Russian military intervention and the Olympics
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics kicked off, featuring the slogan “Together for a Shared Future,” displaying the idyllic values of the Olympic movement that aspires to contribute to a peaceful future for humankind through the educational value of sport. While these games of international cooperation continue, a Ukrainian Olympic athlete has brought awareness to another global situation, by presenting a sign stating “No War in Ukraine” in protest of the Russian military build-up at the border of Ukraine culminating in a crisis that is reaching its tipping point. Increased Russian troop activity at the Ukrainian border has amplified tensions with the West comparable to the Cold War. United States intelligence has stated that an estimated 100,000 troops surround Ukraine in Russia, Belarus, and the Black Sea. Russia has additionally sent medics, blood, and other medical materials to the Ukrainian front. Furthermore, Russian naval vessels have been reported in the Black Sea, creating fears of a future blockade further alienating Ukraine. Russia has also been documented practicing active military drills in Belarus. The addition of military ships and wargaming add to the contentious situation of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for war. While this does not mean that war is inevitable, these actions definitively meet the conditions of preparation for war in Ukraine.
The increase in military activity comes as a response by Russia to the security concern of further expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded a ban on Ukraine from entering NATO, positioning a global adversary within direct striking distance of Russia’s capital in Moscow. Putin has also ordered a limit on troop and weapon deployments on NATO’s eastern flank, which would help Russia restabilize the previous status quo. The demands are a direct affront to NATO and challenge the US hegemony. The escalation of the Russia Ukraine crisis is coming to its breaking point during the 2022 Winter Olympic games leading many to question the rationale for the timing of the situation and whether Russia is a serial aggressor during the Olympic games.
Is Russia a serial aggressor during the Olympic games?
Russia has a history of military intervention during the Olympics; according to Politico, Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, a week before the Beijing Summer Olympics. In 2014, he waited just three days after Russia hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, to invade Ukraine and seize Crimea (Politico). The 2008 invasion of Georgia was similar to today’s events in that there was Russian support for a secessionist movement. Putin’s justification for the invasion was a responsibility to protect, on the basis that force was required to protect the Russian separatists from a Georgian genocide. Yet, according to The Conversation, “The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a nongovernmental international agency started in 2008 to prevent genocide, found no legal justification for Russia’s use of force. Instead, there is plenty of evidence to indicate the war was premeditated.” (Collins). The lack of justification helped show other motives were at play when the Russian leadership decided to invade Georgia.
After the Sochi Olympics, the Russian-backed effort to invade Crimea in 2014 showed signs of a smaller yet similar build-up at the Ukrainian border. Like the case in Georgia, the invasion of Crimea was set by the pretense of the presence of Russian separatists, who, in this case, were supported by unidentified Russian soldiers. The annexation efforts were in part due to a Russian naval base that was housed in Crimea, but that reasoning is mute because Putin already had control of the base. According to a Washington Post article from 2014, the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula was in part a diversionary war launched for domestic reasons rather than for security or geopolitical motives. Some argue that Crimea was invaded to distract from the corruption scandal revolving around the Olympic construction efforts at the Sochi games, where state-sponsored funds were used as kickbacks and bribes. An article from the Guardian stated, “While Vladimir Putin has faced condemnation from the west for his troops' takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, at home, the Russian president is enjoying his highest approval ratings in the past two years. Research also appears to confirm solid support for Russian intervention in Ukraine.” (The Guardian 2014)These strong approval ratings help give traction to the idea that the diversionary war succeeded as planned. Nevertheless, a diversion was not the only motive for the annexation of Crimea. Again, like the situation in Georgia, Russian leadership alleged that discriminatory practices were being taken against Russians in Ukraine. Once again, these ideas are being pushed by the Russian leadership helping gain Russian support for another invasion of Ukraine.
The current situation in Ukraine features a lot of similarities and potential repetitive methods. The Russian government has once again alleged discrimination against Russians in Ukraine. There has been a continuous ongoing war in Ukraine against the Russian-backed separatists. According to al Jazeera, an unannounced Russian military exercise took place just before the annexation of Crimea in 2014, just like what is happening in Belarus right now. All of this is again happening in the shadow of the Olympics, just as it had in 2008 and 2014 (Al Jazeera).
The argument that Russia is a serial aggressor during the Olympic games comes into question when analyzing Russia’s position on the Olympic Truce. The United Nations Resolution 48/11 (the Olympic Truce) appeals to peace and international cooperation during the Olympic Games. Russia, a primary member of the UN security council, alleges that it never broke the truce because it considers its actions in Georgia and Crimea as domestic matters and that the UN has no jurisdiction in domestic disputes (AP news). This perspective is essential because it alludes to the idea that Russia is not a serial aggressor during the Olympic games because it views these matters as domestic and not a part of the international system. Nevertheless, others outside of Russia claim that the nation broke the Olympic truce in 2008 when it invaded Georgia but could not pursue much action through the Olympic Truce resolution because, “when subjected to the pressure of a potentially existential conflict, the institutional agencies of the UN, the IOC, and the Olympic Truce Foundation have been unable to prevent either state from exercising military power in their own respective state interests.” (The Australian), which in essence means that there are no consequences for breaking the truce. Though there are no consequences for breaking the ceasefire, Russia can still be considered a serial aggressor during the Olympics. They have invaded Crimea and Georgia during the Olympics and are poised to strike again during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
So why now?
There are ongoing talks between world leaders on how to deescalate the situation, but many of them have stalled with no common ground found. If diplomacy fails, the cost of war to Russia may not equal the cost of having NATO as a neighbor, which could mean that Russia is on the warpath, continuing to uphold its position as a serial aggressor during the Olympic games. Some scholars propose that Russia is using the Winter Olympics as a distraction that lulls the public into a daze about the peace-building nature of the international sporting event, allowing leaders the freedom to do what they want in foreign affairs. Nevertheless, military and intelligence officials are keeping a close eye on the Russia Ukraine situation, which diminishes the validity of that theory. Another school of thought could argue that the timing of the Ukraine situation is a mere coincidence. The delay to provocation may be that Putin is waiting until after the Olympic Games' conclusion as to not upset the Russian relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
An additional rationale for the timing of the Russian military build-up is nationalism which can be defined as “a political movement having two characteristics: (1) individual members give their primary loyalty to their own ethnic or national community; this loyalty supersedes their loyalty to other groups, e.g., those based on common kinship or political ideology; and (2) these ethnic or national communities desire their own independent state” (Evera, 6). Russia has conducted military interventions during the Olympic games and has consistently based the invasions on the principle of national identity. “Putin and Russian leaders believe that Russians and Ukrainians are ‘odyn narod’ (one people) which necessitates they live in one union or within a common cultural space such as that defined by the ‘Russkii Mir’ (Russian World)” (Kuzio, 3). The value placed on national identity as the leading cause of these conflicts can be related to the surge of national pride during the Olympic Games.
Evera also argues that war is inevitable if central states have the will to resist emerging nationalist/secessionist movements (Evera, 17); this has been seen in the continued conflict in Ukraine between Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military. It can also be argued that Russian nationalist sentiment can be invigorated through the Olympics, as seen in George Orwell’s article “The Sporting Spirit,” which alludes to the idea that international sport is war minus the shooting and that the combative competitive nature of the games can be tied to a rise in nationalism, through the identification of oneself through the vaster scope of national identity. The dramatic increase in nationalistic pride created by the Olympics is an opportunity Russian leadership can use to rally significant support for military action. This strategy has been used before in both Crimea and Georgia, and can now be used again in Ukraine, promoting the idea that Russia is a serial aggressor during the Olympic games. The use of international sports to promote public support for aggressive foreign policy agendas has been done before in cases like the 1934 World Cup and the 1936 Nazi Olympics (Bertoli, 12). Bertoli further argues, “The history of international sports provides enough qualitative and quantitative evidence to conclude that fluctuations in nationalism can affect state aggression in powerful ways.” (Bertoli, 30). The Olympic-inspired fluctuations in nationalism may create the prime conditions for Russian intervention in Ukraine following the 2022 Winter Olympic games, further securing the idea that Russia is a serial aggressor during the Olympics.
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