Return to Europe

Russia never sought to contrast itself with the rest of the world, and the idea of ​​a special Russian civilization is a relapse of Soviet times. So said at the third congress of the intelligentsia on October 20, historian Andrei Zubov. According to him, Putin Russia, like the USSR, thinks the categories of "sick geopolitics", in which the world is divided into spheres of influence. However, in this paradigm, the country loses: having been in international isolation, it is left alone with the threat of expansion from China and radical Islam, while Ukraine is irretrievably lost for it.

After the performance, Professor Zubov answered the questions of the "faces".

You said: "Ukraine has gone to Europe." On what basis do you draw such a conclusion? After all, the country has a very difficult economic situation. The war, albeit imposed from the outside, leads to the militarization of society, law enforcement agencies do not work ...

Ukraine will definitely not return to the Russian zone. She went to Europe - it means not that she has become Europe in quality, and that she now hopes only for Europe, connects her economic future with her, from there she is looking for economic and technical assistance.

Of course, the quality is far from European. But Bulgaria is not European quality, and Romania is not European quality. However, for the Putin's "Russian world" Ukraine is certainly lost forever - at least for a very long time. In this sense, I said this, and not that Ukraine has become the same as England or France.

How long does Ukraine need to come to the European quality of the government system?

It depends, of course, first of all, on when it is left alone. When the conflict will cease in eastern Ukraine. When the problem of its territorial integrity is solved. Then, of course, the process will go easier. But still this is a long process.

In general, all East European countries - even the most successful, such as the Czech Republic and Slovenia, even the former GDR in Germany - experience great problems and difficulties. The way out of the communist past is very difficult. This is a psychological problem, not only economic. And for Ukraine and other countries of the post -Soviet space (those who were in a totalitarian state were 70 years old, and not 40, like the countries of Eastern Europe), the problem is aggravated many times. Because we are already talking about three generations, about the loss of memory of a normal life, especially since after 1990, not a new one continued, but the post -Soviet regime, that is, no new positive reality arose.

So this is a very difficult process, but you still need to start, there is no other way. It will be harder for Ukraine, Moldova will be easier (we will not forget that Moldova in the Soviet Union was only since 1940). All the same, this process will take, I think, for many years. But the alternative is simply terrible.

Now it’s fashionable to ask famous people the question: by becoming the president, will you return the Crimea to Ukraine?

And I will not become the president, therefore, thank God, I will not have such a choice. Sooner or later, this problem will have to be solved. But, apparently, not through the return of the Crimea to Ukraine: after all, Crimea is not a bag that can be kicked back and forth, but people, and they themselves must solve their fate. In an honest, carefully prepared referendum, taking into account the will of those people whom Stalin forcibly evicted and who still cannot return there, primarily those Crimean Tatars who remain in Central Asia. Here is such a plebiscite like those that were held in Europe after the Versailles world will be the best solution for Crimea. He should assume three options for the answer to the question “What do you see the fate of Crimea?”: “As part of Ukraine”, “as part of Russia”, “as an independent European state”.