Ukraine and the Shifting Geopolitics of the

Heartland
BACKGROUNDERS - September 21, 2022
By Alexander Brotman

As the Ukraine conflict has now passed the six-month mark, fears of a brutal war of attrition
along an immovable front have now evolved into a series of successful countero!ensives by
Ukrainian forces of towns held by Russia since the beginning of the war. It is now possible
to imagine a Ukrainian victory sooner than many in the West had expected, and with
immense geopolitical consequences for Europe and the wider world. As a frontier state,
Ukraine may be guided by the hands of neighbouring powers, but its destiny is increasingly
being shaped by those within its own borders. The possibility of a fully liberated Ukraine in
charge of its strategic destiny calls for an assessment of Ukraine’s place in the history of
geopolitical theory. Russia’s ability to manage relationships and project power across its
sphere of influence in the heartland of Eurasia is waning. As such, over thirty years since its
independence from the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s fight marks a dividing line of the post-Soviet
era in one of the most geopolitically significant regions of the globe.

Ukraine’s History in Geopolitical Perspective

The geographer and founder of modern geopolitics Halford Mackinder famously posited in
his Heartland Theory that whoever ‘rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules
the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the
World.’ Since Mackinder’s article was published in 1904, Eastern Europe has largely fallen
under a Western orientation, with the notable exception of Belarus as a Eurasian-leaning
Russian appendage, and Ukraine and Moldova progressing towards the West but still
existing in a state of geopolitical limbo. Ukraine’s security guarantees are more iron-clad
than Moldova’s, which remains at risk of Russian provocations in Transnistria, combined
with steady support for the pro-Kremlin aligned Socialist Party of former President Igor
Dodon.

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 In addition, over a hundred years after the publication of Mackinder’s book Democratic
Ideals and Reality, the conflict between Germany and Russia, and thus Central Europe and
Russia, has become more managed to the benefit of both nations, but arguably to the
hindrance of heartland nations like Ukraine. Germany still faces a ‘Russia problem’ in the
words of John Lough, which favours continental security over antagonism with Moscow, and
places significant emphasis on the role Russia has played in defining Germany’s role within
Europe. Six months on, the real ‘Zeitenwende’, or turning point as announced by Chancellor
Scholz, is occurring in the heartland much closer to the recently recaptured city of Izium
than it is in the corridors of power in Berlin. Germany still has major targets to meet as it
engages in a dramatic overhaul of its security and defence policy, and successes by Ukraine
in its countero!ensive may finally force Berlin to act.

The conflict in Ukraine has also revealed the perennial significance of Eurasia to the
ambitions of rival powers. Je!rey Manko! in his book Empires of Eurasia argues that Post-
Cold War Eurasia is a continent ‘less of states than of regions,’ where ‘large, powerful
polities’ and outside powers like the EU and US battle for influence over the smaller states
that rest between them. This heartland is a renewed great game of conquest, with the
sovereignty of states existing on a ‘limited and conditional’ level according to Manko!, as
witnessed in Putin’s conception of Ukraine. Well over a century ago, the historian Henry
Adams’ assessment that the core problem of Europe was Russia still rings true, and e!orts
to firmly shape Russia’s strategic destiny as either Euro-Atlantic or Eurasian have failed to
materialise. Putin has shown a much greater interest in reintegrating the imperial
borderlands of Europe from the old Kyivan Rus that have long formed the heart of Russian
culture and identity rather than merging the Central Asian states to counterbalance the EU.

The Eurasian Economic Union, often seen as Putin’s response to the EU, is more of a
practical economic arrangement amongst long-allied states rather than an ideological
mainstay or legacy-shaping project for the Kremlin. The most critical change from
Mackinder’s day is the role of China in Eurasia, with Russia playing the role of junior partner
on almost all matters of importance, led from Beijing despite being engaged in a
relationship with ‘no limits.’ Similarly, Russia’s role as a security guarantor in the Caucasus, a
pivotal region at the crossroads of many former empires, is also being tested because of its
actions in Ukraine. The ability of Russia to use its leading role in collective security
organisations across its sphere of influence like the CSTO is waning, causing other powers
from China to Turkey and the US to make inroads.

In Eastern Europe, Russia’s influence remains strong from a cultural and identity-driven
perspective, but weak in terms of prospects for alliance building and economic
development when compared with the EU. This is the case in Serbia, a longstanding ally of
Russia with Slavic roots that is pursuing a multi-vector foreign policy as it seeks investment
from China and also membership in the EU. In Ukraine, despite having many ethnic
Russians with longstanding connections to Moscow, broad popular support exists across
regions from the Polish border to the Donbas for a European integration and strategic
outlook. As such, Ukraine may exist physically in the contested space of the heartland, but it
is now ever-closer ideologically, militarily, and strategically with its neighbours in the West.
Putin’s war in Ukraine has only accelerated this trend, causing the very threats he imagined
over NATO expansion to come to fruition as Sweden and Finland are now set to join the
alliance. Thus, the heartland is likely to become not just uncontested but treaty-bound to
Western-led institutions that are perceived by Putin to be existential threats to the survival
of Russia.

For Poland and the Baltic states, Ukraine remains the heartland of Europe as a contested
space between two competing blocs, the EU and Russia, that is crucial to each opposing
sides’ strength and to the expression of its values. In contrast, France, Germany, and other

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 Western European states still regard Ukraine as a peripheral state existing in the next wave
of enlargement to Europe, one whose integration is not critical to their own success and
prosperity, but rather solely to Ukraine as the state seeking membership. Ukraine remains
an expendable security issue for states like France which possess ambitions to redefine the
European core and engage in power projection in other areas like Africa and the Indo-
Pacific. For France and Germany, Ukraine is not yet a ‘new Berlin’ standing on the frontlines
of freedom, but a prospective member of an integrated European core that still is open to
including Russia as a major economic partner. The Baltic states and Poland view Ukraine
di!erently as the last bastion of liberty by nature of its geography and heartland position,
something also echoed by Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin in a recent address to the
European Parliament. Ukraine’s Western-allied neighbours in the heartland rightly see Kyiv
not as a pawn on the geopolitical chessboard devoid of agency but rather as a principal
player, deserving of its leading role.

Ukraine’s Future Orientation

In the over 100 years since Mackinder first posited his theory, Ukraine has gone from
heartland to imperial periphery and borderland to frontline state. Unlike prior wars, the
conquest of Ukrainian territory for material political gain is less important than the defence
of that territory and the stakes involved for the projection of power and values in the 21st
century. Ukraine is a gatekeeper to Europe, a key indicator of where the continent is going
and how the established powers in Europe, as well as those with imperial legacies, will
respond. Since Russia’s invasion on 24 February, Ukraine has proved itself to be a decisively
European state fighting for European values and an orientation that is markedly di!erent
from that of Moscow. However, by nature of its geography, it will take time for Ukraine to
be fully accepted as a modern European state that belongs firmly in the European family of
nations.

Ukraine is not a scapegoat for the EU’s ills but a provider of moral clarity for the bloc, and a
reminder of the importance of enlargement for revitalising its core mission. Few nations
have been as pivotal as Ukraine to the strength of competing, neighbouring powers in both
the 20th and 21st centuries. As the conflict continues, it is also imperative for Ukraine’s
development and future orientation that its territory no longer be framed as a borderland
existing in the post-Soviet space. While that framework can be important in placing
historical context for the present conflict, it continues to subject Ukraine to the post-
imperial periphery that according to Putin is not fully sovereign but conditionally so as a
member of a nebulous near abroad. Furthermore, the notion of being post-Soviet has many
di!erent interpretations and outlooks and is often defined by those in Moscow or the West
to serve their own strategic calculations and national interests in a contested space.
Ukraine is now able to reclaim and redefine what it means to be post-Soviet, and to export
its modernised conception of its heartland region to the other side of Europe as it engages
with Brussels over EU membership.

As leading geopolitical thinkers have long recognised, Ukraine is too important and too
great a member of the heartland to fail politically or strategically. As the past months have
revealed, Ukraine shows no signs of failing, and it is time for the West to consider the
ramifications of a Ukrainian victory for the existing security order in Europe. Given the
intractable strength of the Ukrainian project and its people, it is not unprecedented to think
that Ukraine will at some point be driving debates over the future of Europe. Over a
hundred years ago, what Mackinder did not factor in his original analysis was a Ukraine
existing as a heartland state to a weakened and isolated Russia, with Ukrainian identity and

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 will to fight being much stronger than that of its larger neighbour. This is the greatest
geopolitical development in Ukraine’s favour, making Ukraine the heartland not just
geographically but spiritually as the leader of a moral cause capable of redefining the core
of Europe and reimagining relations in Eurasia.

The views expressed in this article belong to the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect
those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com

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