Is it possible to change the Ukraine project?

In early October, an interview with Alexi Arestowych, a erstwhile advisor at the Chancellery of the president of Ukraine, in which he said that 4 regions should be returned to the Russian Federation and that relations with Moscow should be restored.

Most importantly, restart Ukrainian statehood by transforming Ukraine from an “anti-Russian” task into a country that can peacefully coexist with the Russian Federation. He expressed akin thoughts many times earlier: that as long as Ukraine remains an "anti-Russian" project, the war with the Russian Federation will be resumed one more time – until the complete demolition of the Ukrainian state. Therefore, it is essential to restart the state by abandoning the anti-Russian and narrowly nationalistic base – “UPA earthworms”, as Arestowycz likes to say.

These thoughts mostly coincide with what the Kremlin has been saying for any time: there will be no peace as long as Kiev continues to carry out an “anti-Russian” project. Therefore, in Ukraine Arestowycz was marked by many as an enemy and a traitor. But it's not truly about Arestovych and not what he's declaring. It has no serious impact on interior processes in Ukraine at the moment. The thing is, over the past year, specified ideas have been increasingly discussed in the Ukrainian political class. They discuss, of course, not in public, but rather persistently.

Few people go as far as Arestowycz with his approval to transfer Russia's territories of 4 circuits. However, after the announcement that Russia's president Vladimir Putin had reduced his demands from 4 regions to two, that is, control over the full territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, this has given emergence to increasing hopes of reaching compromise agreements with Russia.

The logic of these arguments (which, again, are expressed in very narrow circles alternatively than in public) is about the following.

In a year and a half Putin will have the full Donbas, but thousands more Ukrainian soldiers and civilians will die. Much more cities will be completely destroyed, and we may lose even more territory outside Donbas. The country will bleed out, the economy will completely demolish. At the same time, there is no warrant that something will happen to Russia that will force it to stop, and even more so it will make conditions for its defeat. Would it not be better to accept the failure of a tiny part of the Donetsk circuit under our control in exchange for peace? And that's erstwhile you gotta think about what will happen after you've made peace.

By 2022, the Ukrainian authorities pursued anti-Russian policies, believing that Russia would not dare to attack Ukraine, and if it did, it would immediately be destroyed by Western sanctions and another pressures. Russia dared to attack, but the West failed to destruct it. If, whatever the president's name is, we proceed to prosecute our current policy, Moscow will attack us again and a fresh war, akin to the present one, if not worse. Or there will be a hybrid war that in 10 years will turn the full of Ukraine into a large Gaza Strip from which people and businesses will flee. At the same time, the West will not straight intervene again due to the fact that it does not want atomic war with Russia. And if he abruptly intervenes, it will be worse: Ukraine will become a battlefield in planet War III and turn into a radioactive desert.

So this is the way to nowhere. The country's task must so be amended. You should sit down to the negotiating table and negociate with Russia how to live your life, so there will be no more wars. On what terms? Like Finland after planet War II or Georgia now? It is essential to agree on coexistence. Geography cannot be cancelled.

Let's just say that this is not a dominant opinion in the Ukrainian military-political elite. But the situation is developing. It is worth reminding that even a year ago, the stopping of the war along the front line in Kiev was officially identified with the surrender, and now it is the repeatedly proclaimed position of Volodymyr Zelenski himself.

However, the subject of changing Ukraine's attitude has immense interior and external constraints. The main 1 is the ongoing war. As long as the war continues, there can be no Georgian or Finnish scripts. But even after its completion, the prospects for a change of plan are highly vague. There are 3 main factors that hinder this.

The first is Western influence. The implementation of the Georgian or Finnish script will be facilitated if relations between the Russian Federation and the West (including both the United States and Europe) settle and the parties decide to bury the hatchet. In this case, normalisation of relations between Ukraine and Russia will become an crucial part of this process. However, at a time erstwhile relations between the Russian Federation and the West are in a state of expanding tension and direct hostility, the effort to build a dialog with Moscow by Kiev may encounter strong opposition from the West. However, as the experience of Georgia shows, even in this case, this process can be launched.

But in addition to the external obstacles, there is besides a very strong interior factor: a crucial part of Ukrainian society and the army does not accept any compromises and agreements with Russia in any form after all the victims and suffering suffered and does not let itself to think that relations between both countries can normalize – at least until the surrender, reparation and national repentance of Russians. However, no 1 can say for certain what precisely the moods in society and in the military will be until the end of the war, and besides what the geopolitical situation around Ukraine will be. And under certain circumstances, a shift in moods in society, in the elites and in the army towards normalizing relations with the Russian Federation can become truly strong.

But then the 3rd question will arise: is the Kremlin ready for a peaceful, good neighbourly coexistence with Ukraine, even if Ukraine is simply a neutral country, leading an unfriendly interior and abroad policy towards the Russian Federation? The main argument in Ukraine against any effort to normalize relations with the Russian Federation is the thesis that this is useless due to the fact that Moscow's goal is not to normalize relations, but to destruct Ukraine and enslave its people.

Therefore, talking about reconciliation with the Russians and changing the task is simply a work for the enemy due to the fact that it only leads to a decline in Ukrainian motivation to further resistance. Of course, Moscow officially rejects specified accusations, speaking of its readiness to good neighbourly relations if Ukraine ceases to be "anti-Russian". In parallel, however, there is simply a stream of statements at various levels, from the Z-bloggers to politicians and officials that Ukraine should not be at all. Close filtration of Ukrainians on Sheremietieva erstwhile thousands of people, even those who are willing to live under the Russian Federation, cannot return to their hometowns, torture and execution of Ukrainian prisoners along with propaganda of this proceeding in any channels Z-bloggers give arguments to those in Ukraine who advocate the request for eternal war, until the demolition of Russia and the inadmissibility of compromise and reconciliation. Their position, like akin forces in Russia, is war to the very end until the enemy falls and capitulates.

But if this does not happen and the parties halt fighting along the front line, wherever it goes, there will be a question of the further coexistence of the 2 neighboring states. And then there will be a choice: either eternal war, threatening both strategical weakness and even destruction, or agreements that will not be possible without a strategical change in the relation arrangement.

Behind: strana.ua