English Outsider comments in response to my Ukrainian glasshouse post:

“I seriously doubt that these people are sane.”

They’re psychos.  Gaza shows that past doubt.  But there’s logic to their insanity.  Although we’re heading for straight military defeat in the Ukrainian theatre they still have the Russians over a barrel.  The problem of remnant Ukraine, the problem that has been staring all in the face since February 2022, it still one to which the Russians have no good solution.  It’s clear that the Western politicians,  Trump included, will not assist with coming to any good solution.

The future of Eastern Ukraine is already determined though we don’t yet know how much of it the Russians will decide to incorporate within the RF.  But remnant Ukraine, whatever that turns out to be in territorial terms, poses a problem as insoluble as ever,

First, Eastern Ukraine.

Lavrov:

And when we now liberate remaining parts of Zaporozhye, this is the Russian way to pronounce it. And Kherson, the people, in spite of the attempts of Ukrainian army to pull them into mainland Ukraine, most of them are not leaving. They’re staying, and they’re welcoming the Russian soldiers who liberate them. So this is not our will, our “imperialist desire”, some people say. This is our concern for the future of the people who feel being part of the Russian culture.

This fits with statements from the Ukrainian authorities to the effect that they were having difficulty evacuating Kupiansk.  Many did not wish to be evacuated.  The same was seen in Bakhmut and in other towns and cities.

Later on Lavrov returns to the subject:

And that’s for “1991 borders”, and “Russia must withdraw”. Ok hypothetically, in their dreams and delusions, if we leave the territories inside the 1991 Ukrainian borders, what happens to those people whom they publicly called the respective governments of Ukraine after the coup, called them “inhumans”, called them “species”.

“Species”, by the way, is the term used by Zelensky long before the special military operation started. He was asked in November 2021 what he thought about the people in Donbass on the other side of the line of contact, according to the Minsk agreements. And he was asked what he thought about those people. He said, you know, there are people, and there are “species”. And then in other interview he said if you live in Ukraine and feel like being part of Russian culture, my advice to you, for the sake and safety of your kids, for the sake and safety of your grandchildren, get out to Russia.

So in fact, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, the population of these four territories, they follow his advice. They go back to Russia.

All this could apply to the rest of the old Party of Regions area, though population movements will have greatly altered the population mix that obtained before 2014.

Whatever the current population mix, for those living in the old Party of Regions area it’d be better for them if as much as possible of that area became part of Russian.  That view’s not based on dreamy recollections of Catherine the Great, though Lavrov draws attention to those historical associations.  It’s based on Lavrov’s strictly utilitarian argument that the pro-Russian element of that mixed population  would be treated badly if that mixed population remained under Kiev rule.  None would wish to see a repetition of the atrocities Brayard catalogued after 2014: video.

There are a thousand similar accounts.  They cannot be brushed away by dismissing them as Russian propaganda.  And the effect of such atrocities has been to change entirely the political orientation of the Donbass and likely the political orientation of much of other parts of the old Ukraine.

Because there is ample evidence that before 2014 most in the Donbass were not much concerned with the question of who ruled them.   This was not Crimea.  There was no strong separatist movement in the Donbass and indeed the early Donbass rebels after 2014 wanted neither independence nor  union with Russia.  They were federalists.  Protection from the extremists in the context of a federalised Ukraine was their aim.

But as the number of atrocities mounted those atrocities could no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents.    It became apparent to all that harassment of the pro-Russian element in the Donbass population mix was Ukrainian state policy.  A country had declared open war on a significant minority within itself and Poroshenko’s declaration that “their” children would hole up in the basements whilst “our” children went to school was but one of many declarations from Kiev that that war would be pursued to the limit: video.

The result was inevitable.  The Donbass, before 2014 accepted by its own population and by all outside including Russia as an integral part of Ukraine moved from that, to a desire for a degree of protective autonomy inside Ukraine, to becoming a region that would never again willingly submit to the post 2014 atrocities.  The  fighting spirit and determination of the LDNR armed forces, who often took the brunt of the fighting after 2022 and whose contribution to the final victory is uniformly ignored in the West, was proof of that.   A “Westernised” Russian visiting the Donbass not long after the invasion found to her surprise that nowhere was support for the Russian invasion stronger than within the Donbass itself: video.

“Z’s” everywhere and a people resolute to see the war through.  Yet we in the West see the Donbass quite differently.  We see it as a region subjected to brutal Russian occupation and needing only to be freed from that Russian occupation.

It is in the context of those post-2014 atrocities that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is to be regarded.  Me, I discount entirely the historical disquisitions of a Putin or a Lavrov.  So what that much of modern Ukraine owes its origin to Russia?  So what that much of it shares a common culture with Russia?  Many countries in the world owe their origin to England and many still share a common culture with us.  Try arguing with an Australian that that would justify their reincorporation into the United Kingdom!   A ludicrous comparison, no doubt, but sufficient to allow us to dismiss any Russian historical claim to ancient lands. Panchenko states the true justification: https://t.me/panchenkodi/3344.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine must be regarded as first and foremost a rescue operation and if one examines the dispute in Russia itself over that rescue operation, the question is not why it occurred but why it occurred so late.  Putin has been and still is heavily criticised within Russia for allowing the harassment of the Donbass to continue for so long, not for finally moving in to put a stop to it.  It is the still living memory of the Madonna of Gorlovka, not hazy memories of the doings of the Zaporozhian Host, that is the only justification for his moving in at all.

But that’s only the East.  Those arguments do not apply to the bulk of Western Ukraine.  That is, what will be remnant Ukraine.  Forget all the Russkiy Mir talk.  As Havryshko points out forcefully,  the population in  Western Ukraine is mainly anti-Russian.  It will remain so.  Russian occupation of that region would be as undesirable, and as hated, as British re-occupation of the Irish Republic.  The Russian problem there is a near insoluble one: how to prevent remnant Ukraine remaining a spearhead of the Western assault on Russia.  How to prevent it remaining, in Sleboda’s terms, “A zone of destabilisation and insecurity for the rest of our lives,”

Because it is of NATO but not in NATO remnant Ukraine can be used as a base for mounting assassination and sabotage missions into Russia.  It can be used as a launchpad for missiles and drones into Russia that are ostensibly launched by the Ukrainians but that are in reality supplied and targeted by us.  It can be and is so used without our fearing Russian retaliation against NATO or any NATO country.

It’s often pointed out that if it were the other way round and the Russians used, say, Mexico for such purposes then the Americans wouldn’t put up with it for an instant.  Well, that’s true but how would the Americans cope with the problem?  If they occupied Mexico to prevent it being used for that purpose they’d find themselves having to go to vast expense.  They would be forever having to commit troops and security personnel for the purpose.   Instead, what the Americans would aim for would be a neutral Mexico that refused to allow itself to be so used.

That, in reverse, is the problem the Russians face in Remnant Ukraine.  The parts of Ukraine that wish to be reincorporated within the RF will present few problems – there it’s more a question of getting an economy that’s been heading for dereliction since 1991 back on its feet again.  But remnant Ukraine is a real dilemma for them.  They don’t want to occupy.  But they can’t allow it to remains as a handy NATO attack dog.  If drones and missiles continue coming out of remnant Ukraine afterwards then the Russian people will be asking Putin “Why did we fight this war if we’re still at risk from NATO missiles?”  And if Putin has no answer to that question, after at least 100,000 dead and a major Russian military effort, then his administration will fall. The Russian hawks will take over and we’re at risk of a direct war between NATO and the RF.

That dilemma has been apparent since 2022, even before.  The obvious resolution is for the Western powers to declare they will cease using remnant Ukraine in this way.  But the Europeans and the American hard liners would not countenance that.  President Trump, facing that internal and external opposition, could not offer such guarantees.  If he did they could not be regarded as binding,  “Not agreement capable” is how most of the world regards the West in any case.  The Russian hope of an overall security settlement on the lines of the December 2021 proposed treaties  is unrealistic and will remain so.   It’ll be as much as they can do if  the Russians achieve the main points of the June 14th 2024 speech to the Foreign Office officials:

I repeat our firm stance: Ukraine should adopt a neutral, non-aligned status, be nuclear-free, and undergo demilitarisation and denazification. These parameters were broadly agreed upon during the Istanbul negotiations in 2022, including specific details on demilitarisation such as the agreed numbers of tanks and other military equipment.

And even those conditions the West will not agree to.  So we have the Russians over a barrel.  Occupy remnant Ukraine to get those conditions met and the Russians are  buying trouble.  Don’t occupy it and the SMO will have been unsuccessful in that remnant Ukraine will still be used as an attack dog.

The only solution is for the Ukrainians themselves to decide they will not be so used in the future.  But  the current administration is still in the saddle and able to employ increasingly repressive measures to ensure it remains so.  Alternative Ukrainian administrations could not deviate much from the line the current administration is taking.  When we consider remnant Ukraine as it is now it increasingly resembles more an occupied country than a country in charge of its own future.   This is a country that voted overwhelmingly for peace in 2019 only to find itself committed to war by the West and its own extremists.  Unless Putin can come up with a solution – he’s not been able to so far – we could well see the Russians forced into occupation.

If so, the Russians will have won the war but will have lost any chance of a stable and long term solution to that problem of remnant Ukraine. These people we doubt are sane, the current politicians of the West, are logical enough.  That is how they hope to see this war ending up.