Translated material
Friend or foe system
Viktor Yanukovych, whom the Russian authorities slept and saw in the presidential chair, for the sake of which the Russian President for some reason retrained as a free agitator, spoke for an hour and a half live on official Ukrainian TV, and participated with his protégé in a hastily prepared parade on the occasion of the anniversary of the liberation of Kyiv from the Nazis , although the date fell on a different day, he practically returned to power. Now he is prime minister in a state where the constitutional powers of the head of government, approved by a parliamentary majority, almost exceed those of the president. But can we say that Russia has now received an accommodating and absolutely loyal Ukrainian government?
Of course not. Yes, of course, under Prime Minister Yanukovych, Ukraine will not force its entry into NATO. But she wouldn’t have pushed things forward without him: NATO doesn’t really want to see Ukraine, and within the country itself, two-thirds of the population is against membership in the North Atlantic Alliance. Yes, perhaps some of the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine will be able to defend the status of the Russian language as a regional one. But they would have survived even without Yanukovych. In the end, if the majority of the region’s population considers Russian their native language, it will still be the real language of communication, media and local office work. However, there will still be no unambiguously “pro-Russian” or “pro-Kremlin” Ukraine - neither with Yanukovych in power, nor without him.
Firstly, because of Russia itself. By publicly supporting Yanukovych during the presidential campaign, Moscow promised Kyiv mountains of gold. Having lost, she began a gas war, thoroughly saturated with the banal idea of political revenge, the victory of which turned out to be Pyrrhic. After all, the entire Ukrainian industry, concentrated precisely in the “pro-Russian” Russian-speaking regions, receives gas from us at prices close to market prices. But now the Kremlin has officially announced that it trades gas at market prices with everyone, that there is “no politics” in this, and it is somehow undignified to win back less than a year after this “market” epiphany. Secondly, Ukraine consists of very heterogeneous political regions. And even if Yanukovych becomes president next time, he will have to be the president of all Ukrainians, and not just “Russian-speaking” ones. Finally, the business interests of the structures controlled by the Donetsk clan, of which Viktor Yanukovych is by no means the first person, certainly do not consist in sharing assets or profits with the “Muscovites”. Export supplies to European markets are no less important for the Donetsk business empire than their presence on the Russian market.
That is why Viktor Yanukovych will inevitably remain the Ukrainian head of government, and not the “Russian” prime minister of Ukraine. Ukraine may be the outskirts, but it is Europe, and not the outskirts of Russia.
And even more so, the idea of federalization or even the split of Ukraine, which is so attractive to Russian political scientists of a nationalist and loyalist persuasion, looks even more wild. For it is much calmer to have a dynamically developing neighbor oriented towards European values nearby, rather than scattered poor territories, and even torn apart by interethnic contradictions, like Crimea.
Russia and Ukraine have every opportunity to be partners and even have relatively friendly relations. But Ukraine in the foreseeable historical future will not become a vassal of Russia and will not be completely subordinate to our economic or foreign policy interests. Ukraine is an independent state, the absurd attempt to interfere in its internal affairs two years ago only led to an unjustified deterioration in our relations. In politics, a primitive bet on the “friend or foe” system does not work - this is not a military aircraft. Everything is much more complicated here. The same Viktor Yanukovych, as well as the country where he is prime minister, are not strangers to us, but not “ours” either. The main thing is to understand that Ukraine is a separate country with interests that do not and will not coincide with Russia’s in everything. No matter who is in power with them and with us.