Zelensky, the champion of the anti-Russian sentiment of Maidan, exacerbated by the loss of Crimea. Indeed, the most salient issue of his campaign has been the proposal for a referendum to access NATO and the EU. Thus, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the personal relations of the Russian and Ukrainan leaders have deteriorated over the last years.

But why is Russia so adamant against a change of foreign-policy alignment in Ukraine? Didn’t the Baltic states – also neighbouring Russia – join NATO and EU in 2004, without much ado?

In the Russian perspective, the case of Ukraine is quite different, and the reasons deal with history.

The events that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union were sudden and disordered. As a result, all the republics then composing the federation have become independent states, including those who almost never existed as such prior to the USSR. Contrary to the Baltic states, Ukraine (and Belarus) are among the latter group. Indeed, the Russian Empire – in its multiple stages of strength and weakness – had constantly ruled Eastern Ukraine since its proclamation with Ivan the Terrible in the XVI century, and the central part of the country since 1654, while Western Ukraine was kept under Polish control until the partition of 1772.

What’s more, as an ethnically heterogeneous empire, Russia used religion – i.e. Chrisitan Orthodoxy – as the disitinctive character of its national identity. And the very first state entity unifying different slavic tribes under the orthodox religion and bearing the name of Rus’ was centred upon the Dnipro basin and had its capital in Kiev. Hence, Ukraine has never been considered an anonymous province, but among the core of the Zar’s dominions.

The Russian perception that they are ”one people” with Ukraine dates back to these elements, which are not applicable to Catholic Poland and Lithuania, or to Lutheran Estonia and Latvia. Hence comes the particularly strong denial of Putin on whatever peaceful solution ignoring a specific written provision that Ukraine is never joining NATO. In his mind, this is a preventive war that preserves core Russian interests.

On the Western side, President Biden has today made clear that the only involvement of the USA will be to protect their NATO allies in Eastern Europe. It is a choice based on realpolitik. Ukraine has traditionally been in the Russian sphere of influence, and the West renounces (for the moment) a possible expansion, but it does not lose anything.

The USA may be criticised for not responding to a blatant break in the international law they have contributed setting up, but the moral criticism that Russia will suffer out of this war definitely outshines it.

Therefore, economic sanctions on Russia are the right choice, but they will be the maximum the West is disposable to do, unless in the very unlikely event that Russia extends the attack to NATO or EU members.