Western commentary on the Russian war in Ukraine has often neglected a key factor in any conflict: history. 

Pundits and analysts have suggested nostalgia for the Soviet Union, opposition to NATO expansion, Putin’s need to solidify his regime, naked imperialism, or any number of other motives as the cause of Russia’s invasion, perhaps correctly. But the war in Ukraine is easily explainable from the standpoint of Russian history. 

Since the days of Tsar Peter the Great in the early 18th century, when Russia first became a major player in European politics, the territory now known as the Ukraine has been the center of Russian foreign policy. The Crimean peninsula and the Black Sea port of Odesa have been the main objectives of Russian strategy, as controlling them would open up Russia to warm water trade. 

From 1686-1700, Peter the Great fought for control of Crimea and its key fortress, Azov, which gave its name to the modern Ukrainian paramilitary group, eventually taking it from the Mongol Khanate of Crimea and building Russia’s first-ever naval base. 

Tsarina Catherine the Great of Russia formally incorporated Crimea into the Russian Empire in 1783 after driving out the Ottoman Turks, until it became the center of the Crimean War, in which Russia was defeated by an alliance of France, Britain, and the Ottomans. Ukraine only became an independent country in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, and even then it retained close ties to Russia until the “Orange Revolution” of 2005. In this light, the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, and Russia’s attempt to take Odesa in 2022, are more of the historical rule than an exception. 

The area of Ukraine around Kiev, the home base of the Nordic Kievan Rus, who founded Russia, has also been a major concern of Russian regimes. Home to more than 8 million ethnic Russians and farmland that generates 25,000 metric tons of wheat every year, Ukraine, the name of which comes from the Russian oukraina, “outskirts,” has long been considered the breadbasket of Russia. 

For past Russian regimes, failing to control Ukraine has meant trade dependency, economic ruin, and openness to invasion from enemies ranging from the Ottoman Empire to Nazi Germany. History makes clear that Russian attempts to control Ukraine should be far from surprising. 

If the American foreign policy establishment had paid attention to these lessons from history, much of the violence in Ukraine might have been avoided. 

For example, while Russia accepted an independent Ukraine for 23 years, American support of anti-Russian policies and raising the possibility of admission into NATO provoked a much stronger reaction than many diplomats seemed to expect. From the Russian standpoint, looking at nearly 400 years of history, foreign meddling in the Ukraine region is an existential threat that necessitates a response. 

NATO and the United States have pursued an expansionist policy in Ukraine since 2014. If our elites had studied their history, they would have known that such actions would make war inevitable and could have pursued a more prudent policy.