The End of Ukraine

by Observer R

According to many reports, the population of Ukraine has declined by more than half, from 40+ million to 20- million, with death, injury, and destruction widespread in the country since February 2014.  Let’s look at some of the stages where this outcome might have been prevented:

Stage One—The Ukraine administration of Yanukovych had negotiated a better economic deal with China and Russia than what the West was offering.  China was very much interested in helping Ukraine  increase agricultural production, thereby increasing exports to China.  However, Yanukovych was overthrown in the 2014 Maidan revolution and fled to Russia.  A question is why Russia did not step in before it was too late, similar to what Russia did later in Kazakhstan to prevent a coup.  In the latter case, Russia sent in an airborne force to hold the line, while the Kazakhstan President rounded up the plotters.  Then the Russian forces left after a week or so.  In the Ukraine case, perhaps Yanukovych did not ask for help, or the Russians did not think it would work out to intervene.  Also, no one continued to call the Yanukovych group a “government-in-exile,” and pretended that he was still the legal chief, even though that was the case.  This contrasts with the Yemen situation, where the leader was overthrown and fled the country to stay in Saudi Arabia, but continued to be referred to as the President in the media.

Stage Two—The Minsk Agreements would have prevented the disaster if they had been implemented.  Ukraine would have only had to treat the Russian speakers in a civil manner and to grant the Donbas a measure of autonomy, along with forgoing NATO membership.  Ukraine could have concentrated on modernizing and improving the country so that the inhabitants did not need to emigrate to find jobs.  Russian terms at this point were relatively lenient. The fact is that Germany and France later admitted that the agreements were a ruse to give time to arm and train the Ukraine army.  Of course, the agreements also gave time for Russia to further arm and train its army.  Russia did not admit to having “wonder weapons” until Putin’s speech in 2018.  The start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in 2022 gave four more years for the Russian weapons to be mass-produced and delivered to the front lines.  Both sides had an incentive to delay the actual clash of armies.

Stage Three—The so-called “Not-Ultimatum” issued by Russia in December 2021 was another opportunity to avoid military conflict.  It was rejected by the West, to the detriment of Ukraine.  At the time, the US was announcing that Russia was amassing troops along the border with Ukraine, thus indicating that Russia was getting ready to carry out the “military-technical” measure mentioned in the  Not-Ultimatum.  At the same time, Ukraine had increased shelling and other military activity against the separatist areas in the Donbas, also a typical action in advance of an invasion.  It was unclear from reports at the time as to why the Ukraine army did not invade the separatist area before the Russian army did the sme thing.  Ukraine had a window of opportunity before Russia formally annexed the separatist provinces, when the area was still formally part of Ukraine.  At that time it would have been a Ukrainian civil war only.  Most governments do not like to lose any territory and will use force to put down any independence effort.   This is a more-or-less accepted procedure—an example is the US Civil War.  If the Ukraine army could have moved up to the border with Russia, it would have still been on Ukrainian soil.  If the Russian army had then crossed over the border into Ukraine, it would have looked a lot more like aggression.  This would have been bad PR for Russia, and may have been one reason why Ukraine hesitated.  Instead, while both armies were gathering troops, the separatist provinces were accepted as part of the Russian Federation.  This meant, from the Russian viewpoint, that Russia was defending Russian territory from the Ukrainian forces.  It was a better situation in which to obtain support from the Russian people for the Russian military action which immediately followed.  The lightning military strike by Russia’s Special Military Operation in February, 2022, prevented the Ukrainian military from making any major move into the newly annexed areas of Russia.

Stage Four—The cease-fire agreement negotiated by Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul in March 2022 was another opportunity to avoid more death and destruction.   The terms were harder on Ukraine, as is the case with each successive stage in the drama.  Russia even withdrew its column of tanks from the outskirts of Kiev as a good-faith gesture.  However, the  US and UK convinced Ukraine to scrap the agreement and continue the fighting.

Stage Five—In the Autumn of 2022, the Ukrainian forces were reported in the mainstream media to have gained some territory from the Russian forces.  The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested that Ukraine seek negotiations with Russia while Ukraine was having some success on the battlefield and was in a better negotiating position.  The general probably had been told by the Defense Intelligence Agency that, even with Western support, Ukraine could never win the war against Russia. Unfortunately for Ukraine (and the US general, who got into hot water over his comment), the politicians decided to carry on with the fighting.  With the benefit of hindsight, it is now widely acknowledged that the general was correct.

Stage Six—The failure of the ballyhooed Ukrainian 2023 Summer Counter-Offensive has led to much soul-searching and some calls for a truce along the line of contact.  The argument is to let Russia have the separatist areas, leaving the majority of the country under Kiev control and tied to the West, but not in NATO.  Other factions in the West still want to pursue the war with greater support for Ukraine, including granting membership in the European Union (EU).  The description of the fighting as a “stalemate” suggested that it could lead to a Korean-style solution with a DMZ running down through Ukraine.  There is also talk now of reconstruction of “Western Ukraine” and the billions of dollars that would be needed.

According to the Business World Online Bureau, dated June 19, 2023:

“Leading financial firms BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are partnering with the Ukrainian government to establish a reconstruction bank that will serve as a conduit for public seed capital to fund rebuilding projects.

The initiatives aim to attract significant private investment, potentially amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.

Currently in the planning stages, the Ukrainian Development Fund is expected to be fully launched once hostilities with Russia come to an end.  However, investors will be provided with a preview of the fund at the London conference hosted by the British and Ukrainian governments.”

The conference was held in London on June 21, 2023, and attracted over 400 participants.

A more current report indicates that Ukraine is still seeking out additional non-government funding. This update is from Simplicius:

“On that topic, interestingly Zelensky and the leadership have just gone through a veritable gauntlet of meetings with the top globalist venture-vultures, likely for the very purpose above, to begin negotiations of selling off more Ukrainian assets—and Ukraine itself—in order to bankroll next year’s coming disastrous deficits.

Literally 3-4 days apart Zelensky held a meeting with the IMF and Alex Soros, and Yermak is now reportedly meeting with BlackRock.”  –simplicius76.substack.com, December 13, 2023

However, the proponents of the stalemate/truce/end of fighting in the Stage Six scenario do not address the question of whether Russia would agree to such a result.  Even if Russia were now to agree to an end to the fighting along the contact line, Ukraine would still be in much worse shape than if it had agreed to negotiate a truce at one of the earlier stages.

Stage Seven:–At the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, in 2022, many analysts thought that Russia would stop when it had pushed the Ukrainian army out of the separatist provinces that had been annexed by Russia.  The farther west one went in Ukraine, the fewer Russian speakers, the fewer Russian Orthodox members, and the more hostility toward Russia.  Analysts also considered that the cost of reconstruction and fixing all the problems in Ukraine would be enormous and way beyond what Russia would want to shoulder.  However, a more careful look at the Russians’ position as laid out in the Not-Ultimatum, and at the reason for the SMO, shows that they would not allow for a Ukraine military arrangement with any NATO country.  This could not be guaranteed if Kiev remained independent, as Russia could not trust any agreement made by the Western powers.  Russia would need to ensure that no US or NATO missiles remained on the territory of Ukraine, for the same reasons that the Soviet Union needed to keep the US missiles out of Turkey.  In fact, the so-called “Cuban Missile Crisis” should have been called the “Turkish Missile Crisis” since that is where it started.  In addition, Russia had often announced that the SMO purpose was to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.  It would be difficult to explain to the Russian people if the SMO project stopped only partway to the objective.

In other words, it is unlikely that Russia will agree to an end to the conflict at the current line of contact.  That would allow the Western powers to rebuild and rearm Ukraine, and to move more potent missiles and other military weapons up against the Russian borders again.  In fact, US officials are practically admitting that this is exactly what they plan to do.  So some analysts are suggesting that Russia may intend to go all the way and simply take over Ukraine and restore it as part of Mother Russia.  Here is one example:

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