Debunking The Disinformation About Putin’s Comparison Of Himself With Peter The Great

President Putin wasn’t shamelessly admitting to blatant imperialism in the 21st century but making a valid point about the circumstances in which external forces compelled him and his predecessor Peter the Great to militarily act in defense of their co-ethnics and their country’s objective national security interests, both of whom were justified in their ongoing special operation in Ukraine and the Great Northern War with the Swedish Empire respectively.

The US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) got to work churning out a bunch of disinformation about the supposedly real aims of Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine following President Putin’s comparison of himself with Peter the Great earlier this month. The Russian leader did indeed say that his imperial forerunner “was returning and reinforcing” historic Slavic lands during the Great Northern War with Sweden, not conquering anything that wasn’t legitimately his civilization-state’s, adding that “Clearly, it fell to our lot to return and reinforce as well.” The disinformation dimension of the MSM’s “reporting” was to decontextualize this, twist it around, and then misportray his words as some supposedly shameless admission of blatant imperialism in the 21st century.

While it’s true that the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions of what used to be Southern Ukraine plan to reunite with their historical Russian homeland in the coming future, just like Donbass and the liberated portion of Kharkhov Region presumably plan to do too, this outcome wasn’t orchestrated by the Kremlin in advance. To the contrary, Russia’s prior insistence on Kiev’s implementation of the UNSC-endorsed Minsk Accords would have averted this fait accompli had the US-led West convinced their proxy to follow international law. Additionally, this was also one of Moscow’s security guarantee requests that it shared with its opponents in late December but which were all ignored, thus prompting that Eurasian Great Power to resort to military means for upholding the integrity of its national security red lines.

The second point to pay attention to is that the MSM’s disinformation narrative is meant to fearmonger that all ethnic Russians in the former Soviet Union are “fifth columnists” who’ll “open the gates” for a so-called “annexation” sometime in the coming future. This twisted misinterpretation of his words is specifically intended to sow the seeds of distrust between CSTO mutual defense allies Russia and Kazakhstan but is also relevant with respect to the Baltic States and Belarus too, each in advance of different strategic goals. This misportrayal is grossly inaccurate though since the human rights of Russians in Belarus and Kazakhstan are respected unlike those in Ukraine, while the Baltic States are under the US’ nuclear umbrella via NATO’s Article 5 so Russia can’t militarily liberate them.

Centuries ago, ethnic Russians were also abused by the Swedish Empire during the time of Peter the Great, who thus set about to liberate them during his years-long war with that neighboring rival. There were other driving motivations behind that conflict but “returning and reinforcing” historical Russian lands was definitely one of them exactly as President Putin recently reminded everyone. Crimea’s democratic reunification with its historical Russian homeland in spring 2014 was another example of “returning and reinforcing”. By contrast, Moscow conspicuously declined doing this with respect to Donbass precisely because it hoped that the West would convince Kiev to respect the Minsk Accords and thus ensure the human rights of all Russians in that former Soviet Republic’s post-Crimean territory.

In terms of Russia’s grand strategic interests in the global systemic transition to multipolarity, it would have preferred to ensure that the rights of its co-ethnics and speakers in Ukraine were respected through diplomatic means instead of having to resort to military ones to that end. The US-led West’s full compliance with Moscow’s security guarantee requests from late last year could have diplomatically averted the Ukrainian Conflict and thus eventually led to a “New Détente” between both sides. That in turn would have enabled the US to focus much more on “containing” China instead of having to divide its focus between both halves of Eurasia attempting to simultaneously “contain” that Great Power and Russia. Alas, that scenario wasn’t to be, hence why Russia commenced its special operation.

Had territorial conquests akin to Peter the Great’s been preplanned by President Putin, which themselves were misportrayed by the MSM as purely imperialist instead of at least partially related to “returning and reinforcing” historic Slavic lands, then he wouldn’t have waited nearly eight years to “invade” and “annex” parts of post-Crimea Ukraine. Instead, the Russian leader patiently attempted to use diplomatic means to ensure the rights of his co-ethnics and speakers as well as uphold the integrity of his country’s national security red lines in pursuit of a mutually beneficial “New Détente” with the West. This noble attempt, for as well-intended as it was, ultimately failed because the US had no desire to sincerely negotiate with Russia as proven by former Ukrainian President Poroshenko’s admission.

According to him, “Our goal was to, first, stop the threat, or at least to delay the war – to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.” In hindsight, President Putin – who’s misportrayed by foes as a “monster” and “madman” while friends consider him a “mastermind” – was played by the West, which took advantage of his genuinely peaceful intentions and sincere belief in diplomacy over force. With his back against the wall as the Russian people in Ukraine continued being genocided and his country’s national security red lines kept being gradually eroded, President Putin had no choice but to resort to military means to defend both of them just like Peter the Great was forced to do several centuries prior for the exact same reasons vis a vis the Swedish Empire.

The average Western MSM consumer, many of whom are such by coercion and not choice considering their governments’ censorship of Russian media, doesn’t have enough historical knowledge to know the difference between their perception manager’s disinformation about President Putin’s comparison of himself with Peter the Great and the factual reasons why he said this. He wasn’t shamelessly admitting to blatant imperialism in the 21st century but making a valid point about the circumstances in which external forces compelled him and his predecessor to militarily act in defense of their co-ethnics and their country’s objective national security interests, both of whom were justified in their ongoing special operation in Ukraine and the Great Northern War with the Swedish Empire respectively.