Vlad’s Bad “Misunderestimation”
BOOK REVIEW: Putin’s Revenge: Why Russia Invaded Ukraine
By Lucian Kim/ Columbia University Press
Reviewed by: Bill Rapp
The Reviewer — Bill Rapp holds a Ph.D. in European History and taught at Iowa State University before joining the CIA. He served over 35 years as an analyst, diplomat, and senior executive before retiring as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service in 2017. He continues to work part-time for the Agency as a consultant and trainer and was awarded the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal upon his retirement. Bill also has a fictional five-book Cold War Thriller series, with the sixth book, Assignment in Saigon, due out in March 2025.
REVIEW — In his new book, Putin’s Revenge, Lucian Kim tells the story of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by exploring the mind of Vladimir Putin and his perspective on Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s place in Russian history and the Russian imperial dream. Kim demonstrates how Putin’s mindset and autocratic system evolved during the past two decades to make an invasion of Russia’s independent neighbor all but inevitable. Kim begins with Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004. The author sees the popular revolt against the manufactured electoral victory of Victor Yanukovych as a turning point in Putin’s worldview. On the one hand, 2004 represents a shift in Putin’s perception of the implications of a future Ukraine that is independent and European-oriented. Perhaps even more threatening for Putin was his belief in the animosity of the West toward Russia and its historical mission as a Eurasian empire. The last point is the most significant because it points to how Putin would come to interpret—or misinterpret–nearly every event and issue surrounding Ukraine during the next eighteen years
In each of the following chapters, Kim charts the evolution of Putin’s increasingly frustrated and paranoid exaggeration and distortion of the developments that led to his decision to invade Ukraine. As Kim notes in his introduction, the responsibility for Russia’s aggression lies with Putin, and his ability to launch that aggression stems from the autocratic system he has installed that reinforced his paranoia and gave him unrestrained power. A democratic leader would not have interpreted the West’s or Ukraine’s actions as a threat, and a democratic nation would not have been able to conduct its invasion of a democratic and sovereign neighbor.
Much of the material in this book has been covered before and covered thoroughly. Nonetheless, a recap—especially now—is always welcome. Kim’s contribution is to review the developments of the past 25 years in terms of their impact on and interpretation by Putin. As a journalist covering these events stationed in Ukraine and Moscow for much of the period, Kim also brings a personal touch to the story, one that benefits, in this reviewer’s opinion, from the conversations and impressions he gathered while on the ground. For example, as the Russian support for, involvement in, and direction of the pseudo-civil war in the Donbas gained steam, we learn that support for separation from Ukraine and annexation by Russia was ephemeral and superficial despite the shared history and longstanding affinity felt by so many for their Russian neighbor. Moreover, the few careless and seemingly casual telephone conversations by Western officials pale in comparison to the constant and heavy-handed interference by Russian activists, such as Sergei Gerkin, who were clearly acting on the orders of superiors in Moscow. Locals were aware of this and while they may have been unhappy with the corrupt and ineffective government in Kyiv, they viewed these disputes as internal Ukrainian affairs and saw no solution in a union with Russia. Language, moreover, did not equate with national identity in Ukraine’s east. Even in a region that had benefitted from its industrialization under the USSR, a majority of its inhabitants had become accustomed to living in a newly independent nation that was developing its own sense of nationhood. Russian aggression in the Donbas only strengthened this trend.
The Cipher Brief brings expert-level context to national and global security stories. It’s never been more important to understand what’s happening in the world. Upgrade your access by becoming a subscriber.
Kim’s narrative takes the reader through the developments and crises that marked the years leading up to the Russian invasion in February 2022. Aside from the Orange Revolution, the list is long and included his reactions to President George W. Bush’s unilateral push for Ukrainian membership in NATO, the infamous Wehrkunde speech in Munich in 2007, the popular demonstrations in Russia against the rigged election in 2010 and a constitutional referendum in 2011, the seizure of Crimea, the pseudo-civil war in the Donbas, and the Maidan Revolution. On top of those, you have the growing isolation of Putin on a political island inhabited by sycophants and a paranoid leader whose obsession with isolating himself from COVID prevented him from understanding or appreciating broader global realities. In every case, Putin demonstrated his focus on what the West—and the U.S. in particular—intended for Russia, a myopia that was reinforced by his self-serving advisers and delusions about what his rule meant for Russia and what his legacy had to be: the reincorporation of Ukraine into a Greater Russia. Moreover, Putin was intellectually incapable of understanding the origins and nature of popular revolts around the world, assuming that they were simply the result of American plotting and interference.
This does not mean that the West and Washington escape all blame. Bush’s unilateral foreign policy and ‘freedom crusade’ were sure to alienate and frustrate Putin, although the two men shared a mutual affinity. Bush and his successors repeatedly pushed Ukraine and Russia lower on the scale of American priorities as Washington looked to refocus its strategic interests on the Pacific and China. In Kim’s view, that—and a false sense of optimism about Russia and its direction, shared by many in Europe–led to what Kim rather critically refers to as a “schizophrenic” approach to Ukraine in 2021 and 2022, whereby Washington tried to reassure Kyiv with strong rhetoric and demonstrations of support but avoided the hard decision on the military assistance the country really needed to deter a Russian assault. Time and again, underestimations of Russian intent and capabilities, as well as a fear of turning warnings of Russian aggression into self-fulfilling prophecies, prevented American administrations from taking the necessary—albeit hard—choices that would have bolstered Ukrainian defenses.
This, however, does not absolve Putin or the Kremlin of responsibility for the largest land war on European soil since the end of World War II. None of the U.S. policies after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire in Eastern Europe were intended as Putin insisted time after time to justify his aggression. Moreover, Putin consistently showed that he simply could not understand the concept and meaning of a popular will or uprising; everything must result from some kind of underhanded maneuver from a foreign power, especially the United States. The root cause, as Kim observes, lies in the legacy of Russian imperialism and Putin’s evolution from someone hoping to lead a Russian revival that would gain an equal role on the world stage into an extreme nationalist who equates that legacy of imperial Russian history with the need to restore the lost empire of the tsars as the only possible manifestation of Russia’s national mission. This is all part of what Kim refers to as Russia’s “post-imperial trauma,” which is colored with a sense of pride and shame—particularly toward the U.S.–after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the least, it means the restoration of a Russian sphere of influence in the ‘near abroad.’ And that includes an and to alleged Western interference, as Moscow chooses to define it. More specifically, it means the end of an independent Ukraine with its own national identity, since Putin cannot conceive of a Ukraine that is not a part of Russia. It would serve the members of the incoming American Administration, who have thus far shown little more than naivete in their perception of the underlying causes of and implications for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, well to read this book.
My only complaint against Putin’s Revenge is that the book lacks a bibliography, which would have been helpful, especially since the topic has received a lot of attention in recent years.
Putin’s Revenge earns an impressive 3.5 out of 4 trench coats
Are you Subscribed to The Cipher Brief’s Digital Channel on YouTube? Watch The Cipher Brief’s interview with CIA Director Bill Burns as he talks about The Middle East, Russia, China and the thing that keeps him up at night.
The Cipher Brief participates in the Amazon Affiliate program and may make a small commission from purchases made via links.
Interested in submitting a book review? Send an email to [email protected] with your idea.
Sign up for our free Undercover newsletter to make sure you stay on top of all of the new releases and expert reviews.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief because National Security is Everyone’s Business.