Ukraine vs Russia: the choice of paths

Kyiv must admit that he was defeated, and wrap the defeat with a victory

“NATO Save Ukraine,” call the participants in the demonstration in Newport (Wales), where the NATO summit was held at that time. September 4, 2014 /Photo: Carl Court /AFP Photo

The Russian military operation in Ukraine has ceased to be a secret - but in the new conditions Moscow is not ready to recognize its direct involvement in the conflict or clearly determine its promising goals. Russia's response to the successes of the Ukrainian army, which came close to Donetsk and Lugansk in mid -August, was quite predictable. The question is, what will be the answer not only of Ukraine, but also the EU and the rest of the world as a whole.

What is happening in eastern Ukraine is going beyond traditional conflicts that took place in Europe and its periphery in recent decades. Never another country has annexed part of another. Never direct military intervention has been denied so shamelessly. Ethnic, ideological and geopolitical factors leading to the escalation of the conflict have never been so mixed.

Reality

What can Ukraine do? Little. Her army is not able to withstand the Russian regular troops and well -armed separatists. What can Europe do? There are also few: sanctions that could be sensitive to a “normal” economy do not act properly on Russia, where a significant part of the population receives income directly or indirectly from the state and therefore reacts not to economic growth, but to the salary. What can the US and, more widely, NATO? Of course, no one will fight with a nuclear power, and most likely no one will even provide Ukraine with military assistance. Therefore, we have to admit that in a direct clash with Ukraine, the Russian leadership won, and the West in a direct clash with a changed reality - was defeated.

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In a clash with Ukraine, Moscow won, and the West in a direct clash with a changed reality was defeated

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It is necessary to recognize this fact today. As well as to accept another - to keep in Ukraine not only Crimea, but the eastern regions is impossible. Therefore, it is necessary to begin to act, looking into the eyes of the reality of military defeat.

Why is it so important? Because the “Putin’s plan” in relation to Ukraine is not to be able to make its territory - but rather to make it forever dysfunctional: to impose “federalization”, creating, in fact, three different regimes (in the Crimea, in the east and on the rest of the country); make integration in the EU and NATO; To generate constant uncertainty due to the presence of pro-Russian forces in the east of the country. The Kremlin made an absolutely correct bet: in Ukraine no one can raise the question that there is something above the country's territorial integrity-and therefore, trying to prevent the rejection of Donbass, the Kyiv authorities, as a result, will put a cross on the very Ukrainian statehood. The fear of amputation is the most common cause of death from gangrene, and it was this fate that Moscow destroyed modern Ukraine, which it does not consider the state. If the Ukrainian elite is ready to come to terms with reality, its actions should be different.

Choice

First of all, Kyiv should be called the actions of Russia aggression, declare itself a victim of this aggression, break diplomatic relations with Moscow and amended in Art. 133 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which determines the number and composition of its subjects, as well as recognize Art. 134-139 lost strength. Instead, it is necessary to declare Donetsk and Lugansk regions temporarily torn areas and introduce an article like Article. 23 of the Constitution of Germany of 1949, which allowed incorporation of the GDR in Germany at any time in the future. Then it is necessary to set the border between Ukraine and the newly formed “people's republics”, temporarily prohibiting the entry of citizens from these regions to Ukraine, stop the collection of taxes and the payment of pensions, benefits and subsidies there, evacuate those units of the armed forces and law enforcement agencies that remain loyal to Kyiv, to terminate the powers of the people's deputies of Ukraine from the separated regions.

The benefits of it

The consequences of these steps will be very significant. Firstly, the problem of the “multinational nature” of the country will disappear: the share of the Russian population will be reduced from 17.4 % (at the beginning of 2014) to less than 11.5 %; “The desire for Russia” and “regionalization” will be removed from the agenda. Secondly, with the departure of Lugansk and Donetsk, the amount of funds transferred by Kiev from the republican budgets for subsidizing regions will be reduced by 45 %; More than $ 2.3 billion subsidies of the coal industry will also be released, and the volume of gas consumed by the country will decrease by almost a quarter. Thirdly, Ukraine will become much more “pro-European” country-both due to the greater national-cultural monolithic, and because public opinion links the problem of the separation of the eastern regions with the influence of Russia on this process.

Having left the conflict of the loser (and offended) side, Ukraine can apply to NATO for support - in the new situation of Russia it will be impossible to justify its likely claims to the central and western regions of the country. The orientation of Ukraine on NATO and the EU will allow Europe to put a clear line before Russia, which cannot be crossed without catastrophic consequences. It is better for Ukrainians to be in NATO (and in the future - in the EU) even without part of the territory than to remain without reliable allies and with territorial illusions. It is enough to look at Argentina, where several generations with the appearance of rational and intelligent people cry about the lost Malvinsky islands, while the country goes from one economic crisis to another and turns into parias against the background of a dynamically developing continent.

Ukraine needs to forget about Simferopol, Donetsk and Lugansk and “go about business”. History is giving that many victims of the country's military defeat were most successful in modernizing their economies: the conversation is not even about Germany and Japan, which partly lost their sovereignty as a result of the Second World War, but also about South Korea and Taiwan, in fact, who lost civil wars, about Singapore excluded from the Malay Federation, and about a number of other similar cases. In order for the modernization to be successful, it should be terribly to look at the past - and 2014 will become just with the watershed, having passed, not a single sane Ukrainian will remember the good either the Soviet era or its belching in the form of Russian imperialism. Europe and the West as a whole should not restrain Russia - in which, frankly, they will not achieve much success - but to help Ukraine turn into a normal European state, for which the country has all the prerequisites.

With the departure of Lugansk and Donetsk, the amount of funds transferred by Kiev to submit regions will be reduced by 45%

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This approach seems promising for another reason. Namely: the exclusion of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics from Ukraine will be a catastrophic blow to the economy of these semi -criminal elements of territorial formations. I repeat once again: these two areas cost Ukraine $ 4-5 billion per year, while Crimea received subsidies by less than $ 400 million. Given that the Crimean development program in Russia is now estimated at almost 1 trillion rubles for the period until 2020, it is possible to predict how much the content of Eastern Ukraine will cost-especially brutally ruined by the continuing war. Together with the Crimea, the torn parts of Ukraine will become a stone on the neck of the Russian economy.

Sometimes it happens that people or states are drawn into a struggle that acts as an end in itself and does not imply the achievement of the final task. The whole logic of the Novorossia project consists precisely in this - no one in Moscow, so far, has not wondered what will happen if the desired “apple” falls into the hands of the Russians. In my opinion, there is nothing more profitable for Ukraine and Europe than the acquisition of independence by the Donbass and/or its accession to Russia.

Today, those who in Kyiv continue to talk about the inadmissibility of deviation from the principle of territorial integrity of the country, it is worth recalling the episode of the history of the state, part of which Ukraine once was. In 1918, Vladimir Lenin, the head of the young Soviet Republic, insisted on imprisonment with Germany of the Brest world, which led to huge territorial concessions from the RSFSR. But a year later, the German Empire collapsed, and three years later the Red Army was hardly stopped at the suburbs of Warsaw. Without drawing direct analogies, I would say that not the eastern territories are important to Ukraine, but the internal self -organization, NATO membership, serious institutional reforms and large -scale investments from the European Union. Ukraine cannot alone win the war with Russia - and the most correct way out today is to leave uncontrolled territories and the subsequent large and difficult work on the construction of modern European Ukraine under the “umbrella” of NATO and the EU. The Russian regime in the future will collapse under the burden of its own imperial, as Soviet previously collapsed. Moreover, this can happen faster than some think.

PS This week will be the next session of the Ukrainian “European Strategy” - an expert club that has held his meetings in Yalta for ten years. Now it will be held in Kyiv. But if Ukrainian politicians and their European friends will talk about equally abstract things and look for the same palliative outputs as they made over the past years, the following annual gatherings can take place in Lviv or even west. I would like to believe that the changed circumstances will open the path to new, less traditional, solutions ...