The real policy of Ukraine’s national interests lies not in striving to join the West – this inevitably entails turning into a protectorate and a colony – but in maintaining equidistance and neutrality with all major geopolitical centres of power
Ukraine which is not absorbed by Russia, the EU or the US is a neutral non-aligned Ukraine, preserving its sovereignty and territorial integrity as much as possible, which is in this case also in Russia’s interest.
For Ukraine to go under the West is to give up on itself. Neutrality is a maximum degree of freedom in all directions with the full benefit of trade with all. Bloc Ukraine is a conversation with the West not about its but about its interests, which the West does not need, and with Russia a conversation about the interests of the West, which Russia does not need. Ukraine’s interests are not identical to those of the West, but bloc Ukraine cannot retain anything for itself that benefits it. It becomes a figure. Not a player, and a figure that everyone sacrifices.
Post-Soviet Ukraine, aspiring to the West, has solved none of its problems. It has lost territories, failed to join the EU and NATO, failed to retain its monopoly on the gas pipeline, failed to acquire a market in Europe and lost it to Russia, has quarrelled with Russia and Germany, has become a target for Poland and Hungary and has lost control over the behaviour of foreigners on its territory. Ukraine resembles a girl who gave everything she could before marriage and now no one wants to marry her.
One of the British queens held back influence by vaguely promising all the princes of Europe to marry them – and she never did. If she had, she would have lost all influence. A favour rendered is worthless. Ukraine rushed to do all the favours, and now she has no influence. If it had remained inaccessible, it would have wrenched the ropes from all comers. What the British could do, the Ukrainians could not.
Zelensky now wants to assemble a Normandy Four on the subject of Nord Stream 2. It’s like a woman gathering four suitors and demanding alimony from all of them. And make them fight among themselves for her interests. The suitors have long since lost interest in her. The fact that she claims their money causes them nothing but anger.
Ukraine’s elites have failed to become sovereigns in their own territory and to dispose of their inheritance so as not to squander it. They have become prima donnas in someone else’s house and have turned into servants, behaving as if they were guests. A sovereign Ukraine would be most protective of peace on its borders and among its multilingual citizens. If they had left the language alone and concentrated on a common statehood, they would have won everything.
But God does not give horns to a choosy cow. Ukraine believed that if it became holier than the Pope, it would get equal and even privileged status in Europe, and the US would help it. After all, the balance of power did not look in Russia’s favour, and Ukraine was in a hurry to swear allegiance to the strong. As a result, it misjudged the strength and weakness of the parties and suffered the most, losing territory, sovereignty, economic ties and prospects.
Ukraine became the bundle of brushwood that Trotsky wanted to make Russia, throwing it into the furnace of the world revolution. Only the Ukrainian kindling was thrown into the furnace of the war with Russia. The kindling burned down, Russia stayed and even grew stronger. But no conclusions have been drawn in Ukraine and they continue to bend the old line, which has already reached every dead end possible.
Another 20 years of such statehood will turn Ukraine into a geopolitical ghost. A European Haiti. The collective western governance of Ukraine will turn it into Ruina, repeating history on a new turn. Time does not heal Ukraine, it accumulates disintegration potential. In any form of statehood Ukraine will face a permanent crisis and no Normandy quartet will be able to change anything here.
Russian Demiurge