From Putin´s abstruse historical perspective, Russia´s military invasion of Ukraine is more akin to civil war than to a war between two sovereign nations. Putin´s war has been explained by either his greed or by Russia´s grievance as NATO has expanded East closer to Russia´s border over the past decades. “No grand theory can explain the Ukraine crisis”?[1] Take a little one then[2], the seminal Collier-Hoeffler Model, a model well known in conflict and development research[3]. It suggests to emphasize Putin´s greed and to act accordingly through aiming at his wealth via targeting his oligarch trustees.
Using a rich dataset of wars (mostly for
Africa) during 1960–99, Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler found political and
social variables that are most obviously related to grievances had less
explanatory power than economic variables. For the current Ukraine context, it
means that we should give little credence to views that look at NATO´s
enlargement as a root cause for Russia´s military invasion(s). Rather, we
should emphasize economic motives for Putin´s war and identify targeted
economic instruments to stop him, beyond and above rapid military equipment of
Ukraine to withstand brutal Russian assault.
Putin has excelled at manipulating the
psychology of grievance. For years, he cultivated a narrative of humiliation by
the West. That narrative supported Russia´s occupation of Crimea in 2014, when
Putin´s popularity levels shot up to their highest ever levels. Again, Putin's
approval rating seems to have soared since he sent troops into Ukraine late
February 2022. Economic sanctions by the West hit the population, not Putin,
and are adding to Putin´s popularity.
Large-group psychology and social conflict
have been investigated by psychiatrist Vamik
Volkan who conducted fieldwork in regions of war and unrest. Volkan found
that if societies don’t work through their sense of loss (of power, status, or
prestige) through a process of mourning, it can become central to group
identity – which in turn makes them vulnerable to manipulation by destructive
leaders who play on old wounds. Apart from Putin, Serbia´s Milosevic and Trump
(MAGA) are similar cases[4].
No doubt, Putin is greedy (and very wealthy).[5]
According to financier Bill Browder, since
“Khodorkovsky's conviction (in 2003), Russian oligarchs went to Putin and asked
him what they needed to do to avoid sitting in the same cage as Khodorkovsky.
From what followed, it appeared that Putin's answer was, "50%" He
wasn't saying 50% for the Russian government or the presidential administration
of Russia, but 50% for Vladimir Putin personally."
In Ukraine, Putin´s greed can be satisfied
by the extortion of the victim´s natural resources (cereals, oilseeds, gas)
because annexation would make Russia a world leading supplier of fossile energy
and staple food. A recent Information
Note published by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) has highlighted
the critical role that Russia and Ukraine play in global agriculture. In 2021,
both countries combined held major percentage shares of global exports in wheat, barley and sunflowerseed oil
(between 30 and 60%). The annexation of Ukraine would give Putin a huge
extortion potential as a quasi monopolist over staple food items, most
crucially important in poor Africa and Asia.
The annexation of Ukraine would also
consolidate Russia´s de facto monopoly of gas exports to Europe as it would
capture the all important pipeline North Stream 1 run by Ukraine´s
Naftogaz. Russia has been also denying Central Asian countries access to
its own gas transport network, and consequently depriving them of access to
Ukrainian transport towards Europe.
Sanctions are unlikely to be the best way
to stop Putin. Bill Browder (the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005,
and now a leading campaigner to expose Russia's corruption and human rights
abuses), likens broad economic sanctions to nearly killing the patient to
target the cancer. Instead, he has suggested to sanction Putin´s oligarch
trustees, probably along international adoption of the US Magnitzky Act ((named
after his murdered Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky).
Since Russia's aggression against Ukraine,
Europeans have already frozen billions in assets belonging to oligarchs. Recently,
the EU Commission drew up an initial balance sheet: By April 8, assets of
oligarchs and companies worth a total of 30 billion euros had been frozen in
the member states. According to the Commission, these include ships,
helicopters, real estate and works of art worth almost 6.7 billion euros. In
addition, transactions worth around 200 billion euros had been blocked.
Some countries are obviously further along
than Germany in tracking Putin´s Mafia.
Italy has long recognized that fighting anti-money laundering is a prerequisite
for successfully combating the Mafia. Germany, by contrast, is a notorious bad
performer in reviews by the experts of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)[6].
Experience in the fight against organized crime also helps Italy freeze the
assets of Russian oligarchs, with the powerful Guardia di Finanza having far-reaching rights.
So apart from military resistance and
secret service sabotage against Putin: Make Putin Poor Again!
[1] Janan Ganesh (2022), “No grand
theory can explain the Ukraine crisis”, Financial
Times, 12. April.
[2] Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler (2004), “Greed
and grievance in civil war”, Oxford
Economic Papers 56, 563–595.
[3] A seminal paper on violent civil wars, has been the focus of much
of the greed-grievance debate. The model argues that certain natural resources
such as oil are tied to increased likelihood of conflict onset. The links
between natural resources and conflict were confirmed by the data, apart from
the level of per capita income and the rate of economic growth. Primary
commodity dependence raises the risk of civil war exponentially until it peaks
with exports at around 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
[4] Alex Evans (2022), “Putin
and the psychology of grievance”, The
Article, 1st April.
[6] The FATF is affiliated with the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and is considered an important
international body for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
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