Chakhoyan for The Hill: Imperialist ambitions real reason Russia invaded Ukraine

Russia’s war against Ukraine is not just Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin’s doing – it stems from deep-seated imperialist attitudes within Russian society, where the majority supports aggression while refusing to acknowledge its complicity in crimes. 

Andrew Chakhoyan, an academic director at the University of Amsterdam, argues this in a Jan. 28 column “The real reason Russia invaded Ukraine” for The Hill, a media outlet based in Washington.  

“Many in the West prefer to think that Putin is the problem. A tyrant, a thug, the kind of man history occasionally coughs up and then spits out. But Putin is not the exception; he is the rule.” 

Russia is not a nation bound by shared values but an empire held together by force and deception, built on stealing the art, culture, and history of others.  

“It is true that conquest and cultural appropriation are nothing new in human history, but the existence of past colonial crimes by other powers does not justify Russia’s attempt to erase Ukraine today,” Chakhoyan says.  

Ukraine’s fight is not just about land – it is a battle for historical justice and truth, he argues, saying that Russia must be defeated once and for all.

“Moscow’s criminal war has forced the world – and Russians themselves – to confront the delusions that have sustained the empire,” Chakhoyan says. “What this aggressive re-colonizer requires, more than anything, is a resounding defeat.”

Read the full column at the following link.