On the choice of Ukraine...

 

I have thought long and even painfully about Grigory Yavlinsky's controversial article in Novaya Gazeta. Despite the harsh and emotionally charged criticism, I found the article to be at least brave if only because the author was not afraid to go against the prevailing public opinion. I would probably even support his position if I thought his peace plan was feasible. But, unfortunately, it seems utopian to me.

I do not see anything humiliating for Ukraine in the very proposal of Ukraine (and in fact it is about changing the position of Ukraine, as Russia declares its readiness to stop the war if it retains the "spoils") to start negotiations with Moscow without preconditions, the main of which is the liberation of the occupied territories. Ukraine has shown such wonders of courage, fortitude and self-sacrifice during this year of war that it deserves any peace, and any peace would be its victory in this war.

At the same time, the war is a terrible burden for the people of Ukraine (for the Russian people, too, but they chose this path and bear full responsibility for their choice). We are talking not only about hundreds of thousands of lives, but also about the terrible and hardly entirely replenishable destruction of the foundations of the economy, demography, and even culture. This is why there is no price I would call exorbitant that cannot be paid to halt this destruction. Including by giving up parts of the territories: many nations have gone through this ordeal, and in the end emerged victorious. Finland is a teetering example, but in reality there are a great many such examples. So if I believed that giving up trying to reclaim territories over which control has been lost could lead to an end to the war and prevent further casualties, I would not hesitate to support Grigory Yavlinsky. But I do not believe this.

Alas, the situation today is such that neither giving up one's own territories nor other concessions to the Kremlin can bring Ukraine any lasting, even temporary, peace. In order to understand this, one must take a closer look at the nature of this war and the goals of Putin and Russia. This war cannot be compared to any classic regional conflict over disputed territories (Armenia vs. Azerbaijan over Karabakh, Serbia vs. Albania over Kosovo, Peru vs. Ecuador over the upper Amazon, and so on). First of all, because it is not such a regional war, and the seizure of territory is by no means its goal. It is a war that is ideological and even partly religious, which the Putin regime is waging with the United States and its allies not for Ukraine, but on Ukrainian territory. Moreover, the Kremlin does not need any part of Ukraine.

I am inclined to trust the recollections of Medvedchuk, who suddenly told me that Putin refused to take over Donbass during Poroshenko's time and pushed it back into Ukraine by all means. Like the hero of Ilf and Petrov, Putin always dreamed of a silver platter on which Ukraine (as well as all the other post-Soviet territories) would be handed to him, and therefore he invariably responded to any compromise proposals: I would take it in parts, but I need the whole. Ukraine in its entirety, not in itself, but as part of the "grand bargain" of dividing Europe, was and is Putin's strategic goal in this war, and no change in his plans over the past year has occurred. Another thing is that his tactics have changed, and now he is ready to achieve this goal in two stages, for which he needs a break. But he cannot give up solving the strategic task without getting a crisis inside Russia, which means he cannot stop at what he has achieved. In this, and not in the principle value to Ukraine of the seized territories, I see the main problem and obstacle to peace at this stage of the war.

Everyone is talking about the future of Russia today. When it comes to the future of Ukraine, there is an awkward pause. All the dotted lines stop at the word "victory. Victory, and after victory, the deluge will follow. Russian opposition figures talk about Putin in roughly the same vein - he disappears (no matter how), and then it doesn't matter. But when discussing the possibility or impossibility of a cease-fire, we have no chance to avoid talking about the future of Ukraine, because there is a clear link here. Only in conjunction with the expected scenario of the development of the situation can we definitely say whether the political leadership of Ukraine at this stage is acceptable for the negotiations on an armistice that Yavlinsky proposes.

The first thesis, which I can neither confirm nor refute empirically, is that according to my impression, Ukrainian society has not formed a demand for peace, especially for peace at any price. It is difficult for me to judge how high the resolve and will to continue the war actually is, but there is no clear sign to the contrary. This means that a change of course by 180 degrees will cause frustration in a large part of Ukrainian society, quickly turning into excitement. At the same time, the pro-Russian, pro-Communist elements that have fallen drastically in volume but have not yet completely disappeared will inevitably awaken, having gone underground during the war. There are not as few of them as it seems. Finally, the watery truce between the "allied forces" that hate each other fiercely, but in the face of imminent military threat, are forced to keep their mouths shut.

All of the above will be superimposed upon two objective processes: a profound economic crisis and a growth in anti-corruption protests, which can be observed even now in war conditions. At the same time, the drive will disappear and the flow of Western assistance will weaken (after all, peace has already arrived). At the same time, conversion will begin, and those mobilized from the front will begin to return in droves. Thus, it can be predicted quite confidently that the suspension of the war while maintaining the status quo (the territories remain occupied) creates the conditions for the immediate start of a perfect political storm in Ukraine. Under such circumstances, agreeing to negotiations with Moscow, the subject of which would be the discussion of territorial concessions, is almost tantamount to political suicide. I think Zelensky would prefer to remain in history as a hero president rather than as a kamikaze president.

A political crisis in post-war Ukraine is almost inevitable in any case. But ending the war with a "victory" - that is, as Ukrainians currently understand it, the return of all or almost all territories under their control and the provision of clear military guarantees to Ukraine, insuring against a recurrence of aggression - could have significantly mitigated the crisis. First, the drive would be preserved, which would make it easier to switch from military to civilian tasks. Secondly, it would be possible to count on a substantial inflow of private investments, not to mention certain reparations, at least within the seized Russian assets. The conclusion of a ceasefire with Moscow now and in fact on Moscow's terms makes it impossible to hope for either the first or the second.

I should add that all of the above is understood in Moscow as well as in Kiev. Putin will not be a neutral observer of how events in Ukraine develop after the cease-fire. He will intervene directly online in the almost unavoidable acute civil conflict, seeking to implement, at the very least, the Georgian scenario. That is the plan: instead of a cavalry attack, to solve the problem of changing the government in Kiev as a "two-way" solution. We know that, in principle, Putin knows how to wait. At the first opportunity, he will try to use the cease-fire to implement the Donetsk and Lugansk scenario of 2014 throughout Ukraine.

There is one condition under which Kiev will agree to negotiate an armistice with Moscow in exchange for territorial concessions (even if in the format of tacit recognition of the status quo without any legal entrenchment). I very much hope that this condition will never come to pass. And it is not a refusal by the West to supply arms. Such a condition can only be a strategic disintegration of the front and damage to the AFU, which does not allow the defense of Kiev and cover the lines of communication with Europe. In fact, the threat of just such a breakthrough forced Mannerheim, literally at the last minute, to make peace with Stalin. The problem, however, is that if such a breakthrough were to happen, I find it hard to imagine that Putin would return to his offer of an armistice on the same terms. In that case, a full-fledged partition of Ukraine would be negotiable. I don't think this is the scenario that Yavlinsky had in mind. And without such a radical and tragic change in the position of the Ukrainian army on the front, any talk of concluding any kind of peace agreement remains purely theoretical exercises with no practical significance. The political conditions allowing for their implementation in practice do not exist in Ukraine at the moment.

People with an atrophied sense of compassion think that ending the war is solely a matter of political choice, and that Ukraine has some better choice than the one it made, and therefore can make some partial concessions, preserving the main thing and avoiding enormous casualties. Needless to say, I myself feel this way from time to time. But a sober and impartial calculation shows that Ukraine has no such choice. As the main character of the cult series "Medici" said: "You always have a choice if you are ready to lose. If Ukraine is not ready to lose, its only choice is to gnaw its teeth into its own land and water it abundantly with blood. That is what the price of freedom turned out to be for her. Not by her choice.

The key point of this war is that Ukraine has no intermediate, compromise option. She was offered a game, by the rules of which the winner takes all. The point is not that "Finlandization" is bad, but that it is inaccessible as a way to solve Ukraine's problems today. In case of a compromise it will not be "Finlandized", but totally "obsesserized" and turned into the Poland of the "Warsaw Pact" times (Belarus of our times) at best, or back to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic at worst. The reason for such a narrow corridor of historical possibilities is internal weakness. Ukraine can afford to survive the war (at the expense of consolidation of the nation), but is unlikely to survive defeat. And recognition of the loss of territories will be interpreted by public opinion as a defeat - this is one of the traps for Zelensky. It is very difficult for him to present the compromise as a victory after all that has happened.

What remains to be done? Alas, only to continue to grind people in what will obviously go down in history as one of the bloodiest wars in modern European history (with the exception of two world wars) and to hope that at some point the aggressor itself will be unable to withstand the pressure it has created and "the trust will burst from internal tension."

https://t.me/v_pastukhov/550

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