Ukraine's destruction after negotiations. Vitaly Portnikov's column

Even if they sign a peace treaty and accept defeat, the remaining radicals will sooner or later return to power after a regrouping of forces, inspired by Russia's Western enemies. And then it will be time to finally crush the vermin, to drive a long steel nail into the coffin lid of the Bandera quasi-state, to destroy the remnants of its bloody legacy, and return the rest of the land to the bosom of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev emphasized.

First, this statement demonstrates that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is indeed considering suspending the war against Ukraine. And all of his recent statements in which he sets conditions for ending the war are not just propaganda moves, but attempts to give himself the opportunity to accumulate new forces and reserves for further confrontation with Western countries.

“Secondly, it is clear that the Russian leadership doesn't abandon its ultimate goal of the complete destruction of Ukrainian statehood and an attempt to return the current Russia to the borders of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, today they see no real resources to realize this ambitious imperial goal.”

Thirdly, that Russia, even if a peace agreement is signed with Ukraine, will remain in confrontation with the West, that Russia's foreign policy priorities have been finally determined, and that Russia should prepare not for a change in the vector of its relations and improvement of relations with the United States and the European Union, but for new wars, as Dmitry Medvedev also said in his statement.

Fourthly, the Russian leadership would like to reassure the ultra-chauvinistic part of Russian society, which has many representatives in the country's top leadership, generals, and the leadership of the FSB and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. It is well known that these people do not even want a pause in the Russian-Ukrainian war and are convinced that Russia should continue military operations until the complete and final destruction of the Ukrainian state and the Russian army's entry into the borders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. This is their real political goal. And they are not ready to admit that the current Russian state is not capable of realizing this goal.

These are the people Dmitry Medvedev is addressing when he says that Russia will not give up on this goal, but will accumulate forces for the final destruction of the Ukrainian state. And this signal should also be a signal to Ukrainian society. If we imagine that Russia's war with Ukraine may end in the coming months or in the coming years with the signing of a peace agreement, this will not mean the final end of the war. Because the position on the destruction of Ukrainian statehood will remain an important position for Russia, for its political and military leadership, for a significant part of its elites and society. Thus, the biggest mistake of the Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian people, I would say, a suicidal mistake, will be the illusion that it is possible to normalize relations with the Russian Federation even if a peace agreement is signed with that state. Even if the Russian Federation is democratized and its new government officially apologizes to Ukraine and its people for all the crimes that Russia and its people have committed against Ukraine in recent years.

You and I already know very well that periods of democratization in Russian history can be followed by periods of chauvinism and autocracy, and that nuclear weapons do not disappear and continue to be aimed at where the Russian leaders want them to be. We also do not know whether this period of democratization will be short or long, but we realize that the period of totalitarianism and autocracy may begin again in Russian history. Thus, no matter how the war between Russia and Ukraine ends, no matter what the content of the agreements between Russia and Ukraine is, no matter who is the guarantor of these agreements, Ukraine must prepare for war, not peace, in the years and decades ahead.

“Of course, if Ukrainians want to survive and not end up in collective graves on the territory of their own state, which is also absolutely realistic if Ukrainian society returns to the illusory world it has been in for three decades after independence. A world in which, even in 2019, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian citizens believed in the possibility of reaching an agreement with Russia to end the war and ended it in their minds when Russian troops were already on the territory of our country and preparing for a fatal jump.”

We can only hope, although I do not have high hopes, that these mistakes will not be repeated by Ukrainians who will remain living on the territory of Ukraine after the long war with the Russian Federation. Because repeating these mistakes is the road to the cemetery.

It seems to me that this statement by Dmitry Medvedev, former President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin's confidant, is a convincing proof that I am not inventing the Ukrainian future, but simply describing it. It also seems to me that every Ukrainian who simply wants to survive and not end up in the same cemetery with his compatriots should learn not my words, but Dmitry Medvedev's words by heart.

So that after signing some agreement with the Russian Federation, they don't think about how wonderful we will live here, and we will never have a war. But to think about how to avoid a new war, what security guarantees to get, what military plants to build, what kind of missile army to create, how much money from the budget, even if we have to give up various social benefits forever, to allocate for the army, for weapons, for those who want to serve. These are the tasks of the Ukrainian people for the 21st century. If these tasks are fulfilled, it will be possible to fulfill some other cultural, social, and economic tasks. If these tasks are not fulfilled, the territory of Ukraine will sooner or later be destroyed by the Russian occupiers. Medvedev's statement eloquently testifies to this.

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About the author. Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, winner of the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.