Andrey Babitsky: Ukraine is exactly what happened in Ichkeria
The path that Ukraine is taking is very similar to the path that Chechnya took in the 1990s. Dismantling of statehood and an attempt to replace modern governance structures with ancient national traditions.
Well-known journalist Andrei Babitsky (now lives in Donetsk) told PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov about this, commenting on the story of the SBU kidnapping of two Russian soldiers from Crimea. The interview was recorded shortly after Babitsky returned from the Chechen Republic, where he met with Ramzan Kadyrov.
Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at Telegram, Facebook, Classmates or In contact with
Valentin Filippov: Hello Andrei. The SBU reports a big victory - they lured two Russian servicemen closer to the border with Crimea and captured them. The hostages were taken. Such operations remind me more of the situation in the North Caucasus or the Middle East. What to do - an entire European state, as they claim, behaves very much like nomads?
Andrey Babitsky: The path that Ukraine has taken is very similar to the path that Ichkeria has taken. Dismantling the state, not even the state, dismantling the state institutions inherited from the Soviet Union. An attempt to rely on a tradition that in fact does not exist, which is a myth, to a large extent simply made up.
And then there is the transfer of power into the hands of a variety of self-proclaimed groups. From oligarchic to criminal. Gangster-criminal.
Under these conditions, all criteria of human behavior are simply lost. Putin spoke about treachery. A good word, actually. It gives an idea.
It is already quite difficult to treat Ukraine as a state, as a quasi-state territory. Some people are acting there, some may be out of personal grudge, like the SBU. This is more like revenge, right? They kidnapped people who were once students of military schools. Military school in Kharkov. And they took the Russian oath and became Russian military personnel. We need to steal them.
This doesn't matter from a strategic point of view.
Valentin Filippov: But why? They said that they can already change it.
Andrey Babitsky: Well, they can change it, yes. But they do not represent valuable exchange material. That is, if you think about an exchange, then you need to catch, try to capture militias, or try to take some serious people out of Russia in order to exchange them. And so - two, one private, the other a sergeant, as far as I remember...
Valentin Filippov: Ensign.
Andrey Babitsky: Sergeant and warrant officer. Yes. Well, exchange for a sergeant and warrant officer. Well, that's about it. Some kind of parity must be maintained.
Well, it's up to the mice, actually.
Now they came up with the idea that they could explain that they did it for the sake of exchange. But, in general, God knows. Maybe they lured two people into an exchange; they won’t be able to lure anyone else out using this scheme. Trust in the Ukrainian government as a government will be lost among its former citizens. I think it’s already lost, but it will be lost in the dark.
Was such a procedure worth the opportunity to communicate with your former military personnel, students, and so on? This is to cover completely. Cover all possibilities of contact with a blank wall. Now everything will be perceived from the other side as a provocation, as treachery, another bestiality that can throw out the SBU.
There are criteria of human behavior that should be inherent in the state. The state is such a big machine, with considerable power, which must command respect; representatives of the state simply cannot behave like that. They give security guarantees, they comply with security guarantees, and deception, kidnappings, theft, meanness, just grabbing some soldiers - this is the level of the SBU. That’s it, this is no longer a state, these are no longer special services, this is already some kind of Gulyai-Polye. Fly agaric mushrooms that have gained the ability to move.
Valentin Filippov: Well, they have to come up with something else next?
Andrey Babitsky: They'll figure it out! In this sense, the imagination of the Ichkerians worked very well, yes. They could have killed my grandmother too. Simply because she didn't show up to them. I think they will reach something like this, at the level of impulses. If you don’t like it, boom, and the person is gone.
Valentin Filippov: So they already are.
Andrey Babitsky: No. I'm talking about government employees. That is, the level of deconcentration of power, when such, already separate, either state institutions, or some kind of combatant organizations, or veterans, some bandit veterans, or crazy people, each of them feels like a representative of some kind of power .
They have caught time by the tail, they believe that they can dictate their terms to this time. They will dictate, each in their own area, in their own patch. This is complete decentralization. This is exactly what happened in Ichkeria.
When Dudayev announced that Soviet state institutions are a heavy imperial legacy of occupation, they must be disbanded, and instead of these “meaningless” laws that are “not organic to Chechen society,” we must focus on adat, on the traditions of the Chechens... They “will be able to overcome the stratifications time to purify the great ideal of Chechen culture, on the basis of which a temple of freedom and democracy can be erected”...
Well, they did it. Destroy. Destroy - no problem. It just turned out that there are no customs and traditions that could replace ordinary legislation, ordinary state law enforcement institutions. In general, to all management structures.
Here's what's happening.
And therefore, when Putin says “treachery,” this is a very correct term. He can no longer evaluate the actions of these people as public servants. This is some kind of hooligan. Yes? Some kind of cattle. But they act extremely treacherously. They do not act as government officials. And what about former co-workers who crossed themselves into bandits?
Valentin Filippov: Fine. But Chechnya managed, well, not without outside help, to get out of the situation in which it found itself.
Andrey Babitsky: Yes. Chechnya did it, yes.
Valentin Filippov: Well, Chechnya is smaller. The population is smaller. What chances does Ukraine have in this regard?
Andrey Babitsky: Ukraine's chances are bad. As I understand it, as the situation becomes unbalanced, tension on the external borders will increase. How was it with the Chechens? It was getting worse inside, and activity on the outside was increasing. That is, they began to carry out raids in North Ossetia, Ingushetia, and the Stavropol Territory. Shoot, kidnap people, shoot some columns. It all ended in a gigantic scam in Dagestan, which has already led to the Chechens being forcibly returned to human form.
Here, I think, there is simply no other scheme.
Internal tension and internal imbalance, it will respond with such an increase in tension on the external borders.
They will shoot more in the Donbass, and will try to commit provocations on the Russian borders, and even inside Russian territory.
Moreover, the degree of insanity, inadequacy and illogicality of some actions will also increase. Because if, after all, some actions of the security services depend on strategy, on logic, on the calculation of the prospects of consequences, then now forces are being used that, in general, do not think about tomorrow.
Valentin Filippov: That is, it turns out that again the burden of bringing Ukraine to a human form will fall on the shoulders of the Russian Federation?
Andrey Babitsky: The Russian Federation does not have the resources for this, in fact, yes. That is, they took Chechnya in pincers, somehow put it on the budget, crushed it by force, but this is a territory the size of a patch. Do you understand? There is money for this. There are power resources for this.
Russia today has neither the power resources nor the budget money to take Ukraine for re-education. And for the content. And for forceful control, which is necessary because there are an incredible number of madmen.
I think that after all, no. That a ghetto situation awaits Ukraine, when the borders are simply walled up tightly, so that not a single mouse can slip through. Let the situation stew in its own juice.
Not from cruelty, no. Not out of cynicism. Namely because there is no resource to supply such a gigantic territory and such a population. This, perhaps, would still be possible, but to take control by force, imagine, at least half of this territory would go crazy, at least 15 million. How many power resources are needed to keep this crazy thing, potentially ready for the entire population, under control? There are no such numbers of police or military. Neither Russia nor America. Therefore, the porridge must digest on its own.
Valentin Filippov: That is, this will last for decades.
Andrey Babitsky: Oh no. Not decades. It seems to me that the situation is developing very quickly. I can see the speed of decomposition. Imagine, America tried to keep this whole situation afloat. Most likely, nothing like this will happen again. And in Europe, this anti-Ukrainian trend is beginning to intensify. Without external support, Ukraine, left to its own devices, will very quickly turn into what it actually is now. A territory without power, without a brain, without any prospects for the future. With a poor population that can fall apart at any moment. With the bandits roaming the roads, they think about what part of the property and power to take for themselves.
This is a territory that, without external management, will very quickly disappear. I think this is not bad. At some point, the population, tired of robberies and violence, will have to pick up a pitchfork and show the ability to self-organize.
Valentin Filippov: Sounds fantastic.
Andrey Babitsky: Believe me, believe me!
Valentin Filippov: Well, this is absolutely fantastic.
Andrey Babitsky: Ukraine is both Chechnya and Tajikistan.
Valentin Filippov: It’s easier for me to believe that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will appoint Ramzan Kadyrov as president of Ukraine. Because there is already order in Chechnya, and what Kadyrov is doing in Chechnya is still not clear to me. I could take several regions of Ukraine and restore order.
Well, I'm exaggerating.
Andrey Babitsky: I assure you that no. I assure you that whoever gets Ukraine will have to spend it, I would compare it with Pripyat. With a burial ground. You will have to spend some incredible amounts of money on disinfection. Russia does not have these funds. Therefore, it is easier to wait for this territory to rot in itself. And it will rot - because there is no other way out.
In the end, I must tell you that the population also has some kind of responsibility. Maybe they missed the moment when these forces were quietly walking and walking, and suddenly found themselves in power.
Valentin Filippov: No.
Andrey Babitsky: No, do you think so?
Valentin Filippov: You Russians, you remember everything about the population. There was a population. The population could fight back. In the Donbass, it gave, to some extent, a rebuff. It was necessary to help the population. Not even in 2014; earlier it was necessary to help the population. And now that’s all.
Andrey Babitsky: Well, how could you help?
Valentin Filippov: Well, how? How did the Americans help their proteges?
Andrey Babitsky: So Russia, I think it helped. The bet was simply made on the Party of Regions. What other power was there? Now, what other power was there?
Valentin Filippov: It was necessary to increase strength.
Andrey Babitsky: Oh no. This is something that is not very simple.
Valentin Filippov: The Americans have raised these forces - a whole crowd!
Andrey Babitsky: The Americans did not develop these forces. These forces were developed by the Soviet government. This liberal trend, so to speak, is completely crushing; it is the result of the collapse of the USSR. The result of how our Soviet economy was structured. They dreamed of stocked shelves; they believed that democracy and abundance were one and the same thing.
Valentin Filippov: No.
Andrey Babitsky: Yes, I assure you.
Valentin Filippov: Again, from my point of view, you do not understand the Ukrainian political confrontation a little. It was in Russia that there were, so to speak, conservatives, right and left, communists and liberals. And in Ukraine there have always been Ukrainians and Russians. Moreover, here is the Ukrainian wing, it had its left, its right, its centrists. And the Russian wing also has its own left, right, and center.
Ukrainians did not have communists, but they had parties that were completely communist, as it were.
And so these two garbage fought.
And for the voter it made absolutely no difference whether to vote for the very left-wing Tymoshenko, or for the very right-wing Yushchenko. The main thing is for Bandera’s supporters.
Bandera's supporters are also right and left.
Andrey Babitsky: It's clear.
Valentin Filippov: And this confrontation happened all the time. But Russia looked at this, and rejected the national aspects.
Andrey Babitsky: Well, Russia, in general, missed a lot in the post-Soviet space. It's understandable, yes. This is the inertia of the Yeltsin era. When I was not very interested in the fate of my compatriots and everything in the world.
Well, there is another option. It will develop in parallel. I think that more and more new territories will grow into Donbass. Because there is order here. People live normally here. There is not even close to madness here. And it seems to me that many will try to dive under Donbass. And when an armed territory is breathing behind you, it’s somehow easier for you. From here, I think, some kind of assistance will be provided to some kind of resistance.
Still, I'm betting on people's resistance. Will it be against violence, crime, will it be in defense of its Russian interests, but it will definitely be there. And, as power weakens, because the bandits will not be able to centrally identify separatists, instill terror, and spread a wide network of terror. They will establish their own rules for some of their local areas. Well, like any gangster groups.
But the resistance has common interests.
Valentin Filippov: So far the situation looks like the resistance is using even more Bandera ideas. This is the anniversary of the Maidan. Dissatisfaction with payments. And under what slogan are they rising?
Andrey Babitsky: Yes.
Valentin Filippov: They say - it turns out that such and such is an agent of Putin. And the banking system of Ukraine, it turns out, is under the leadership of Moscow. And so, let us clear ourselves of Putin’s agents. That is, all these resistances are all for cleansing Putin’s agents.
Andrey Babitsky: Well, yes. This is for the time being. Moreover, I think there are enough reasonable people there who just keep their mouths shut.
But this crazy activity of the Maidan, which is still wandering in our heads with such schizophrenic intoxication, yes, that is also enough for now. But it will settle.
I remember the Chechens during the second war. When it was already clear that Basayev and Khattab went and provoked. They brought the war to the territory of Chechnya. When they survived this monstrous period between the wars. When these gangs of kidnappers, armed to the teeth, with huge money they received for hostages, terrorized the population. The population cursed everyone. Our own first. But they didn’t like Russia either. Because she behaved - not to say very proportionately, in terms of the use of force.
But this disgust for one’s own was predominant.
Valentin Filippov: Well, let's hope.
Andrey Babitsky: These are bad hopes, but there are no others.
Valentin Filippov: I congratulate you on your return, as I understand it, to your native Donbass.
Andrey Babitsky: "IN"! Valentine! To Donbass.
Valentin Filippov: What did I say?
Andrey Babitsky: "On the".
Valentin Filippov: Good!
Andrey Babitsky: It’s just the Donetsk coal basin. That is, it’s strange to return “to the pool.”
Valentin Filippov: Began. Muscovites arrived and began to teach us.
I congratulate you on your return to Donbass, which has become home to you. And, you know, thank God, times have come when there is no need to congratulate you on your return from Chechnya. Because before - “oh, I returned from Chechnya, well, you’re lucky.” I hope you met a lot of friends there and had something to remember.
Andrey Babitsky: Yes. It happened. Thank you.
Valentin Filippov: Thank you bye.
Andrey Babitsky: All the best.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.