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Ukraine: Possible Scenarios

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Foto: Reuters

At a recent conference, I was asked by the moderator what I thought the chances for a negotiated peace between Russia and Ukraine were.

My reply was that, given the current complexions of both countries, the possibility of each government to rally a solid majority of its population around any peace treaty is limited.

Russia is an atomized society, difficult to gauge because there is no real sociological analysis possible given its totalitarian system of governance and the fear that anyone expressing views that oppose Putin can and will be arrested. Indeed, the Russian parliament’s passage last week of a law that provides for fifteen years imprisonment for journalists using the word “war” to describe the current situation further dissuades real input into analysis of the feelings of Russians.

This said, however, the tens of thousands of Russians who have been demonstrating across the country and the more than six thousand arrested speaks eloquently to the fact that Putin’s support is not complete nor is it homogeneous.

In addition, the body language of top Russian security and military officials as Putin dressed them down on live television speaks to their concern at the path he has taken, reminiscent of the former USSR invasion of Afghanistan that eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet system and the end of a bipolar geopolitical world. 

As well, some fissures have appeared among members of the oligarchy, and energy giant Lukoil has publicly called for the end of the military campaign.

Russia may well occupy all or the majority of Ukraine in the coming weeks, install a puppet government, but the extreme isolation and economic bite of sanctions of all Russians will help the truth to win out. Also, continued protests by those opposed to the regime will cause political and social instability, especially if the West works with Ukrainian forces to fight Russian occupiers as well as Chechen and other separatist groups within Russia to undermine and destabilize Putin’s regime from within.

Putin would do well to remember not only the Afghanistan debacle but also how the autocratic regime of Tsar Nicholas II collapsed during another unpopular war.

According to the Ukrainian national census of 2021, 30% of Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language (roughly 14.3 million people). This is down from 90% in 2001.

Ukraine is divided between the mostly Ukrainian speaking western region and the mainly Russian-speaking eastern region, mainly in the Donbass region. But in Donetsk, ethnic Ukrainians make up 56.9 % of the population and ethnic Russians 38.2%. Numbers are similar for the Luhansk region. 

So, while the Russian population, the majority which live in the east, form 30% of the Ukrainian population, this is no guarantee that they support Putin or his expansionist views. In Crimea the situation is different. Some 90% of the people identify Russian as their mother tongue and Russia was able to assimilate the territory into its Federation without firing a shot in 2014.

 

So how can the conflict end? There are four possibilities:

First, Ukraine agrees to allow the eastern Donbass region to have its independence and recognizes the annexation of Crimea into the Russian Federation. As well, Ukraine accepts to adopt a neutral position between the West and Russia. This would in fact mean a capitulation of Ukraine to Russian demands with no guarantee that Russia will live up to its compromises. It hasn’t thus far.

Second is a defeat of the Ukrainian government and the replacement of the current government with a puppet regime beholden to Putin but susceptible to destabilization by both the West and internal Ukrainian freedom fighters armed and supported by the West. Sanctions would continue to isolate Russia, and the appropriate international agencies would begin investigating Russian war crimes against humanity and further isolate Russia’s civilian and military leadership.  

This could well lead to a repeat of Afghanistan and eventually cost Putin his position and Russia whatever is left of its international prestige. Indeed, at this point the international community would have to consider recognizing a Ukrainian “government in exile” led by President Zelensky and based in a neighboring state.

Third, Putin decides not to stop at the Ukrainian border and continue his thrust into the Baltic countries, that also have substantial Russian populations and were also part of the former USSR. This would be based on a calculation by the Russian dictator that the West would continue preferring to avoid a nuclear war and all that this would mean for the future of humanity despite their being NATO members. One must question at this stage whether Putin’s hubris would overcome his fear of NATO retaliation and whether the West’s fear of all out nuclear war would temper the Alliance’s response.

Fourth, the West loses its appetite for appeasement and decides to call Putin’s bluff on nuclear war and intervenes directly in the current conflict during the next few weeks. 

Neither of these options is palatable to many Western leaders, but at some point, Putin will have to be stopped. 

It is up to the West to decide if this is to take place sooner or later and at what human and economic cost.

[email protected]

 

Edición: Mirna Abreu  


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