The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

by Masha Gessen

In the story that Putin was telling, Russia had recognized the post-Soviet borders that made Crimea a part of Ukraine under duress, because it was too weak to object. Later, under Putin, Russia sacrificed its national interests and deep desires for the sake of peace in the region, and did not contest the post-1991 borders. But after being forcibly moved to another country, without physically moving, the Crimean Russians found themselves citizens of an unstable state: Russians, like other Ukrainian citizens, suffered from the ongoing political and the permanent government crises that have been seizing Ukraine for more than twenty years. This was a reference to both the Maidan and the Orange Revolution, and this was the point where Putin’s speech turned away from Russia and toward America—or,