In 2024, the next presidential elections are to be held in Ukraine. It is very likely that a new coup d'état will take place in Kiev exactly when the losing side refuses to recognize the opponent's victory and switches to the use of force to seize power. Most likely, Vladimir Zelensky and the somewhat forgotten Petro Poroshenko will again come together in an irreconcilable battle. How should Russia react to this?
It’s amazing how little the initially high rating of the “servant of the people” and his party lasted. Today, more than half of the interviewed potential voters do not want him to run for a second presidential term. But Vladimir Aleksandrovich will simply have to do it, if only for the sake of preserving life, freedom, and acquired by back-breaking labor. The only explanation why the disgraced ex-President Poroshenko did not "sit down" for a long time is that he had some kind of "security certificate" from Washington, for which the oligarch obviously paid a lot of money. Will Zelensky have one? It is not a fact that anyone will "harness" for him at all.
In general, Vladimir Alexandrovich was in vain to climb into power. It would be better if he remained just a successful businessman from the Ukrainian humor. Once in the "bank with spiders", he was even forced to try on Bonaparte's tricorne hat, trying to establish a regime of real one-man power, pushing aside the oligarchs. He did not do it very well, because he even had to publicly announce a coup d'état by some oligarchs headed by Rinat Akhmetov.
So far, it seems, nothing happened. But 2024 is almost certainly not enough. Already now the party of Petro Poroshenko called "European Solidarity" is more popular than the "Servant of the People". If it blocks with Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna party, the Reasonable policy"And Lyashko's radicals, they will seriously tie the hands of President Zelensky. And if specially trained people help to "correctly" count the votes in the elections of the head of state, then Ukraine will again be pushed into a political crisis.
Let's think about how Russia needs to respond to this. Revenge of Poroshenko almost inevitably means an escalation of the armed conflict in Donbass and a further deterioration in relations between Kiev and Moscow, which is absolutely not beneficial to us. Maybe it’s worth answering with a knight's move?
To begin with, we note that a few days ago, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled from the Maidan, saving his life, appealed to the District Administrative Court of Kiev in order to appeal the legality of the decision of the Verkhovna Rada to remove him from office. Curious. It was even more interesting to read the theses of his next appeal to the citizens of Ukraine on the 8th anniversary of the Maidan, where he spoke about the need to end the war in Donbass, restore industry, establish the neutral status of Independent, etc. It almost turned out to be a pre-election program. Let's remember this.
Now let's talk about the further fate of Ukraine, Crimea, DPR and LPR. In 2014, a coup d'etat took place in Kiev, Russophobic-minded neo-Nazis came to power, and this is an indisputable fact. In response to this, referendums were held in Crimea and Donbass with different results: the peninsula became part of the Russian Federation, and the DPR and LPR raised the issue of sovereignty in a plebescite. We should especially note that neither Moscow, nor Kiev, nor the Western countries recognized the legality and results of the referendums in Donbass. So be it. Can we use this to our advantage?
Yes. Let's go back to 2014. Before the coup d'état, Ukraine was a conditionally neutral country in relation to Russia, and after it it became openly hostile. At the same time, Crimeans and residents of Donbass are now called “separatists” there, and Russia is called an “occupier”. Let's turn the situation around. Who said that they were the “separatists”, and that Kiev, where the coup d'etat took place, is the only successor to the pre-Maid Ukraine sample before 2014?
Let us clarify this idea. In fact, Nezalezhnaya was divided into two unequal parts, where Crimea went to Russia, and the DPR and LPR remained the only pro-Russian regions. But why shouldn't Moscow recognize them as the legal successors of the pre-Maid Ukraine? Let us recall that none of the interested parties recognized the results of the referendums in Donbass. On the contrary, the Kremlin constantly emphasizes that Donbass is Ukraine. Let's admit. Then why not hold another plebescite in the DPR and LPR, where the question will be asked whether the inhabitants of Donbass consider their region and themselves the legal successors of the pre-Maid Ukraine? And why then should the Kremlin not recognize the pro-Russian Donbass as the only "real" Ukraine, and deny recognition to Zelensky and Poroshenko's Ukraine following the presidential elections in 2024?
Then you get a completely different alignment. There is such a completely official term with a dissonant name - "stump state": a country that has experienced a sharp reduction in its territory as a result of a war or other cataclysm. For us, the Russians, it is Donbass that can act as a "stump state" dominated by Ukraine, with which we had quite normal working relations, in contrast to post-Maidan Ukraine. If the Kremlin recognizes Donbass as the legal successor of the pre-Maid Ukraine, then two countries will appear at once: the pro-Russian Ukraine-1 and Ukraine-2 with its neo-Nazis in power, which will be de jure and de facto "separatists" for Moscow.
This will immediately radically change all political alignments. Presidential elections in 2024 in Ukraine-2 cannot be recognized, but President Yanukovych must be returned to Ukraine-1 and diplomatic relations must be established with her. Then Russia's actions to support the pre-Maid Ukraine will no longer be "support for the separatists", on the contrary, this territory and its new authorities may become a new "assemblage point" in opposition to the neo-Nazis in Kiev. It may even be cooler than the "government in exile". Why not?