War in Ukraine: A Clash of Geopolitical Narratives
The war in Ukraine has evolved beyond a mere territorial conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It has become a battle of competing geopolitical narratives. While the West frames the war as resistance against aggression, Russia perceives it as the latest phase of a centuries-long struggle over the global distribution of power and strategic resources. Understanding these opposing perspectives is essential to comprehending why the war continues to escalate. Recent Russian military strikes have been devastating, and there appears to be little let-up in the Russian response in the coming days.
Russian Interpretation of the Conflict
How Russia interprets this war is a critical question, best answered through the lens of a Russian author's assessment. I have sought a Russian interpretation from a column titled 'The West's Conflict with Russia: General Issues and Prospects,' written for International Affairs magazine by V Levchik, an advisor in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to Levchik, conflicts and geopolitical fault-lines have often been deliberately exploited or intensified by the collective West to preserve a favorable distribution of strategic resources. This pattern, he argues, stretches from colonization to re-colonization through international institutions, continuing with American resource expansion in the Middle East from the 1980s onward. Later, the three waves of NATO expansion, color revolutions, and NATO's eastward advance, from the Russian perspective, highlight continued Western resource greed.
Western Goals in Ukraine According to Russia
In the current war in Ukraine, Russia believes the West seeks its ultimate defeat, aiming to create another opportunity for uncontested Western dominance and deep resource inflow from the region for many years. This Russian geopolitical hypothesis is based on serious observations, some supported by historical evidence, while others remain contested. To thin-slice this hypothesis, it is important to separate what is broadly established from what is only a Russian interpretation. There is little doubt that throughout history, great powers have sought to expand or secure access to resources. European colonialism was fundamentally linked to the acquisition of land, labor, raw materials, and markets. During the Cold War and after, major powers—including the US, the USSR/Russia, and China—have all shaped regional orders to protect their strategic and economic interests.
Challenging the Russian Hypothesis
The more difficult part of this hypothesis is establishing whether a coherent, long-term Western strategy exists to artificially create conflicts primarily to facilitate successive waves of resource acquisition. Access to oil, gas, critical minerals, trade routes, and technology has influenced many Western foreign policy decisions, resulting in numerous wars. Some Middle Eastern conflicts are obvious examples of how energy security intertwined with national security. However, many events grouped in the Russian perception—such as NATO enlargement, Baltic states joining the alliance, or Eastern European governments seeking closer ties with the West—cannot be explained solely by Western expansionism. Many of those states actively pursued NATO membership due to their own historical experiences with Soviet or Russian domination. Strategic Western interests mattered, but individual choices of these states to join the Western bloc also played a role. Resource acquisition may have been one factor, but demonstrating it as the dominant or sole motive across all cases is difficult.
Diverse Drivers of Conflicts
The Iraq War, NATO enlargement, the Arab Spring, conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine, and various color revolutions each had distinct domestic, regional, ideological, and strategic drivers. Viewing all these conflicts solely through the lens of Western resource greed may not be fair. The Russian perception also posits that a Russian defeat in Ukraine is a Western political goal, which could act as a gateway to another resource-filled Western century.
Counterarguments to Russian Perception
There are two logical explanations to counter this Russian perception. First, if Russia suffered a decisive geopolitical defeat, the West would gain huge advantages in resource distribution: greater access to Eurasian energy and mineral markets, reduced military expenditure needed to deter Russia, and increased investment opportunities across Eastern Europe and parts of Eurasia. These are plausible Western strategic benefits. However, there are reasons to doubt that such an outcome would automatically translate into many years of uncontested Western dominance. The reason lies in China, which is conveniently forgotten as a power that challenges Western dominance. Today's principal economic competitor of the West is not Russia but China. Russia's GDP is relatively modest compared with the US or China, and China is a manufacturing, technological, and financial superpower. Even if Russia were substantially weakened, China would remain capable of challenging Western influence.
Changing Nature of Strategic Resources
The growing reality of the 21st century is the change in resource dominance. Strategic resources increasingly include semiconductors, AI, advanced manufacturing, rare earth processing, data infrastructure, and biotechnology. Russia possesses enormous natural resources, but control over those resources alone would not recreate the Cold War strategic environment, especially as the international economy diffuses. Today, countries such as India, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey pursue increasingly autonomous foreign policies. Many seek partnerships with both the West and non-Western powers rather than aligning exclusively with one bloc. This diffusion of influence makes sustained unipolarity of any form harder to achieve. Therefore, imagining a Russian defeat as a Western political goal that may result in resource inflows from that region is not a fair geopolitical assessment.
Path to Ending the War
Lastly, if the US and its Western partners want to prove the Russian perception wrong, they must reconsider their current strategy of military support and take practical steps to end this war. They must stop patronizing Ukraine. If Washington and Brussels keep aiding Ukraine to fight on, there are little chances of negotiations ever taking place to end this war.
