Motives Behind the Russo-Ukrainian War

Why the War
Of the two major wars currently underway, the reasons behind the Gaza conflict are quite clear: each side believes, rightly or wrongly, that it is fighting for its own survival. The causes of the war in Ukraine, on the other hand, are much less evident.
The dominant idea in the West (but only in the West) is that it stems from the will to power of an autocrat, Putin. That may indeed be one factor among many, but certainly not the main one.
To see this, it is enough to speak—as I have often done—with Russians who have lived in Italy for a long time and who generally think that Russia has its reasons, just as, conversely, Ukrainian immigrants believe their own country is justified.
Among Marxist epigones, it has often been said that the war is driven by economic reasons (capitalist interests). But wars for economic motives are actually quite rare in history, and peace is almost always economically preferable to a bloody, destructive conflict.
Moreover, Ukraine’s per capita income is half or even a third that of Russia’s; economically, it might even be better off returning to being part of Russia, as it was for the past three or four centuries. Before the crisis, for instance, it practically received gas for free from Russia.
Nor does Russia have any economic advantage in incorporating Ukraine. It would be as if Northern Italy had seceded from the South, only to seek to reconquer it later.
As for us in the West, supporting Ukraine brings only losses: we spend enormous sums of money, we have lost access to cheap gas (Germany is even in crisis), and now we must invest heavily in rearmament.
Furthermore, an Ukraine within NATO would be a major problem—just as it would be within the EU: admitting a large, poor country would certainly not be to anyone’s benefit.
So it is absolutely untrue that this is an economic matter: the war arises from opposing nationalisms. There is no economic advantage for either side, nor for us in the West, in supporting it.
In short, the war in Ukraine stems from the differing conceptions held by Russia and Ukraine: for the Russians, Ukraine is part of the Russian world (even while recognizing its independence); for the Ukrainians, it is a separate and hostile nation.
It is, essentially, a clash of opposing nationalisms.

Nationalisms
In Mazzini’s time, it was thought that if every people (nation) had its own state, wars would cease and all would cooperate. In reality, patriotism at the beginning of the 20th century turned into an increasingly extreme nationalism, which became the main cause of the greatest tragedies in all of history: the two world wars.
The principle of nationality is extremely vague. It would seem to indicate a common cultural identity (a shared mentality), yet Italians, for example, hardly agree on everything—divisions are endless and deep. At the time of Italian unification, for instance, a Lombard was culturally closer to an Austrian than to a Calabrian, and so on.
The only seemingly objective element is language. But there are states with dozens of languages (India) and languages spoken across dozens of states (Spanish), and every state includes linguistic minorities. Moreover, languages themselves are hard to define. In Latin countries, for instance, there are both local languages (or dialects?) and national ones: are Venetian and Valencian languages or dialects?
In the USSR, there were dozens of languages, but everyone also spoke Russian. In particular, in Ukraine everyone spoke Russian fluently, as it was the official language of schools and administrations. So—are they Russians or Ukrainians?

Before 1992, Russia was divided into 14 republics—formally sovereign states, but in reality merely administrative divisions. The same can be found in the USA or Brazil, which are federations of states. It is true that the Soviet republics were, legally speaking, allowed to secede, but in practice that was impossible.
The war in Ukraine is the consequence of the dissolution of a state—much like what happened in Yugoslavia or in the Balkan wars of the early 1900s—rather than a war between states.
Of course, it is impossible for every community to secede, but within any community there will always be minorities; some form of compromise is always necessary, depending on the concrete situation.
The question of nationalities is often treated simplistically, yet it is an extremely complex problem. The only reasonable solution would be to ask the communities themselves which state they wish to belong to—while always seeking a workable compromise.
Some time before the invasion, Putin wrote a long open letter explaining that Ukraine was a founding part of Greater Russia (which is historically true), but that if it wished to become independent, it could do so—provided that Russian-speaking populations were free to reunite with Russia.
In fact, looking at a map, modern Ukraine (not the historical or ethnic one) is essentially the southern part of Russia. However, the main reason for the invasion was to establish a pro-Russian government that would keep Ukraine out of NATO.

Ukrainian Nationalism
It is not accurate to speak of Nazism in Ukraine, as Russian propaganda does, but rather of a strong nationalism that often leads Ukrainians to ignore or distort history—a bit like what happened in Italy with the Risorgimento. All the sins of communism are blamed on Russia, which is accused of having subjugated Ukraine.
But we should remember that the USSR was governed more by Ukrainians (Khrushchev and Brezhnev) than by Russians, except for the few years of Gorbachev and Lenin, and later by the Georgian Stalin. It was not, therefore, a purely Russian domination.
Among its many disasters, the USSR at least had the merit of silencing nationalisms in the name of proletarian internationalism.
A notable example is the concept of the “Holodomor,” a historical distortion that has fueled nationalism (a phenomenon not unique to Ukraine).
It refers to the death of millions of peasants from hunger due to the famine of the 1930s—a result of the failure of communism’s accelerated industrialization, similar to what later occurred in China (the “Great Leap Forward”) and Cambodia (under Pol Pot).
“Holodomor” means “extermination by hunger,” implying a deliberate plan to annihilate Ukrainians. But famine struck the entire USSR; it was worse in Ukraine simply because it was the most agrarian region—the USSR’s breadbasket.
It is true that Stalin brutally suppressed all Ukrainian nationalism, as he did every form of opposition, in the name of proletarian internationalism—but mass starvation, far from serving his aims, would have undermined them.
The famine was a catastrophic failure, not a deliberate act—and Stalin himself was not Russian, but Georgian.
Nevertheless, many Ukrainians have come to believe that it was a planned genocide by the Russians.
In 2014, during the Maidan uprising, it would be wrong to call it a coup, as the subsequent electoral results clearly show. However, the problem is that about a quarter of Ukraine’s population is Russian-speaking. The spark of revolt in the Donbas was precisely the decision to revoke Russian’s status as an official language alongside Ukrainian, as had been the case until then.

The broader issue, revealed by the dissolution of the USSR and the birth of its 14 republics, is that in each of them (including Russia) roughly a quarter of the population belongs to other ethnic groups. It is therefore surprising that the problem has erupted so violently only in Ukraine.
The disintegration of the USSR’s national unity—carried out without consultation or preparation—was not, in my view, a wise solution. In the coming decades, one of Russia’s goals might well be to restore that former unity.
The accusation of Ukrainian Nazism, frequently repeated by Russian propaganda, is certainly an exaggeration. Yet it is true that Ukrainian nationalists during World War II (led by Bandera) sided with the Nazis. At least in Ruthenia (the Lviv region), the term “partisan” referred to Bandera’s anti-Russian followers. Even today, there have been groups invoking his legacy—now disappeared or silenced, as far as I know.
Russians and Ukrainians are not as different as they appear today; they share a single cultural sphere. We should recall the Cossacks and many writers we consider Russian but who were, in fact, Ukrainian.

Nevertheless, nationality is not an objective fact but a matter of choice and consciousness. Therefore, we must accept that Ukraine is a nation distinct from Russia, for that is the conviction that has taken root and become established in our time.
The greatest obstacle to peace in Ukraine lies in the intensity of these opposing nationalisms—each unwilling to accept defeat—thus perpetuating a war for which no resolution is yet in sight.