In Kyiv they can argue that the terms of the encounter are not fair.
The outcome will have repercussions that go far beyond Europe. From personnel to propaganda and from strategy to statecraft, the two competing post-Soviet models are being put to the test.
The most important thing, however, is that this fundamental incompatibility of the two models of social organisation has led not only to a horrendous fratricidal military confrontation in the very centre of Europe, but that it will also dictate how each side acts in the conflict. Historians, cultural anthropologists and sociologists debate the reasons for this remarkable divergence. Each new leader was carefully selected and supported by his predecessor. In the same period Russia has been ruled by only three heads of state. Each won power after highly contested (and sometimes very dramatic) elections. Since independence in 1991, for example, Ukraine has elected six presidents. Ukrainian society generally is organised from the bottom up, while Russian society has a top-down process at its core. Russia, in turn, is not a classical Asian or European authoritarian state, but it has been drifting away from the liberal democratic model for at least the past 20 years. But the country is persistently moving in this direction-slowly, inconsistently and with understandable setbacks and inevitable procrastination. It would be hard to argue that Ukraine has already emerged as a model of Western-style liberal democracy. It is also an intellectual and spiritual confrontation between two mindsets: two views on the modern international system and on the world at large two opposing perceptions of what is right and what is wrong, what is fair and what is not, what is legitimate and what is illegitimate and of what national leadership should entail. The conflict concerns a clash between very different ways of organising social and political life within two countries which together once constituted a large portion of Soviet territory. Nor is the fight mostly about territory, in my view (though related disputes remain a formidable obstacle to reaching a peace settlement). Both Russia and Ukraine are essentially secular states, and the recent religious renaissance in the two countries is superficial. And radical nationalism is not the main motivation for Ukrainian resistance-contrary to many of Moscow’s statements. T HE MILITARY confrontation between Russia and Ukraine is not an ethnic conflict: ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians are fighting on both sides of the frontline.