Pjotr Sauer writes:

Peter the Great’s long war against Sweden – a grinding conflict that claimed countless Russian lives – is rarely held up as a model for modern diplomacy. Yet behind closed doors on Friday, during the first direct peace talks with Ukraine in three years, Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, cited it as an explicit warning: Moscow was prepared to fight for as long as it took.

Just like when Russian troops rolled into Ukraine in 2022, the Great Northern War in the early 18th century began with humiliating defeats for Moscow. The tsarist Russian army was ill-prepared, poorly armed and easily outmanoeuvred. But instead of backing down, Tsar Peter I dug in. He conscripted peasants by the tens of thousands, poured resources into rebuilding his army, and waited. Twenty-one years later, he emerged victorious.

“We don’t want war, but we are ready to fight for a year, two, three – as long as it takes. We fought with Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?” Medinsky is said to have told his Ukrainian counterparts, many of them dressed in military fatigues, inside the Dolmabahçe Palace, a grand residence on the European shore of the Bosphorus.

Through his talking heads, Vladimir Putin made apparent on Friday that his core demands remain unchanged since the war began: Kyiv must cede territory, including giving up land it currently holds, drastically reduce its armed forces, and guarantee it will never join Nato or host western troops on its soil.

At the heart of Russia’s war in Ukraine is Putin’s distorted reading of history – so it was little surprise when Medinsky, a self-styled historian, reached for rogue historical analogies to justify the invasion. Nor would it be the first time Putin has cast himself in the image of Peter the Great. [Continue reading…]