Ukrainians have a future, but not Ukraine

Since the start of Russia’s direct intervention in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have established a good cop/bad cop dynamic. Whereas Putin is measured and restrained in his language, Medvedev will threaten to nuke Washington DC and quote the Book of Revelation, that sort of thing.

I have no idea if they coordinate this deliberately, but if so, it would seem to establish the threat that their opponents should make a deal before Putin retires because those coming after him will approach the situation with considerably greater belligerence.

One of Medvedev’s contentions from the start is that there isn’t going to be a country called Ukraine when this is over. When the U.S. overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014, Putin’s solution was for the Russian regions of the country to receive autonomy like the various republics within the Russian Federation.

They wanted to declare for Russia and join it right away, but he told them no and that they had to compromise. The process of returning these regions to Russia only began after Putin realized he had no alternative but to pull the trigger on intervention. It was possible to retake Crimea without war on a mass scale since it’s an island and Russia already had military installations on it, but the rest of the Russian regions would require what we see today which clearly isn’t something Putin desired.

However, Putin’s statements are starting to converge with Mevedev’s on the issue of Ukraine’s existence. What’s definitely returning to Russia at the conclusion of hostilities is everything east of the Dnieper River and the entire Black Sea coast. Those areas are full of Russians, but they weren’t connected directly to Russia like Donetsk and Luhansk. They’ve essentially been under Ukrainian occupation, but the Western media tries to give the impression that Russia wants to conquer these areas.

The Russians understand that taking any city an enemy will contest involves destroying that city. The only sizable city with civilians in it that they did this with was Mariupol because it was critical for connecting Donetsk and Luhansk with Crimea. It had to be taken fast and at any cost. My friend’s mother was killed there because the Ukrainians used her as a human shield. For all the other major cities, the Russian Army will wait to roll in until the hostilities are over and Ukrainian forces have withdrawn.

So, what the Russians will take in the east and south (and how) seems to be a pretty done deal. What happens to the rest of Ukraine is another story. For instance, Medvedev has named Kiev as one of the cities that will return immediately to Russia, but not Putin. Is this part of the good cop/bad cop routine that Medvedev is making threats to strengthen Putin’s position in negotiations? I don’t really know but it makes sense geographically.

They’ve both said repeatedly that the countries to Ukraine’s west will seek to take back their former territories assigned to Ukraine by Stalin. Putin has said that the only guarantor of Ukraine’s borders was Russia, but it’s not going to do that anymore. However, Belarus has made it quite clear that they don’t want Poland to their south, which would be the situation if Poland took back its former territory. They already feel threatened enough by Poland that they requested the Russians station nuclear weapons on their territory. Poland getting any land is unlikely.

The other issue is that it’s full of Ukrainians who don’t like Poles too much, not ethnic Poles. Bandera was a prolific killer of Polish children. In contrast, there are ethnic Hungarians in the former Hungarian region of Ukraine, and Hungary gets along fine with Russia so it’s probably going to try to enlarge itself, but the U.S. and EU will block this move. So, all of western Ukraine is the big question.

Talking to various Russians has led me to envision the following scenario: Ukraine as a country is formally abolished and all of its enormous debts repudiated. This makes practical sense; it will never be able to repay these debts especially when all the Russian areas that produced most of the revenue are gone.

Western Ukraine is then divided into various independent republics. The issue is that none of these republics will be viable independent entities and the EU won’t want to absorb them or pay for them. So, they end up joining the Russian Federation. Perhaps this is done with western Ukraine as whole.

When much of the population has fled, the economy has collapsed, a huge percentage of the young men are dead, maimed, or suffering from PTSD, and there’s no means to pay government salaries or retirement checks for the elderly, it becomes much easier for people to consider themselves as a new autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.

Putin has a lot of experience with this, the Chechens are quite fond of being in the federation now. This wouldn’t be the first time he’s presided over the rebuilding and acclimatization of a region to the Russian Federation. He has a successful model to scale up with Ukrainians.

What will enable the Russians to justify fully reabsorbing Ukraine is that western Ukraine is going to ask to join the federation. Russia isn’t going to force it on them, desperation and the raw reality that survival in these regions depends on Russia is what will force it on them.

Russia has the economy, the resources, the money, and the will to absorb Ukraine. The EU comes way short in all categories and the U.S. Congress isn’t going to keep dumping billions every month to pay salaries and retirements in Ukraine without any realistic end ever being in sight. When it all ends in failure, they’ll just move on, and nobody will talk about Ukraine anymore. We’ve seen how this works several times at this point.

There’s a lot that could happen as Russia moves to the edge of Central Europe and countries start considering new arrangements rather than the mass migration and sodomy the EU is forcing on them. Whatever BRICS deal Central European countries could potentially get is going to be better than the EU’s mandate to essentially terminate their existence.

That’s the endpoint for an EU country, whatever it was before it joined is erased by mass migration and sodomy. The new global order is available and if the Russians are on your border, you no longer have to be worried about getting strangled off by the EU and the American Empire.

Moreover, by absorbing Ukraine, the possibility ever using it to start a future conflict is completely nullified. Here’s a recent statement by Medvedev:

“The existence of Ukraine is mortally dangerous for Ukrainians. And I don’t mean only the current state, Bandera’s political regime. I’m talking about any, absolutely any Ukraine.

Why?
The presence of an independent state on historical Russian territories will now be a constant reason for the resumption of hostilities. Late. No matter who is at the helm of the cancerous growth under the name of Ukraine, this will not add legitimacy to his rule and the legal viability of the “country” itself. And, therefore, the likelihood of a new fight will persist indefinitely. Almost always. Moreover, there is a 100% probability of a new conflict, no matter what security papers the West signs with the puppet Kiev regime. Neither Ukraine’s association with the EU, nor even the entry of this artificial country into NATO will prevent it. This could happen in ten or fifty years.

That is why the existence of Ukraine is fatal for Ukrainians. They are practical people at the end of the day. No matter how they now wish the Russians to die. No matter how much they hate the Russian leadership. No matter how much they strive to join the mythical European Union and NATO. Choosing between eternal war and inevitable death and life, the vast majority of Ukrainians (well, perhaps with the exception of a minimal number of crazy nationalists) will ultimately choose life. They will understand that life in a large common state, which they do not like very much now, is better than death. Their deaths and the deaths of their loved ones. And the sooner Ukrainians realize this, the better“

This seems like a pretty definitive statement on Russia’s intentions for Ukraine. I know Ukrainians who think they can still win against Russia, but it’s going to take longer than they thought in 2022. I can certainly sympathize with their national sentiments, but the imperative for survival is going to assert itself after the shock of total military defeat wears off.