By Yuriy Romanenko for Hvylya
Ukraine's defeat as an opportunity
One of the funniest attempts by Ukrainian intellectuals is the mumbling about the inadmissibility of calling the freezing of the war with Russia a Korean or German variant. They argue that these cases are different because there are divided nations, while in our case, Russia will quickly erase all things Ukrainian in the occupied territories. Dear intellectuals, I’ll ease your suffering. This state of affairs is characterized by one word—"defeat." And this is precisely the Ukrainian variant. Spread your wings and proudly call it the Ukrainian scenario.
I'll even reveal what the Ukrainian scenario is. It's when from 1991 to 2014, you float along with the current in a global ocean of filth, ignoring all ominous signs that a storm is coming. Then, when the storm begins and you have Crimea annexed and half of Donbas taken, you mumble for eight years about reforms, Ukrainization, and how the blessed Tomos will change the course of world history, only to meet a full-scale war in 2022 with your bare backside, illusions, and a non-functioning state.
Then, when Ukraine miraculously held on because the people simply rose up to defend against the aggressor, the government returned within a month to the Ukrainian scenario, which means changing nothing, doing nothing, stealing everything that can be stolen and what Western allies provide. And all the while, they pump themselves up with tales of the 1991 borders, dismissing reality. Now they are frantically trying to figure out how to call defeat a victory. How to continue the war without Western aid and a disillusioned populace that is tired of covering up all the mistakes and screw-ups of a dysfunctional state that can only produce a foolish cult around the dog Patron but cannot properly honor the heroes who have fallen by the tens of thousands.
Anyone with critical thinking understands that it is impossible to win in a situation where only one family has amassed tens of millions of dollars in blatantly stolen money during the war. And there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of such families clinging to the half-dead body of the Second Ukrainian Republic like maggots on a dead horse. One can argue for another year about whether it is appropriate to call the proposed freezing of the war a Korean or German scenario, but that will not improve the situation; it will only worsen it, as it is obvious even to a donkey that there will be no fundamental shift in the reform of the state while the war continues.
And now, Ukraine's goal in this war is not the borders of 1991, but: a) preserving statehood; b) rapidly adapting statehood to radically worsened conditions, where three collapses (demographic, economic, managerial) combined with immense external pressure could erase Ukraine into dust. That is the essence of the situation. Everything else is dangerous self-deception that is fraught with wasting time, which could lead to the collapse of the front and ultimately the loss of statehood.
We cannot today return Crimea, Donbas, and the occupied territories. We will not get them back in the coming years, and perhaps not for decades. It is possible that we will never regain them, just as Finland lost Karelia, France lost Algeria, Turkey lost Syria, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Maghreb, and the United Kingdom lost India and other colonies. Acknowledging defeat today does not mean a strategic victory in the future. A hundred years ago, Turkey lost 80% of the territory of the Ottoman Empire. Today, Turkey has every chance to break into the first league of world politics and become one of the world superpowers. Fifty years ago, China was eating sparrows; today, China challenges the US hegemony.
Ukraine’s defeat in this war opens the door to setting strategic tasks, the realization of which will require the creation of a Third Republic and a fundamental restructuring of everything: social relations, the economy, the army, science, and medicine. Everything!
The existing form of life in Ukraine has completely exhausted itself! The cancer of the Second Republic has consumed everything without a trace! When you have cancer, you either treat it or lose your life. Treating a cancerous tumor may require amputation of the breast, uterus, or kidney affected by metastases. That is the price of life and the errors we make in life. Ukraine is up to its ears in the mess it has created over 33 years of independence.
I will repeat my words spoken in October 2013: we will occupy the territory that corresponds to our social organization. The more primitive we become, the more we will lose.
Ukraine needs a cult of reason. Reason can find a way out of the most complicated situation. Illusions can kill the most promising opportunities. Therefore, the demand to renounce illusions in our situation is a demand to abandon a situation that breeds illusions.
