Putin chose self-determination over respect. He offered Russian passports to citizens of other countries (former Soviet citizens in 2002, Crimea residents in 2014, Ukraine residents in 2017, residents of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in 2019, residents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Moldova, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts in 2022).

Individuals born of two Russian parents are also eligible for a Russian passport. They often formed minorities in other countries. In 2014, Putin claimed that those passport holders were not being respected in Crimea or Eastern Ukraine. He sent Russian troops in order to ‘defend’ those minorities. The Russian army is allegedly entitled to defend Russian citizens in other countries. Technically, it is an invasion.

On March 20th, Putin issued a decree (‘ukaz’) by which those Ukrainian passport holders in the occupied areas of Ukraine will be expelled by September. Before 2014, all the people who lived in those areas of Ukraine which are now occupied were Ukrainian citizens. Those who did not apply for a Russian passport are now being expelled from their home.

This is a Western paradox. Self-determination of nations is based on the principle that those who declare their determination need to be a uniform nationality. 

Putin has brought the logic of self-determination to its extreme consequences. Putin notices a Russian minority, invades the area, expels the majority and claims that the former minority is now the only nation and has a right to self-determination. This former minority votes unopposed in favour of annexation to Russia.

Hitler justified invading several countries by claiming that the German minority was not respected by the majority. One may single out the Sudetenland in 1938 and the subsequent Munich conference which generated the slogan 'Peace in our time'.

This is a western idea. Self-determination was a principle employed by US President Woodrow Wilson in order to justify the breaking up of empires who had lost World War One. It was also a communist idea endorsed by Lenin. Both aimed at the breaking up of multiethnic empires or states which had sizable minorities. 

Both Wilson and Lenin effectively proposed the redrawing of countries’ borders based on a supposed ‘national’ or ‘ethnic’ purity or homogeneity.

Ironically, Putin’s choice to promote an ethnic state, not only weakens the relation between different nationalities within the Russian Federation, but is a denial of the ordinary functioning of a state and its offer of basic services and needs to the citizens within the internationally recognized borders. 

This is contrary to Russia’s Orthodox and Byzantine cultural legacy. Borders were sacred and well defined. Commerce was regulated by custom houses. A justice system (including legal guarantees for trade) only works within well defined legal borders. Constantinople was the city in which the Roman Law code was published between 531 and 534. This legal code was valid only within the borders of the state. Borders defined citizenship. Justice mainly depends on rules, borders, and well defined citizenship.

Plato’s dialogue Crito points out that if someone chooses to reside in a country, it means they wish to abide by the laws of that country. Many Russian speakers in 1991 chose to continue to live in Ukraine rather than emigrate. Since 2014, they now live in a war-torn wasteland without the rule of law.