By Invading Ukraine, Putin has Accelerated the Death of the Russian Empire but Not in the Way Many have Been Suggesting, Portnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 10 – Many in Ukraine and elsewhere think that the future of Ukraine as an independent state will be guaranteed by the demise of the Russian Federation, its disintegration into its ethnic and regional components, Ukrainian commentator Vitaly Portnikov says.

            But unfortunately, he continues, “there are no objective signs of such a development of events.” Russification of non-Russians has “only strengthened” in recent decades, and the Kremlin has crushed regional movements to the point that they do not represent a threat to the center (zbruc.eu/node/122116 in Ukrainian; charter97.org/ru/news/2025/8/12/651726/ in Russian).

            That does not mean that the end of empire is not a real live issue now, Portnikov says. But what is important to remember is that “the Russian Federation is not an empire but a fragment of an empire,” one that perceives those who have left “as a legitimate zone of its own influence and even as its own potential territories.”

            That sets it apart from the other former Soviet republics. They in the main “left the Soviet Union to forget about it; Russia left it to restore it, albeit with a different government and new instruments of influence, primarily economic ones.” The 1990s which some describe as “the final disintegration” of the empire in fact was “rather a period of its semi-disintegration.”

            In fact, Portnikov argues, “the final disintegration began precisely when the Kremlin lost patience and instead of influencing elections, using economic pressure and suborning elites, Putin turned to a real war.” That Russian war in Ukraine “did not leave the elites of the former Soviet republics with any doubt as to how Putin viewed their statehood.”

            Some of the people in these countries may have had doubts but leaders like Aliyev and Tokayev don’t.  And consequently, “practically from the first days after the failure of Putin’s blitzkrieg there began a feverish search for new sponsors of security by all those who did not yet have it.”

            And “this is the real process of the collapse of the empire - perhaps not as noticeable in comparison with the picture of the collapse of the Russian Federation itself but much more real. The process of half-decay can lead either to the restoration of imperial statehood, albeit for a short time, or to a final collapse.”

According to Portnikov, “what we are witnessing today is the process of final collapse, launched by the arrogance and dogmatism of Putin and his Chekists. Had they not acted as they have and had they not launched a great war, the process of half-decay could have continued for a very long time.”

“Putin has not been able to meet the chief task of imperial restoration, the subordination of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian analyst says. “Instead, he has transformed the closest major Soviet republic into an enemy for decades if not for centuries and frightened all the others.” As a result, “the Russian imperial project is ending.”

It is just not ending in the way so many in Ukraine and elsewhere have been suggesting.