In a detailed and fascinating analysis of Vladimir Putin’s speech marking Russia’s seizure of the Crimean peninsula, geopolitical analyst Gerald Toal (Gearóid Ó Tuathail) assesses five competing theories about Russia’s move.
“Why did Russia seize Crimea, and why did it do so when it did? These are questions scholars will debate for some time. There are competing hypotheses:
“1. The Geostrategic Explanation.
In his article “Is Putin a new Hitler (in the making)?“, political scientist and far right watcher Anton Shekhovtsov outlines the many connections between Vladimir Putin’s Eurasianist ideologues and the European far right.
Here is the case for considering Putinism a new form of fascism.
It may be one-sided, but it should be read alongside the defenses of Putin promoted by Stephen Cohen and others in the western left. It also demonstrates how the uses of the term “fascism” in this Ukraine debate need more analysis.
From Mykhailo Wynnyckyj, a political scientist based at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, who has been posting perceptive on-the-ground analyses of the Maidan and its aftermath:
“most western analysis of the motivations behind Putin’s military excursion into the Crimea (and his massive buildup of personnel and equipment on Ukraine’s eastern border) can be classified into two camps:
Eminent historian Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, writing again on Ukraine and the propaganda war over its future:
“But a maidan now means in Ukrainian what the Greek word agora means in English: not just a marketplace where people happen to meet, but a place where they deliberately meet, precisely in order to deliberate, to speak, and to create a political society. During the protests the word maidan has come to mean the act of public politics itself . . .
“The protesters represent every group of Ukrainian citizens: Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers (although most Ukrainians are bilingual), people from the cities and the countryside, people from all regions of the country, members of all political parties, the young and the old, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Every major Christian denomination is represented by believers and most of them by clergy. The Crimean Tatars march in impressive numbers, and Jewish leaders have made a point of supporting the movement. The diversity of the Maidan is impressive: the group that monitors hospitals so that the regime cannot kidnap the wounded is run by young feminists. An important hotline that protesters call when they need help is staffed byLGBT activists. . . .
