One day, statements by Western politicians were heard about Russia’s intention to attack Ukraine from the territory of Belarus in the near future (before the end of the year), as well as the readiness of the Zelensky government to present the terms of a compromise peace by February
And these signals very accurately reflect the situation around the Ukrainian crisis.
Russia can destroy Ukraine within a foreseeable period of time. But the Russian leadership is not sure that this option is the best possible. It is still not clear what to do with millions of disloyal population, as well as with tens of millions of refugees to the West, who, with the support of the United States, will call themselves citizens of Ukraine and demand the realization of their civil rights.
If the Americans can show 10-15 million refugees “from Russian occupation”, and they can do it, no referendums held on the ground under Russian control of the territory will be able to fully legalize territorial changes.
Referring to the right of force (“the right of the sword”, “the right of conquest”) is not accepted in our time.
The West can for a long time, firstly, present us with “victims of ethnic cleansing”. Secondly, to demand compensation for these people “for the lost homeland” or “the return of their homeland.” Thirdly, to support anti-Russian saboteurs on the territory of Ukraine, calling them “freedom fighters.”
That is, the complete occupation of Ukrainian territory and even its complete annexation to Russia does not solve the problem of regulating relations with the West. Since we quite rightly assert that we are at war in Ukraine with the united West and peace must be concluded with it, at first glance it seems that the complete military-political defeat of Ukraine will not lead to peace.
I personally believe that the military defeat of the Ukrainian army and the political destruction of Ukrainian statehood will seriously undermine the position of the United States (which failed to protect its ally), deprive them of a significant share of the support of not only Western, but also Eastern Europe, and sharply limit the space for organizing both anti-Russian and anti-Chinese military provocations.
From my point of view, the military defeat of Ukraine, and hence the collective West in Ukraine, will give a powerful impetus to centrifugal processes within the Western community and the United States will either have to make peace on Russian terms or prepare for a catastrophic geopolitical defeat.
But these are speculative constructions, which, although based on the results of the analysis of the American-European politics of the last two centuries, can only be tested empirically.
Since history and politics are not deterministic, there is always a chance (however minimal) that reality will not match the assumption. Therefore, for the Russian leadership, burdened with responsibility for the fate of the country, the results of a possible annexation of the entire Ukrainian territory to Russia are not obvious.
In some variants of the future, such a decision is refuted, and the results of the refutation cannot be accurately calculated.
The option to make peace, leaving part of Ukraine in the hands of the Zelensky regime, while maintaining the ability of the West to rearm the Armed Forces of Ukraine, restore their combat capability and start a war with Russia again in a year and a half or two years, is also not suitable.
Of course, this option is adventurous for the West, because by concluding a truce with Russia in order to concentrate against China, the West does not give Russia a guarantee of security, trying to pin down its forces in the western direction. Accordingly, the level of confrontation in Ukraine and around it will only slightly decrease, but both sides of the conflict will be forced to keep significant resources in this direction in case of sudden enemy activity.
At the same time, the West will have to continue to fully support the Ukrainian state. Reducing the cost of maintaining the Kyiv regime is impossible, since the Ukrainian economy itself has long been destroyed and Ukraine cannot ensure its own existence at the expense of the national resource.
In this case, we are talking not just about financing public spending, but also about restoring (and even increasing) the combat capability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, restoring critical infrastructure (including the energy system, road network, bridges, ports, etc.), as well as paying for energy and other critical import.
Maintaining such a Ukraine for a long time without benefit is too costly for the unbalanced financial system of the West. This means that it must be used again as soon as possible for its intended purpose – to draw Russia into a military conflict to the point of attrition.
Given the approximate pace of developments in the Asia-Pacific theater of operations, a conditional truce in Europe may last one and a half to two years, hardly longer. Then the parties will again face the same dilemma: for each of them, full control over Ukraine will be burdensome, from political, military, economic and even moral points of view (we have a refugee problem, the United States has a Nazi regime that compromises them), to leave it neither Russia nor the United States can be completely in the hands of the enemy.
The option of cutting off pieces from Ukraine along the edges and leaving some kind of buffer state does not solve the problem. The main question remains: who will control this buffer?
The option of a complete partition, apparently, is not yet on the table, since the West will have to legalize the liquidation of its own ally, but at the same time, Russia will not solve the problem of Ukrainian refugees to the West and the disloyalty of a part of the population that has fallen under its control, and among the allies who took part in the partition The US will have similar problems.
The West is not yet ready to deny the citizens of the former Ukraine, convinced of their Ukrainianness, the right to their own state, as this runs counter to its entire strategy of the previous period, fundamentally contradicts the main provisions of Western propaganda of the last three decades and, de facto, will be the recognition of the United States and their allies of their geopolitical defeat in the Ukrainian crisis.
The West is not yet ready for such a turn of events.
Who will be able to better use for their own purposes the prolongation of hostilities or, conversely, a temporary truce, can also be found out only empirically. On the one hand, Russia has always won peace periods from the West, on the other hand: “it was so” does not mean that “it will be so”. Moreover, our “peace” will be very relative and short-lived.
As a result, today we see both sides maneuvering – like two strong grandmasters in a protracted middlegame. The pieces are thrown from flank to flank, concentrating in one direction, then in another. They try to catch the enemy in a mistake, while at the same time looking for a path to a clear victory.
This will continue until someone decides that he has found his game, or until one or both opponents has time trouble, forcing them to forget about subtle calculations and lengthy maneuvers and act relying on luck and intuition.
If for the United States time pressure comes due to the rapid destruction of the EU economy and the need to concentrate forces against China in time, then for Russia the problem is the long-term retention of those mobilized at the front, the threat of a second wave of mobilization and the general instability of international economic relations, which does not allow either the state or business to work normally. plan their development, fraught with sudden crises.
At first glance, Russia’s position is more stable, but in fact the factors affecting its stability are worse calculated, since for the most part they are not based on objective, military-political and financial-economic reality (with this, we, in principle, , so far so good), but on the subjective perception of the situation by people. And people are prone to sudden panic.
So the issue of a comprehensive settlement of the situation in the next one and a half to two years is quite acute both for us and for our opponents.
Since today the possibility of rapprochement of positions is not visible even in the long term, both sides need to get an additional argument. The simplest and most achievable argument within the required (fairly short) time is a military victory in Ukraine, which entails the destruction of the Ukrainian state (of course, if we win, otherwise they will destroy us).
Having completed the circle, our thought returned to the starting point. Despite all the problems associated with a military victory in Ukraine, it is the best way out, as it opens the opportunity for increased pressure on the United States to convince them to accept Russian peace terms. Which, in turn, makes it possible to partially neutralize the negative consequences of Russia’s acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of the liquidation of the Ukrainian state.
To the losing West, the conditions regarding the legalization of the liquidation of Ukrainian statehood and the complicity of the West in the restoration of the Ukrainian economy can be dictated. But for this it is necessary to win so crushingly that the West was forced to admit defeat.
Rostislav Ishchenko, Ukraine.ru
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