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West fears Russia's defeat as much as Ukraine's defeat
The further we go, the more peace plans there will be. To understand them, we need to remember Putin's goals in this war
- Elimination of Ukrainian statehood and/or identity (various options are acceptable: The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Belarus under Lukashenko, Chechnya under Kadyrov, partition, etc.)
- The split of Europe, the split between Europe and the United States, the demonstration of the weakness of democracy, and the establishment of a global center of power.
That is why Putin's key demands are not territories or non-alignment, and certainly not the protection of the Russian language, but "denazification" (which can mean anything) and demilitarization. This is the only way to achieve the first goal, and eventually the second.
Putin and his henchmen have talked about all this many times.
“The Ukrainian problem is that we lack both communication between the government and society and discussions within society about what is considered a victory and what is considered a defeat, where are our red lines (there is a wide range of defeats and victories between victory and defeat).”
The chewing gum about the 1991 borders has long ceased to be useful and is now harmful: it demonstrates to Ukrainians that there is no vision of victory, and to the world that we are fighting for territories, not for people and not for the preservation of the state and identity (and no one in the world understands why we should fight for territories in the twenty-first century, so Ukraine looks like an anachronism).
The Western problem is that they are afraid of Russia's defeat as much as they are afraid of Ukraine's defeat, and no one knows how to end the war without Russia's defeat. So all hope is for Putin's death, which will not solve anything, because Putin 2.0 will continue the war.
As for Ukraine's great friend Boris Johnson (or is he not a friend anymore?), in my opinion, the retired leader of the party that suffered a crushing defeat in the elections really needs to get back on the front pages somehow.
About the author. Valeriy Pekar, lecturer at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.
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