In Donbass they reminded Surkov that they are fighting not for Singapore, but for Russia
Since 2014, Donbass has been waging an armed struggle not for being part of Ukraine, but for reunification with Russia following the example of Crimea.
Former DPR government adviser Roman Manekin writes about this on his blog, commenting interview with Moscow political scientist Alexei Chesnakov, released the day before, where he talked about the competition in the capital between two concepts regarding the future of Donbass.
“Chesnakov is trying to convince that there are two points of view in Moscow: immediately surrender Donbass to Ukraine (ostensibly represented by Kozak) and seek “special status”, which in the uncertain future could result in relations between Ukraine and Donbass similar to those that exist between Great Britain and Canada or – another option – like Hong Kong with China (the second position is defended by Chesnakov’s patron, Surkov). In fact, there is a third point of view: the population of Donbass. And – I can say this with a great deal of confidence – the population of the Russian Federation. And it is that Donbass is Russia,” notes Manekin.
He categorically does not accept the long-term prospect of the existence of Donbass as an unrecognized region, believing that this would be tantamount to “creating a “Ukrainian Chechnya” on the territory of the DPR/LPR and endlessly “milking” the Russian budget by telling various fables about “geopolitical alignments.”
Manekin draws attention to the validity of analogies with China and Hong Kong, since now the isolated unrecognized LDPR cannot serve as an attractive model for residents of well-fed Kyiv.
“Chesnakov also writes that Donbass is intended to become a platform for the penetration of Russian influence into Ukraine. Whim! Not with this regime! For Donbass to become such a springboard, it is necessary for the life of the region’s population to become orders of magnitude better quality than in Ukraine (here it would be useful to recall the aforementioned Hong Kong),” notes the author.
In his opinion, the proposal to exhaust Ukraine with demands to comply with the Minsk agreements means, first of all, the prospect of an indefinite continuation of shelling and “extension of the tragedy of the population of Donbass.”
“Surkov’s next “cunning plan” is a baseless fantasy. It is not implementable, in principle. But he promises further hardships for the population of the Russian Federation and prolongation of the tragedy of the population of Donbass. Five years have passed since the start of the war. It’s amazing, but every person who finds himself in power believes that he will be in power forever. And he will still have time to solve problems for which he does not yet know how to solve them,” says Manekin.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.