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Ukraine |
With no historic basis as a state, an economy in tatters and political
crises at every corner, it won't be long till Ukraine becomes
unrecognisable, if it exists at all.
As the fascist forces escalate their aggression against the Donbass
Republics, many are questioning what the future of the Republic of
Ukraine will look like in the medium and long term. The state as
presently compromised will not survive but a few more years at the very
most.
History is full of states coming and going/changing their
borders. The idea that this state will evaporate into the annals of
history is not novel. It will be one of many.
Here’s why.
1. There is no historical precedent for such a state
The majority of the territory that is currently Ukraine has
at various times been ruled by Russia, The Golden Horde (Mongolia), The
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ottoman Turkey, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union.
The regions corresponding to post-1991 Ukraine had never
been unified as a legitimate state. This is one of the reasons that
current state has no cohesive identity, it is merely a mishmash of
regions that for most of modern history were Russian. This poor
political geography is owed in great part to the foolish Bolshevik map
of Soviet Republics which replaced the Tsarist guberniyas, which as
regional units, were far more reflective of the realities of local
identities.
Because of Russia’s vastness, throughout history, regional identities have often been vastly more important than nation ones.
It is for this reason that many people in the cobbled
together, geographically manic Republic of Ukraine, are far more
comfortable calling themselves Odessa people, or Kharkov people or even
Lvov people than Ukrainian.
The myth of Ukrainianism is a modern invention of an intelligentsia from the Galician region which during the 19th and early 20th
century was part of the Austrian/Austro-Hungarian Empire and after the
First World War, part of the Second Polish Republic. The development of
the idea of Ukrainianism was an attempt to emancipate peasants who were
neither Polish nor Austrian and give them an identity during the ‘age of
European nationalism’.
This was the basis of the rump-state that emerged from the
ashes of both the First World War and the Russian Civil War known as the
West Ukrainian People’s Republic. Another Ukrainian People’s Republic
later formed in Kiev. Both places had limited international recognition
and are best understood as an outgrowth of the territorial and sectarian
wars fought in the region after the October Revolution.
Such conflicts include the Polish-Ukrainian War and the
Polish–Soviet War, when both powers were competing for influence in the
area known as Little Russia.
A state with such shaky foundations is difficult to unite.
No such unity has yet to be achieved as the political infighting in
Kiev, the coup of 2014 and the war in Donbass demonstrate.
2. Since 1991 Ukraine has always been divided
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Massacre in Odessa |
Ever since the former Soviet Republic became an independent
state, Ukraine’s political map has always been evenly divided between
eastern and southern regions which vote for parties that are broadly
pluralistic and at times Russophone. Such a party was the Party of
Regions from which Viktor Yanukovych derived his support.
Western regions, including those which were only
incorporated into the USSR after 1945, always tended to vote for parties
that were Russophobic and intended to build a young state on a
sectarian basis, in spite of the lack of historical precedence.
This political conflict was the proximate cause of the coup
of 2014. The country was split down the middle and the opposition to
President Yanukovych was more violent and better funded from abroad than
his political allies.
A similar political upheaval took place in the so-called
Orange Revolution of 2004/5. A country prepared to split at any moment
on political lines, cannot long call itself a country.
3. Russian regions outside of the two Donbass republics will go their own way.
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A country divided |
On the 2nd of May 2014, peaceful protesters
gathered at Odessa’s Trade Union Hall. They were voicing their
opposition to the fascist government which took power in Kiev.
They were met by a combination of mostly non-local members
of the neo-Nazi party ‘Right Sector’ as well as far right football
hooligans, also not supporters of a local team.
The fascists came to provoke violence and with the authorities doing nothing to help, they achieved their goal.
Many of the peaceful demonstrators, most of whom were very
young men and women, were burned alive as the fascists threw firebombs
at the Trade Union Hall in which the protesters found themselves
barricaded.
Some leapt to an instant death, whilst others who survived were mutilated and beaten to death by the fascist gangs below.
This has not been forgotten. Odessa is a traditionally multi-cultural city, but unmistakably Russian in character and language.
Odessa along with Mariupol and Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov in
the north will not be so easily reconciled to the idea of Ukraine. As
it stands, violence has been commonplace in such places ever since the
coup of 2014. Just because unlike in the Donbass republics, there is not
out and out war, does not mean things are peaceful.
The regions may well go their own way and sooner than many suspect.
4. It’s the economy, stupid!
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Neo-nazis in the Kiev coup February 2014 |
Somalia has long been called a failed state due to the weak Mogadishu government’s inability to maintain a functional state.
Likewise, post-Gaddafi Libya is now several states in one,
with two factions in two cities (Tripoli and Benghazi) competing for
legitimacy. Compounding this are a plethora of tribal factions and
terrorist groups including ISIS, who control parts of the country. There
is no central economy and resources are constantly being plundered and
sold on the black market, often with the help of the Sicilian mafia.
Ukraine too is a mafia state. Corruption in state-owned
corporations, lack of any accountability among offices, one of the most
corrupt and violent business cultures in the world, difficulty in the
government collecting revenue and a thriving black market, has depressed
the economy of a state which was since 1991 has never been a picture of
economic health.
Unable to pay for its own necessities let alone its war of
aggression, the Kiev government is almost entirely reliant on foreign
aid.
With the EU states having their own economic and political
crises and Donald Trump appearing less and less interested in paying for
states like Ukraine, the fascist regime is more than just an aggressive
state, it is a failed state.
The combination of regions uncomfortable with ethno-centric
and linguistically discriminatory laws with central bankruptcy is a
recipe for civil strife. Many of the Russian regions of the country
would be more economically healthy if they formed their own federation
or indeed returned to Russia.
Many would jump at such an opportunity. They soon will.
5. The EU Problem
Whereas the fascist regime in Kiev is keen to create an
identity based on the myth of Ukrainian ultra-nationalism, many of her
would be colleagues in a future EU arrangement do not share such views.
Many Poles feel that Lvov (Lwow as they call it), ought to
be restored as a Polish centre of culture, which it was even during
Austrian rule. Although the city largely lost her Polish population, if
what is left of Ukraine, the western rump, were to join the EU, the
possibility of Polish repatriation could be a very real possibility due
to the EU’s open border policy.
As it stands, I believe in the next few years, all
Russophone regions of the country will legally separate from the centre
leaving mostly Western Ukraine and maybe some small areas of left-bank
Ukraine (possibly not).
This rump state, would have little choice but to beg the EU
for membership. Brussels may not be able to stomach the burden of even a
small Ukraine. But if it did, that would be the end of Bandarastan. It
would essentially mean a state perpetually reliant on the good will of
Brussels on the physical periphery of Europe. Good luck with that!
Source: The Duran
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