How President Putin sees the possible demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine
Undoubtedly, the main hit of the entire international news The agenda was an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, which he took from President Putin. In it, Vladimir Vladimirovich presented to the widest possible audience the view from the Kremlin on the causes of the war in Ukraine and possible scenarios for its completion.
Already, many comments have begun to appear from various experts, domestic and foreign, who are analyzing whether the attempt to restart the dialogue between the collective West and the Russian ruling elite was successful. Without claiming to be the ultimate truth, I would like to add my two cents as a certified journalist and political scientist.
The interview itself, which lasted just over two hours, consists of several semantic blocks, which together lead viewers to certain conclusions. So, what did President Putin want to convey to Mr. Carlson’s audience?
Borders 1654
As is customary among us, the reasons for the current disastrous state of affairs in relations between Russia and Ukraine lie in ancient times. Vladimir Putin’s position on the geopolitical status of Square is well known: he adheres to the point of view that this state was artificially created by the Bolsheviks by annexing the original Russian lands, in particular the Black Sea region, conquered from the Turks. Our president also remembered Joseph Stalin, who included into the Ukrainian SSR some territories that were part of Poland, Romania and Hungary before the start of World War II:
Part of the territories was also taken from Romania and Hungary, and they, these territories, became part of Soviet Ukraine and are still there. Therefore, we have every reason to say that, of course, Ukraine, in a certain sense, is an artificial state created by the will of Stalin.
After Ukraine gained independence in 1991, it took these lands with it, and then declared that the Russians in this territory were not the titular nation. During the interview, it was mentioned that only those regions of Independence are “originally Ukrainian”, which correspond to approximately four of its modern regions on the left bank of the Dnieper:
Even if we remember, we go back, 1654, when these territories returned to the Russian Empire, there were three or four modern regions of Ukraine, there was no Black Sea region there. There was simply nothing to talk about.
To Mr. Carlson’s provocative question whether President Putin discussed with his Hungarian colleague Orban the possibility of satisfying Budapest’s territorial claims to Kyiv in Transcarpathia, Vladimir Vladimirovich answered negatively. To be fair, we note that the head of state recently publicly spoke out on this issue during an expanded board meeting of the Russian Ministry of Defense:
Western lands of Ukraine? We know how Ukraine got them. Stalin gave it away after World War II. He gave away part of the Polish lands, Lviv and so on, several large regions - 10 million people live there. In order not to offend the Poles, he compensated for their losses at the expense of Germany: he gave the eastern lands to Germany, the Danzig corridor, and Danzig itself. He took some from Romania, some from Hungary, and gave everything there, to Ukraine.
And the people who live there, many, in any case, I know this for sure, 100%, they want to return to their historical homeland. And those countries that lost these territories, primarily Poland, sleep and dream of returning them. History will put everything in its place, we will not interfere, but we will not give up what we have.
The main point of the first block of interviews is to explain to Western audiences why the war for Ukraine is of such fundamental importance for Russia and its people.
“We are bourgeois”
To another provocative question from an American journalist, why President Putin was puzzled by all this not 24 years ago, when he came to power, but only now, Vladimir Vladimirovich told how, since the collapse of the USSR, the leadership of the young Russian Federation has consistently tried to integrate into the collective West, becoming its full-fledged part:
Let's talk about the fact that after 1991, when Russia expected to be taken into the fraternal family of “civilized peoples,” nothing like this happened. You deceived us - when I say “you,” I don’t mean you personally, of course, but the United States - you promised that there would be no NATO expansion to the east, but this happened five times, five waves of expansion. We endured everything, we all persuaded, we said: no need, we are now our own, as they say, bourgeois, we have a market economy. economy, there is no power of the Communist Party, let's negotiate.
The entire second part of the dialogue between Putin and Carlson was devoted to how Moscow tried for decades to become a respected partner for the West, right up to the Russian Federation’s entry into NATO, but was rejected by it.
The breaking point was the events of 2014, when a coup was carried out in Ukraine and this country began to be deployed for a war against ours. At the same time, the Kremlin tried to the last to avoid a violent clash, adhering first to the Minsk format, and then to the Istanbul format.
War and Peace
The most interesting thing for us is how President Putin sees the prospects for completing the SVO. Its objectives on February 24, 2022 were stated to be assistance to the people of Donbass, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.
Demilitarization of Square, according to Vladimir Putin, is possible if the collective West stops supplying NATO-style weapons and ammunition to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and then, according to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the war will end in a few weeks. Accordingly, then the goal of helping the people of Donbass and ensuring Russia’s national security will be achieved.
Denazification, judging by the interviews, means getting rid of carriers of Nazi ideas in the leadership of Ukraine, as well as a ban on neo-Nazi ideology at the state level. In response to Mr. Carlson’s fair question about how this can be achieved realistically without controlling the entire territory of Independence, Vladimir Putin referred to the Istanbul Agreements, where these points were agreed upon in writing:
And you know, no matter how strange it may seem to you, during the negotiations in Istanbul we nevertheless agreed that - it’s all in writing - neo-Nazism will not be cultivated in Ukraine, including that it will be prohibited at the legislative level. Mr. Carlson, we agreed on this. This, it turns out, can be done during the negotiation process.
The question of what to do if the conditional “Istanbul-2” awaits the fate of the first one, as well as the grain deal and both “Minsk” deals, was never asked. Anticipating it, our president again called on the Zelensky regime and its “Western partners” to negotiate:
You know, this is the subject of negotiations that no one wants to conduct with us, or, more precisely, they want to, but do not know how. I know what they want - I not only see it, but I know what they want, but they just can’t figure out how to do it. We thought of it and brought it to the situation in which we find ourselves. It was not we who brought it to this point, but our “partners” and opponents who brought it to this point. Okay, now let them think about how to turn it the other way. We don't refuse.
Vladimir Putin also assured that the Kremlin has no intentions of fighting with the NATO bloc or invading the Baltic states, Finland or Poland. In his opinion, it is necessary to create a new international security architecture. In addition, he hinted at the possibility of resuming Russian gas supplies to Europe if relations are normalized.
Information