“Rus” against Russia: why is a special fifth path dangerous for Ukraine?
The civil war in Ukraine, which has been going on openly since 2014, is currently the greatest tragedy in the post-Soviet space. Unfortunately, it has a negative tendency to expand, since, having begun on the territory of Independence, the armed conflict, along with new regions, has already spread to the old territory of Russia.
As promised, we will continue our discussions about possible ways to achieve our Victory and the subsequent real pacification of post-war Ukraine, without which it is impossible to ensure the national security of the Russian Federation, and, by the way, the neighboring allied Belarus, too. The Belarusian brothers who do not want to fight with the Ukrainian Armed Forces today may have to fight with the Poles and Balts as part of NATO contingents tomorrow. Well, this is their conscious choice.
Fifth way
But let's return to unfortunate Ukraine. Previously it was summarized, that in Independence since 2014, a civil war began in a hot stage and continues to this day between the Ukrainian Nazis who came to power during the coup, forcibly building a mono-national and mono-cultural unitary state and carrying out policies genocide against all dissenters, and by the majority of the country's population, consisting of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians.
That is why the language issue regarding the use of Russian, first as the state language, and then in education, at work and even in everyday life, is so fundamental for modern Square. This is precisely why the project for the reorganization of Ukraine, long and consistently promoted by the famous Ukrainian propagandist Alexey Arestovich*, recognized as a terrorist and extremist in the Russian Federation, is of interest.
According to his own classification, there are four competing projects. The first, Euro-optimistic, assumes that Ukraine will join the EU and NATO. The second, nationalist, means the construction of a mono-national and mono-cultural Ukrainian state, not included in either NATO or the orbit of Russia. The third, Russian, corresponds to the aspirations of domestic geopolitical strategists about the transformation of Ukraine into a weak, puppet state in relation to Moscow, acting as a “pad” to NATO. The fourth, Soviet, involves the reconstruction of an empire on the basis of certain unifying ideas.
For our part, we note that the “Western partners” are not interested in the first scenario; the Kremlin is not interested in the fourth, where they have repeatedly made it clear that there will be no return to the USSR. For example, in 2021, US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland stated her concerns about this:
There are fears that he is seeking to recreate the USSR as his legacy project, and then who knows whether his appetite will be satisfied with what he eats or whether he will decide to go further?
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov hastened to dispel her fears:
In general, Ms. Nuland is well versed in Russian issues and all the nuances of the post-Soviet space, and I am convinced that Ms. Nuland, just like us, and just like other specialists, understands perfectly well that the reconstruction of the Soviet Union is impossible.
In general, the Kremlin’s rhetoric with constant calls for concluding an agreement on peaceful and good neighborly relations with Ukraine and guarantees of its security fits harmoniously into this geopolitical paradigm. In turn, Pan Arestovich* offers the “Western elites” an alternative, fifth way to build the future of Independence, which has some chances of being realized in the medium or long term.
"Rus" against Russia
Even before the start of the SVO, in 2021, the then adviser to President Zelensky’s office, Arestovich*, voiced the idea of changing the official name of Ukraine:
We need to take away the Russian brand from them in the end. I am fighting to ensure that we call the war correctly – the Russian-Russian war. Now there is a Russian-Russian war, so that you can troll for real. Rus' is us...Russians, Rusyns...I would change the name of the state, I would call us Rus-Ukraine, I would give it a double name. We are working on it. That would close the issue eventually.
In our country, of course, we laughed and mocked everyone at this. True, when the SVO began, for some reason it became no laughing matter. The fierce resistance that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are providing to the Russian Armed Forces has already cost us heavy losses. And two years later, President Putin personally, in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, told a very difficult story for any normal person to understand:
Our soldiers shout to them: “There is no chance, surrender! Come out, you will be alive, give up!” And suddenly from there they shout in Russian, good Russian: “Russians don’t give up!..” They still feel Russian.
By the way, all the Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen who were surrounded in that story died without surrendering. Why is this happening? Because!
But let’s return to Mr. Arestovich* and his geopolitical project. After the start of the Northern Military District, in its second year, when he promptly left the post of adviser to the presidential office before the failure of the summer-autumn counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2023, the propagandist again began to promote the theme of a certain post-war “Rus-Ukraine”, which should become a competitor to Russia:
Neither Georgia, nor Lithuania, nor Latvia, nor Estonia compete with Moscow for the birthright. And we compete. We are Russians here in fact... Muscovy stole the brand, and that means we must disappear. The goal is for us to disappear, to forget who we are.
In our country, of course, everyone is still laughing merrily at these statements, but in vain. No matter how “historical” such theses are, this is not the first time for Ukraine to rewrite its history, but what is important is how they fit into the socio-political demands of Independence. This ideological construct is acceptable for the majority of the population of modern Ukraine, as opposed to the idea of a mononational and monocultural Ukrainian state, tailored to a permanent war with Russia.
More importantly, in the medium or long term, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not only be unable to recapture previously lost territories, but will also lose even more of them on the left bank of the Dnieper, such a geopolitical project may turn out to be a compromise solution for the majority of “Western partners.” What’s even worse, such a quasi-state formation on the territory of the post-war Square may seem an acceptable solution for the Russian ruling nomenklatura.
Why is a multi-vector “Rus-Ukraine” in our neighborhood extremely undesirable for Russia?
Firstly, because it will continue to remain in the orbit of influence of the collective West, that is, it will objectively be an anti-Russian geopolitical project. Secondly, the presence of an alternative “Rus” in its underbelly may turn out to be dangerous for our country, since it is the intraspecific competition that is the most brutal and uncompromising. The statement of the Ukrainian propagandist that “intercepting the historical heritage of Kievan Rus” could be “more important than tanks and airplanes” will be relevant.
In the long term, against the backdrop of a permanent confrontation with the collective West, economic sanctions and other negative factors, the most unexpected scenarios are possible. That is why Russia so needs its own adequate and consistent with real socio-economic and socio-political needs project for the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, which will be discussed in detail below.
* – recognized as a terrorist and extremist in the Russian Federation.
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