What to do with the empire further: why the West is still afraid of the Kremlin and believes that the Russian Federation should influence Ukraine
During the Democracy Festival, German Chancellor Olaf Soltz told how on the eve of a full -scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin argued that Ukraine belongs to Russia. The conversation took place in the Kremlin on February 15, 2022 "at the long table that everyone remembers," and lasted four hours. According to Scholtz, Putin demonstrated his imperial notions that the borders "could be changed by force", regardless of right. "And Belarus is part of Russia.
Lukashenko is aware of this and has no illusions," the chancellor added. In fact, all thirty years of Ukrainian independence, the Western world, in particular, Germany, believed that Ukraine was in the sphere of influence of the Russian Federation. Like, such a "inheritance" was left "from the Soviet Union and even the Russian Empire. That is why in the early 1990s, almost none of the Western leaders of that time supported Ukraine's independence, but tried to keep a large country.
Western politicians really believed that the USSR could be transformed into a democratic state with a center in Moscow. A state that can become a partner for the event. And when on December 1, 1991, Ukrainians supported the Independence Act, the United States was in no hurry to acknowledge-the Bush Sr. Administration expected unspoken assurances that Ukraine would give nuclear weapons. Moreover, in cooperation with the Russian Federation. So it happened.
And when the war in Donetsk and Luhansk regions began in 2014, the occupation of Crimea occurred, the event also simply watched the events because he perceived Russia's interests in Ukraine as they are due. "The Russian influence was manifested in the information sphere for thirty years - all media were either controlled by the Russians or focused on Moscow.
The state authorities also did all their actions with a look at the Kremlin," says focus an expert of the Russian and Belarusian Foreign Policy Council Studies "Ukrainian Prism" Yaroslav Montenegro. the post of post -Soviet space. " And this Russianness, indeed, has been in many Ukrainians in their heads and in everyday life.
Russian was spoken in families (according to the official data of the 2001 census, 14 million people in Ukraine were named native to Ukraine, ie about 29%), schools, and media. Russian literary classics and Russian publicists of the present were valued above than Ukrainian representatives. And only two revolutions-Orange 2004 and dignity 2013-2014 began to remove the concept.
Then the Ukrainians, unexpectedly for the Russian Federation, opposed the stay of Ukraine in the orbit of Moscow and the Kremlin, imposing their policies and the orientation of Ukraine's development in the context of external relations. But while the people on the street were chanting "Ukraine is Europe", Russian President Vladimir Putin and his advisers made the decision to take the idea of the so -called Russian measure to "return" Ukraine under the total influence of Russia.
And too, the Kremlin had a successful example of such control - Belarus during the reign of Alexander Lukashenko. Especially after 2020, when a undemocratic, opaque election took place in this country, and Lukashenko finally established himself as a dictator and illegitimate president. "Or simply-the Kremlin's vassa," says the candidate of political sciences, the international expert Stanislav Zhelykhovsky in conversation with focus.
"He is both a dictator and a" governor "of a country that was fully absorbed by Russia. Russia uses it, in particular, as a landfill To attack Ukraine and the implementation of hybrid attacks on Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, that is, EU and NATO. regime. But in the understanding of Russia and Vladimir Putin, the impact on Ukraine and Belarus is very similar.
"If there was no Revolution of Dignity and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, if it were not for Viktor Yakukovich as a representative, but a more compromise figure, then perhaps in Ukraine was as in Belarus, or as in Georgia," Yaroslav Montenegro continues. "I think I think , Russia's strategic mistake was to start a war in Ukraine in 2014. In one space at that time was a total. But for the collective event, this gap was not obvious.
In Europe and the United States, until 2022, they continued to think that the Russian Federation had a serious impact, especially in the regions of Ukraine. First of all, Russian -speaking. This gave reason to the same Western allies to some extent to ignore the fact of occupation of Crimea and part of the Donbass in 2014, to believe that Ukraine will not stand in 2022.
At the beginning of a full -scale invasion of the event, which began to provide weapons in a few months, prepared for the guerrilla war. It was said that certain forces would fight against Russian aggression - volunteer formations and so -called nationalists, the masses do not support the masses. And in this both in Berlin and in Washington they were wrong. It did not happen as they were counting in the Kremlin, and that the event suggested.
Already in the first month of a full-scale invasion, it was obvious that Ukraine came out of Russian influence, since it was resistance not only from the Armed Forces of Ukraine but also to the civilian population.
"One of the former Ukrainian prisoners of war, captured in the Kiev region, mentioned the questions of the Russian military:" Why are we shooting from every house? " that the Ukrainians quickly organized resistance against the "brotherly people", which came to "save them", - says the documentary of the Media Crimes for Human Rights Maria Klimik. He tried to prevent the invasion of the action of Ukrainians.
Complexes, helmets and mobile hospitals have decided on the supply of weapons for resistance. But in the amount that Ukraine does not lose, but not won. And the reason is obvious - in the West they do not still know what to do with the processes of disintegration of the Russian Federation, if they started. They cannot be allowed because of their ideological restrictions, " - says expert Montenegro.
Yes, it is no longer said that Ukraine is in the sphere of influence of the Russian Federation, but even with the potential of Ukraine to start the destruction of Russia, the event is not ready for it, it is as In the 1990s he wants to see a great country to be negotiated, even after Putin's regime. The beginning is hardly believed, - continues Stanislav Zelikhovsky. - And Ukraine continues to integrate into Western organizations, despite the threat of shelling, killings and nuclear weapons.
There is currently awareness in the West that Ukraine is an independent state that needs support. Now, it is unlikely that any of the pro -Western world leaders can say that Ukraine is part of Russia, even though Putin continues to express his narratives as a mantra, they say, Ukraine has never been an independent state. Putin is important now to protect Russia, proving its consumer that the Russians are fighting for their own, so they send a huge amount of gun meat to Ukraine.
"" Jens Stoltenberg added that the Russian Federation has lost Ukraine forever, and this is a major strategic defeat for Russia. to extinguish the situation in Moldova to freeze the conflict. He avoided the sanction pressure on Belarus - Lukashenko, even after the "elections" and protests in 2020, the EU and the United States almost did not create any discomfort. The event was silent when Ukraine went to Ukraine without Kuchma and against Viktor Yanukovych's dictatorial laws.
The event looked at it without unnecessary questions, " - says the expert of the Russian and Belarusian Studies of the Ukrainian Prism Council. It cannot be started. who captured many small and larger indigenous peoples, - says Yaroslav Montenegro. - The fact that they are all now united in pseudo -federation is also a stereotypical vision of Western countries that think it is a monolithic territory of the Russian Federation. But it is not.
We saw protests in Bashkortostan, Dagestan and Karachayevo Cherkesia. Chechnya, I think, keeps the Kadyrov alive. There is a population that is not very happy in the Russian Federation around St. Petersburg. In Kaliningrad, there is a desirable disconnection of the Conensberg and the creation of an independent Baltic Republic. And Kuban and Siberia. The time is that everything can develop and change dynamically.
"The expert is convinced that now the best time to convince the Western world that not only Ukraine is not Russia, but also the Russian Federation has created a false conservative vision imposed by the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation, which The monolithic of this country is adamant. that China does not consider Ukraine an independent country, but in a geopolitical context, they give Moscow not to lose and keep positions in the post-Soviet space.