At the end of this month, the Russia-Ukraine War will have dragged out for as long as World War One, conventionally dated. It's already much longer than World War One using Russian dating, given Russia's early exit from that war.

World War One, especially in the East

Despite its minimal emphasis in the anglophile understanding of WWI, the central conflict of that war was between the German Second Reich (the Prussian Empire) and Russia (the Russian Empire). The war was started, with full intent, by the German military who were able to play the emotionally volatile Prussian Kaiser, Wilhelm II. Germany started the war because the Prussians had convinced themselves that Russia was becoming too strong and would inevitably – probably sooner rather than later – invade (and try to overrun) Germany and then the rest of Western Europe.

There was no evidence of such Russian intent. The German Prussians interpreted 'could' as 'would'. So, they decided to attack Russia at a propitious moment, should such a moment arise. Germany had its opportunity in 1914 when Austria-Hungary deemed it necessary to start a Third Balkan War, against Serbia. The Germans adroitly manoeuvred the Austrians into pivoting away from the war the Austrians wanted, and to provide Eastern cover for the war against Russia which Germany wanted.

The reason Germany required Eastern cover was that they feared an attack from Russia's ally, France. So, the Prussians decided to quickly deal to France, while Austria held back Russia to Germany's east. Of course, the rest is history; the German army got bogged down in France and Flanders. Austria got exposed in the East. But Germany was able to fight on both fronts simultaneously, and eventually defeated Russia despite having to hold the Western Front.

Russia ratified its surrender in March 1918, when Leon Trotsky signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. In that 1918 Treaty, Russia – having just become the Soviet Union – surrendered Ukraine (though not Crimea) to Germany.

Luckily for the new Soviet 'Bolshevik' regime – in 1918, while running a substantially reduced Russian Empire – the forces of France, United Kingdom, USA, and influenza prevailed over the forces of the German Second Reich. (By giving Lenin free passage from Switzerland – the German military indirectly plotted the Russian counter-revolution that brought Lenin and his Bolsheviks to power in October 1917, nine months after Tsar Nicholas II was deposed in a popular uprising. Russia experienced regime-change twice that year.)

In the first half of 1918, Germany broke through in the West, bolstered by soldiers transferring from the East. But Germany's supply lines were too stretched, and soldiers on both sides of the Western Front got very sick from the influenza which was the Americans' principal contribution. It was only in July 1918 that France gained the upper hand over Germany on the Western Front; Germany quickly folded after that.

The result was the Armistice of November 1918, and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The 1919 Treaty stripped Germany of its March 1918 victory spoils; the principal of those spoils being Ukraine. The 1919 Treaty also humiliated Prussia, by separating Prussia's eastern homeland (now Russia's Kaliningrad) from the rest of Germany.

In 1919, Germany was not pleased about many things. Foremost among those things was the loss of its prize Eastern conquest. This humiliation formed a key part of reactionary Germany's 'stab in the back' hypothesis; the hypothesis which galvanised the subsequent rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi (National Socialist) Party.

The Present War – which in an important sense is again Germany versus Russia

In normal ahistorical 'rules-based' discourse – the present war looks like an open and shut case. Bad Country A (Russia) invaded Good Country B (Ukraine). Naughty Vladimir. Solution: tell Vlad to take his war toys back home, and behave himself. (This narrative is hard to sustain now, though, given the 2020s' behaviour of Israel and the subsequent suspension of the rules-based order.)

Seen through a geopolitical (and appropriately historical) lens, the Ukraine quagmire looks very different from the story that the anglophone world still clings to. A Nato/EU project of eastward expansionism – a 'Greater Europe', like a 'Greater Israel' but without the overt ethnic cleansing – threatens to return German troops to the heartland of what had been for centuries the economic core of the Russian Empire; namely the territory of Eastern Ukraine.

World War Two

From the Russian point of view, Germany has long coveted the entire territory of Ukraine; not just the bits of West Ukraine which once belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire of Franz Josef of Hapsburg (who gifted Aotearoa New Zealand the name of a glacier).

Adolf Hitler's principal aim was to reverse the humiliations of 1918 and 1919. Thus, once in power, and once Germany had restored its manpower and its gun-power, Hitler struck back into France, forcing the French to sign their surrender at the same place and in the same railway carriage which was used for the 1918 Armistice signing. This time, there was no Austrian Empire to attend to Russia in the meantime. So, Hitler, in 1939, did a deal with Stalin, so that Hitler could deal to France without too much simultaneous aggro in the East.

Once France had been pacified, Hitler turned back to what was really the whole purpose of World War Two in Europe; to win back the territories that had been won in 1918, but had been lost through alleged 'backstabbing' in late 1918 and early 1919. (For the 1920s' 'make Germany Great Again' project, the events of late 1918 and early 1919 were the first 'great steal'.)

The reason for Hitler's war was lebensraum; it was Hitler's expansionist project. The principal aim was to re-acquire Ukraine. Having done so – for example, in the First Battle of Kiev (1941) – Hitler's main goal for the Third Reich was to match the ambition for the Second Reich in WWI, and proceed to take control of the Russian oilfields to the east of Eastern Ukraine.

The Reich held Ukraine for more than two years, until the second Battle of Kiev late in 1943. This time the Russians of the Soviet Union had to defeat Germany on the battlefield; which they did at a huge blood cost.

Just this last weekend, Russia commemorated its military defeat of Nazi Germany.

Finally

From Russia's point of view, today, the Ukrainian battlefield represents a field in which Nato's proxy – the Zelenskyy regime of Ukraine – is bringing a Fourth Reich (the European Union; understood to be German dominated, even if Germany's strength in the European Union temporarily waned after Angela Merkel stepped down) to finally achieve the conquest of Ukraine; the conquest which, from a German perspective, twice in the twentieth century fell agonisingly short.

So, as I read it, no Russian regime – whether led by Putin or somebody else – will ever let Nato (meaning, from a Russian viewpoint, Germany) into Eastern Ukraine.

Militarily, after years of stalemate, Russia has had enough; it is now looking for an offramp by trying to do a deal brokered through former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Other than achieving an acceptable deal, Russia can only play for time; it cannot accept a 'cease-fire' involving 'coalition of the willing' 'peacekeepers'. Western Europe – especially 'Old Europe' – is politically imploding at present; to sustain military ventures, it is dependent on an increasingly unwilling United States.

As I see it, the present war can end easily. But only under a Treaty which prevents Ukraine – or at least Ukraine east of the Dnieper River – from ever hosting German soldiers. The Russian history of World War One and World War Two is too recent for that. The American President, to his credit, has tried to broker a peace in Ukraine. But 'Old Europe' will not allow such a peace, as we have seen whenever such a peace deal seemed close.

The main reason Germany folded to the West in 1918 was the Royal Navy's blockade of German ports; hence an important reason in the 1940s for Hitler's emphasis on regaining Ukraine. Old Europe wanted, and still wants, Ukraine in its geopolitical orbit. Lebensraum, in the form of a greater western European geopolitical territory, is still at play.

This time Ukraine, Europe's breadbasket, may be less required for the purposes of food security; though that may be changing with the protracted American and Iranian double-blockade of the Persian Gulf. My deeper sense is that the populist political right in Europe – which is slowly regaining ascendency – has demographic designs on Ukraine. Ukraine is a land with many white women; whereas Old Europe is much less white than it once was, and white women in Old Europe in the 2020s are having very few babies.

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

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