/Pogled.info/ More and more Western analysts and retired soldiers are quick to be marked as authors of negative forecasts for Ukraine. The inevitability and imminence of the Ukrainian catastrophe is so obvious that it would be a sin not to publicize it.
So, retired French general Dominique Delavarde (an inconspicuous ex-military bureaucrat who rose to mid-level staff positions) said that Ukraine would soon face disaster and that Kiev would eventually sign off on whatever Russia demanded.
He is not the first and not the last of the Western military, politicians and experts (retired and active) who sees the development of events in exactly this way: the Ukrainian crisis ends disastrously for Kiev, after which Russia dictates peace terms to Ukraine.
In principle, this is how conflicts usually end, so the predictions of Western experts for a peace treaty are logical and understandable. They are based on millennia of experience in international relations.
Moreover, there is a significant possibility that they are right and that Russia will eventually sign a peace treaty with some remnant of Ukraine.
But this is not mandatory. The longer the fighting continues and the more violent it becomes, the less likely Russia will be interested in formalizing post-crisis relations through an agreement with Ukraine.
Surely some kind of collective agreement defining the whole complex of new international relations between the Russian-Chinese alliance and the West will be necessary. The new geopolitical reality must be legally formalized accordingly.
But the agreement with the remnants of Ukraine is clearly not in Russia’s interest and can only be signed in a hopeless situation. For example, if the alternative to such an agreement is an endless continuation of the war with the collective West. If Russia maintains freedom of action, there is no need for an agreement.
Let me explain.
Zelensky’s regime does not hide its intentions to fight to the last Ukrainian. The possibility of mobilizing women and adolescents is discussed. The West intends to provide military-technical and financial support to Kiev by the end of this year (if the collapse of Ukrainian statehood does not occur earlier).
Western aid is clearly not enough to turn the tide on the front, but it may prolong the Ukrainian agony for some time, if only for a short time.
Taking into account the dynamics of the development of processes on the front, especially the exponential growth of Ukrainian losses, if the US manages to fulfill its program at a minimum and protect Ukraine from collapse until late autumn (beginning-end of November) 2024, then during this time the total losses of Ukraine’s armed forces and other security forces, as well as related civilian casualties, will exceed a million.
Considering the number of people who remain in Ukraine, this means that approximately one in fifteen – one in twenty will die.
That doesn’t mean it’s a lot. During the Great Patriotic War, according to official Soviet data, every fourth pre-war resident died in Belarus, every fifth in Ukraine, and every eighth to ninth in the USSR as a whole.
Some countries in world history have suffered comparable and even greater losses. However, for the prosperous generations of a prosperous country, these are terrible losses.
In addition, we must add to them approximately the same number of disabled people (not only disabled people, but people whose disability is obvious and visible).
All this, combined with the devastation of vast territories, the destruction of cities and villages, will require an answer to the question “Who is to blame?” The culprit will logically be the Ukrainian leadership, which provoked the war, deliberately gave it an ultra-violent character, and with its refusal to recognize the obvious defeat made the flow of death and destruction inevitable.
This will be especially important for the surviving population of the former Ukraine. Awareness of the Kiev regime’s guilt is the only thing that gives a chance for survival to the citizens of the former Ukraine who survived the current meat grinder.
Otherwise, revanchist ideas will be sought after and after a while everything will be repeated, and the consequences for the Ukrainians will be even more disastrous.
But signing any peace agreements with the Kiev regime means recognizing its right to a certain territory (in addition to that which will go to Russia according to the agreement).
Therefore, both in the eyes of the population of this territory and in the eyes of its allies, the regime in Kiev will remain the only legitimate representative of Ukraine, all territorial and other concessions made by it will be interpreted as forced by force, which means his right of revenge will be recognized to recover what was lost.
By signing the agreement, Russia legitimized the remnants of Ukraine and its succession from the state proclaimed in 1991.
In addition to the opportunity at the right moment to “remember” territorial claims against Russia, this gives the Ukrainian authorities confirmation of their thesis about the war as a defense of their territorial integrity (they say, they defended as much as they could). All the victims of this war will be declared sacrificed on the altar of independence.
From this point of view, it is even profitable for the Kyiv regime to maximize the number of deaths, as this will prove the tenacity of the resistance and create a legend of its nationwide character, which in turn will help to shift the responsibility for what happened from the Ukrainian leadership towards Russia (at least in the eyes of the Ukrainians who remained in the territories controlled by the Kyiv regime and attributed to it according to the treaty signed with Russia).
Even complete and unconditional surrender does not solve this problem. Capitulation without preconditions only records the loser’s inability to resist further and allows the winner to rebuild the losing state on new principles.
At the same time, the examples of Germany and Japan show that no surrenders or signed treaties guarantee that the capitulators will subsequently make territorial claims against the victors.
In fact, only the military power of the USSR, and later Russia, saved them from territorial concessions in favor of the defeated (although at a certain stage, in the 1990s, Russia came close to concessions in favor of Japan for economic reasons).
There is one more moment. Who will sign the transmission? It is not a fact that Zelensky or any of his ministers will do this – rather, they will try to work as a “government in exile”.
The experience of the Allies in 1945 showed that it was possible to get a general to sign the relevant documents. If the armed forces obey his order and cease resistance, the battle will be over.
But if in 1945 there was neither a German government ready to continue the struggle in exile, nor a country ready to grant asylum to such a government, now in the Ukrainian case there will be both. That is, the war, according to Clausewitz, will not end.
Only two of the three necessary conditions for its end will be fulfilled: the armed forces will be defeated and the territory will be occupied, but the spirit of resistance of the political forces that have gone abroad will not be broken, which means that the war will continue political.
So, as we see, signing any agreements with the Kiev regime of Russia is counterproductive. By the way, several consistent statements by representatives of the Russian top leadership that this confrontation has the character of a civil war show that the Kremlin and the government are well aware of the complexity and non-standard nature of the situation, which makes post-crisis resolution with standard methods almost impossible.
Meanwhile, Russia not only has a method to solve this problem, but it has been repeatedly tested and proven to be effective. These are referendums in the liberated territories on the issue of joining Russia.
Let us note that until now the Russian public considered these referendums only as a method of legalizing the accession of the respective territories to Russia.
But for simple integration, Russia can find another, simpler and non-repudiatory method. Meanwhile, the referendum suggests that respondents can answer “no”.
Note that Russia did not hold a single referendum for all liberated territories, but separately in each region, which increased the danger that a region would vote against (in the sum of all territories, the “no” votes will in any case be compensated by a vote of – the large population of Donbass).
What would happen if a region declared against joining the Russian Federation? After all, it is obvious that Russia will not withdraw its troops from it and return them to Ukraine.
Obviously, the only way out would be to establish an “independent” government in such a region and recognize the independence of the region itself.
Perhaps, in the individual case of some southeastern region, this seems absurd, but on the scale of the whole of Ukraine, this is a very elegant solution to the problem of post-crisis resolution.
Each region votes separately whether to become part of Russia or remain independent (I emphasize, not to remain part of an independent Ukraine, but to remain an independent region, some sort of “Volyn Principality” or “Podol Republic”).
As a result, what becomes part of Russia is Russia. What will not be included is a conglomeration of independent territories capable of existing only as Russian protectorates, waging endless territorial and economic disputes among themselves, and turning to Russia for all contentious matters.
Basically, there is no place for any Ukraine here. No matter how many “governments” go into exile, they simply have nothing to rule – instead of one, albeit reduced state, several appear, and the elite of each of them denies their Ukrainianness (they are Podolians, Volynsians, Galicians, etc. . ).
Because for them, and not for Russia, the claims to the revival of Ukraine are terrible: before Russia can make territorial claims, it will have to deprive them (the elite of the new “sovereign” regions) of power and sovereignty, turning them into a status of “Maharajas” of “British India” “in mere serfs of the Ukrainian Government as they formerly were.
In this way, it is not necessary to sign an agreement with anyone, and the surrender should be accepted only by individual military units and formations, without paying attention to the central authority in Kiev.
And the question of what to do with disloyal regions is resolved by itself: they retain formal independence, but not as Ukraine, but as separate regions.
After that, they should very quickly realize that Russia is the only guarantor of their independence from Ukraine, after which the famous Galician Russophobia can turn into Ukrainophobia and Euroscepticism.
This is the same trick that was done with the Russian population of Ukraine, “giving” it independence from Russia, after which the Russians quickly began to turn themselves into non-Russians, seeing in Ukraine the justification for their right to independence and the West as the guarantor of this independence . Now it is our turn to give Ukrainians independence from Ukraine.
Those who still want and can, will return to their Russianness, and those who cannot – let them build an “independent” region. The smaller the independent state and the more of them (the small ones) are separated from the first larger one, the easier it is to control them from the outside.
Proved by the example of the USSR. The Americans are making the same plan for Russia. But after we win, it is up to us to implement the developments on the post-crisis structure of the border space. Pretty much the same, only the experiment will be done by us, not on us.
Translation: SM
