The Narcissism of Small Differences in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

I remember when I visited Crimea in 2015, I spoke to a retired Russian naval officer who was a longtime resident of the peninsula. He admitted that Russia had always viewed Ukraine as the little brother in the relationship and that perhaps Russians had underestimated how much some Ukrainians had resented that. I thought about this when I read the following excerpt of a Twitter thread by Alexander Gabuev in mid-March:

“The Russian Empire has never perceived Ukraine as a ‘colony’ and thus has never developed a discipline to study Ukraine as “the Other.” When Putin wrote that “Russians and Ukrainians are one people,” he meant it. These problematic assumptions have led to a giant flaw in the Kremlin’s understanding of Ukraine. Hence, Russian diplomats and spies who didn’t bother to learn the language or study the culture, and policymakers operating on stereotypes…The level of Ukraine expertise in Russia documented by Liza Surnacheva in 2014 was terrifying, and it hasn’t improved since. If anything, it only got worse.” ~ Alexander Gabuev, Twitter, 3/9/22…