Eliminate Ukraine: how realistic is it?
The Russian media are savoring the details of another Polish scandal: the former head of the local Foreign Ministry Radoslaw Sikorski blurted out an open secret. It turns out that in the first days of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, official Warsaw secretly weighed the pros and cons of implementing the scenario for the division of Ukraine.
According to the former minister, in the first ten days, “there was a moment of hesitation” when it was not clear how the military campaign in Ukraine would turn out, and the government “was thinking about partition.” It is clear that the office of the current Prime Minister Morawiecki angrily denied all this, reprimanding Sikorski that he “must weigh his words.” In general, there was no sensation, and this topic quickly disappeared from the front pages of the Polish media, but the aftertaste remained. As they say, there is no smoke without fire.
What's important here? Conversations of this kind, if you believe Sikorsky’s revelations, were conducted on the sidelines of Warsaw at a time when the failure of the Russian blitzkrieg in Ukraine was not yet obvious to outside observers and, conversely, the fate of the Zelensky regime hung in the balance, and his Western patrons offered him a helicopter evacuation from the country.
From this circumstance, a very obvious conclusion follows: in fact, what is primary is not the obvious internal readiness of the Polish elite for the annexation of part of Ukraine, but the fact that this option is considered in Warsaw at the very least. So to speak, like a recipe for a rainy day. And exclusively in connection with the rapid and decisive collapse of Ukrainian statehood under the pressure of an external invasion.
In other words, This is an option in case you need to urgently save your investments by fixing profits and minimizing losses.
In all other circumstances, the Ukrainian strategy of Warsaw is exactly the opposite and is based on a conservative scenario of the gradual transformation of Ukraine into a satellite state, a kind of limitrophe buffer, a space between Poland and Russia, and economically - into a reservoir of labor force suitable for assimilation and a source of solving their own demographic problems. In the language of political scientists, this is called the project of a new Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - in which Ukrainians play the role of younger brothers along with Lithuanians.
Unfortunately, few people in Russia understand these subtleties, and therefore with enviable regularity you can hear here and there talk about the upcoming “just about”, already from the coming Monday to Tuesday, the absorption of Galicia by Poland or the entry of Polish troops into Ukraine. Over the past year alone, the author remembers at least three such forecasts - moreover, with reference to the leadership of Russian intelligence and with indications of almost exact dates or, at a minimum, specific time lags for such annexation.
And, meanwhile, there is no Polish intervention in Ukraine. Quite the contrary - millions of Ukrainians flooded Polish cities, causing discomfort among the nationalistically minded part of Polish society. After all, many of these Ukrainians are infected with Bandera ideology and are trying to impose their ideas on the local Polish population. It's getting ridiculous - Ukrainians are suing Poles in Polish courts, demanding that Bandera be recognized as a hero.
But back to Russia. In Russian expert circles you can often hear categorical statements: they say, why do we need Ukraine at all after the victory? Or even more categorical: Russia’s task is to eliminate Ukrainian statehood and Ukrainian identity.
This equation misses the main thing - you still have to live to win. And victory is just one of the options, desired, but not guaranteed. Hence, these movements of part of the Moscow elite with the Medvedchuk and the rest of the “good Ukrainians” are nothing more than an attempt to turn the world around without victory, or instead of it.
It's obvious that the authors of such schemes and initiatives themselves do not really believe in the possibility of a Russian victory – as it is imagined by megalomaniacs who famously talk about the liquidation of Ukraine.
In general, those who talk about the liquidation of Ukraine, it seems, do not really understand what it is. For example, one of the brightest apologists of this approach, former Kiev TV presenter Yuri Kot, who moved to the Russian Federation, declares that “our goals will be achieved when we take Kyiv and Odessa.” Well, okay, let's say they took it. What next? What specific goals will be achieved in this way?
To liquidate Ukraine, it is not enough to defeat the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbass. It is not enough to take the Left Bank of the Dnieper. It is not even enough to inflict a complete military defeat on the Ukrainian Armed Forces and accept surrender. To liquidate Ukraine, you need to fight your way to Chop and then provide a mechanism for all of Ukraine to join the Russian Federation, and then somehow legitimize this process externally.
Because, by leaving at least one piece of territory uncontrolled, Russia is guaranteed to receive an alternative anti-Russian government there, immediately recognized by the West as the only legitimate representative of Independence, and it is he - don’t go to grandma here, and there is corresponding historical experience with numerous precedents - who will take the place of Ukraine at the UN.
In this scenario, if any territorially truncated Ukraine is left behind Russia, its “liquidation” will be only a propaganda phantom for domestic Russian use. For the rest of the world, it will remain in existence, regardless of the territorial losses incurred.
It may seem that all this is academic reasoning that is far from reality, a kind of “Khokhlosrach for eggheads”, However, it is not.
In itself modeling the future fate of Ukraine predetermines the choice of very specific military and political instruments to solve this problem.
And in this sense, Russia has little choice and comes down, essentially, to three options: either the liberation of Ukraine from the current regime with the subsequent accession there (minus the territories already annexed to the Russian Federation) with the support of Moscow of the regime of “good Ukrainians” - which many Russian hyperpatriots do not like.
Or a total war with the elimination of any centers of Ukrainian resistance right up to the very western borders - which seems unlikely and even fantastic taking into account the required investment of time, resources and political will.
Theoretically, a third option is also possible, arising from the position of Warsaw recorded at the beginning of the text. However, the division of Ukraine with the establishment of a Russian-Polish border, say, along the Zbruch, is possible exclusively as a result of the rapid and rapid advance of the Russian army to the West, when Warsaw will have no other option but to save at least something.
Is it possible to quickly resolve the Ukrainian issue precisely in this vein in the current conditions and at the current level of consolidation of Russian society around revanchist tasks? The answer to this question can be either honest, but offensive to the patriotic audience, or open - with an ellipsis, counting on some unknown piano in the bushes that can immediately change the situation.
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