Why Putin wants credit for Belgium's independence

A telling glimpse at a strange worldview

We have a lot of new subscribers this week, so naturally we wanted to welcome you all with… a long post on the history of Belgium? Huh. But don’t worry, we’ve got something on TikTok for you tomorrow.

Also, a reminder that our DC happy hour will be next Wednesday, March 20, at 6pm. Paid subscribers should look out for an email with details later this week.

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And now for something a bit different.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted a weeklong “World Festival of Youth” event in the town of Sirius, Russia with young people from many different countries around the world. I don’t totally understand the purpose of this event. But it featured an appearance by Putin, who during the course of answering a question from a Belgian student, remarked “Belgium, you probably know about this, you appeared on the world map as an independent state, thanks in no small part to Russia and Russia’s position.”

I’ve seen this glossed in a few places as a straightforwardly false claim. And it certainly sounds pretty silly.

But I do think that, in the context of the 1830 revolutions in both France and Belgium that led to Belgium’s detachment from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, it is true that “Russia’s position” was critical aspect to Belgium’s emergence as an independent state. It’s also true, though, that Russia was not acting as some great friend of the Belgian people. On the contrary, Russia initially supported the Netherlands, and it was widely expected that Russian troops were going to march in and squash the revolt. Instead, a revolt broke out in Poland, and the Czar deciding that crushing the movement to free Poland from Russian rule was more important than crushing the movement to free Belgium from Dutch rule.

So Russia’s “position” — i.e., its unwillingness to send its army to fight the Belgian rebels — is, in fact, a major reason for Belgium’s independence. But, again, that’s because they were too busy conquering Poland, not because Russia supported the Belgian national movement.

This bit of discourse was kind of a silly tangent, but I believe that I happen to be in the 99th percentile of American knowledge of Belgian history and I think it’s a sort of interesting, if tangled, historical web. And I also think this whole episode is indicative of Putin’s broader mindset. As with his ideas about the history of Ukraine, there are true facts behind Putin’s interpretation of Belgium’s history. But his interpretation is very much based on the perspective of the pre-1917 Russian Empire.

And that, in turn, is very much the issue with Russia’s relations with the United States and our European allies.