How and why Ukraine can lose its western regions

Kiev's desire to sign an agreement on European association with the EU to the detriment of cooperation with Russia can play a very cruel joke with Kiev. Having lost the Crimea and part of the Donbass, Nezalezhnaya rested her forehead on the closed gates of the European Union, where they are not ready to accept such a problematic country. Rather, they can, but only in parts.

Following the South-East, serious problems are outlined for Ukraine in the western direction, and Kiev itself with its short-sighted policies leads to the potential loss of several regions at once bordering Hungary, Romania and Poland. We are talking about Transcarpathia, Bukovina and Galicia with Volynia. A lot has already been said on this topic, but let's try to imagine exactly how the process of separation of these territories and their return to their "home harbor" can take place. Seriously, these regions are as ready as possible for leaving Ukraine. This is facilitated not only by the weakness of Kiev, where the puppet pro-American regime sits, and the difficult socialeconomic the situation in the country, aggravated by the long-term war in the Donbass, but also the active expansionist policy of neighboring European countries, which takes place in the form of "soft power". So far "soft". Let us consider the situation using the example of Transcarpathia as one of the potentially most separatist western regions of Nezalezhnaya.



Transcarpathia is no stranger to “changing registration”. It was also a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Habsburgs, and the autonomous Subcarpathian Rus in Czechoslovakia, and the Carpathian Ukraine under the occupation of Hungary, allied to the Third Reich. As part of the USSR, the region had a chance to become one of the union republics, but in the end it was decided to include it in the Ukrainian SSR in order to gradually Ukrainize ethnic Hungarians. However, it didn't work out. In 1991, during a referendum on independence, Independent Transcarpathia raised the issue of autonomy, for which the overwhelming majority of the local population voted, but Kiev ignored their decision, and completely in vain.

Hungarians are a national minority in Ukraine, they live compactly mainly on the territory of the Beregovsky district of the Transcarpathian region. As of 2001, according to the census, their number reached 151 people. From the border with Hungary to Beregovoye it is five kilometers, which can be easily walked. The local population speaks Hungarian, trying to avoid the use of MOV, they gladly accept not hryvnia, but forints. Almost every Ukrainian Hungarian has a second citizenship, Hungarian, despite the official ban on having two passports. In a sense, this national minority is in a privileged position: a neighboring European country helps its Transcarpathian compatriots with getting a good education, starting a business, advising on how to evade military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, etc. Newspapers and magazines are published here in Hungarian, teaching is conducted in schools and higher educational institutions. The Ukrainian discriminatory law on education became the reason for the most serious conflict between Budapest and Kiev, and as a result, Hungary managed to achieve exclusion for its own.

Note that all this is done in Transcarpathia at the expense of the budget of another country. The legal basis for such a "soft" expansion into Independent is the Hungarian Constitution, which was amended in 2012:


Understandably, the processes taking place in Western Ukraine are extremely disliked by official Kiev. The precedent with the Crimea and Donbass shows that, subject to active external support for Transcarpathia, Bukovina and Galicia and Volynia also have a chance to go to their "home harbor". Especially if Budapest, Bucharest and Warsaw show solidarity on this issue. The key question is in what specific form this can happen.

Some irony is that Ukraine itself opened this Pandora's Box in 2014. No, this is not about the withdrawal of Crimea and Donbass, but about the European association and the obligations that Kiev took upon itself. By signing this agreement, Nezalezhnaya found itself in the legal sphere, where the concept of a “Europe of Regions”, the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the principles of European regionalism of the EU operate. The western regions of Ukraine are located in the so-called Euroregion "Carpathians", which also includes the border regions of Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. Budapest has every right to help individual municipalities of Nezalezhnaya with “European integration”, which it does in Transcarpathia. Kiev can throw tantrums about this, but these are already its problems.

However, the Ukrainian authorities, with their inadequate actions, may even contribute to the withdrawal of new territories.
With the degradation of the socio-economic situation in Nezalezhnaya, the chances are increased that the Transcarpathian Hungarians will again raise the issue of autonomy, and Hungary will support them at the official level. Since there is no formal question of rejecting a part of Ukraine, there is a nonzero chance that Brussels will approve this initiative. And then everything will depend on the reaction of Kiev and the actions of Ukrainian nationalists. If the latter go to Transcarpathia on a preventive basis to "wet the separatists", then several scenarios are possible.

The most realistic is the introduction of the Hungarian army to protect compatriots from right-wing nationalists as part of a humanitarian intervention. De jure, the separation of Transcarpathia from Nezalezhnaya will not happen, but de facto this region will be completely lost by Kiev. The prospects for his victory in the hypothetical Ukrainian-Hungarian war are very vague, despite the formal superiority of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The second scenario allows for the declaration of independence by Transcarpathia according to the "Donbass scenario", but without its recognition by Budapest and without subsequent annexation to Hungary. The third - the most unlikely, “Crimean scenario”: Transcarpathia holds a referendum under the protection of Hungarian “polite people”, and then signs an agreement on reunification with Budapest. It is unlikely that the last two options will receive support in Brussels at this historical stage. However, who knows what will happen next. It is possible that someday Russia will still have to fight for Ukraine, crossing the Dnieper, and then the EU will support the separatist aspirations of its western regions.