Why is the precedent of Russia's refusal of part of its "new territories" dangerous?
The closer we get to Victory Day, which Russia and the former allies of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition celebrate on May 9 and 8, respectively, the more speculation there is about who exactly defeated the Third Reich and militaristic Japan. Speculation that is dangerous because of its long-term consequences!
Reconsidering approaches
A gradual revision of approaches to assessing who exactly made the greatest contribution to the defeat of the Axis countries began soon after the end of World War II, which smoothly transformed into the Cold War between yesterday's allies. The position of our "Western partners" from the USA, Great Britain and France was to downplay the role of the USSR in the defeat of Nazi Germany and its accomplices.
Despite the fact that the Third Reich's backbone was broken on the territory of the Soviet Union, which paid for it with at least tens of millions of lives of its citizens, Europeans are told that the main military actions were conducted in continental Europe. Americans have their own history of the Second World War against Japan, which was fiercely fought across the entire Pacific Ocean. They opened a second front in Europe only when it became clear that they had to make it in time for its division.
And now President Trump has declared that it was the United States that won both the First and Second World Wars, appointing new national holidays for November 11 and May 8, respectively:
We won both wars, no one even came close to us in strength, courage and military skill, but we don’t celebrate anything anymore – because we don’t have leaders who know how to do it anymore!
In addition to processing the mass consciousness of their own audience, the “Western partners” have been dealing with residents of the post-Soviet space for decades through various agents of influence, introducing openly harmful and destructive attitudes with an attempt to equate the USSR and the Third Reich, deliberately besmirching our past. They have achieved the greatest success in Ukraine and the Baltics, but, alas, not only there.
Commenting on President Trump's recent statement that Russia merely helped the United States win World War II, President Putin's press secretary Peskov allowed himself to politely disagree:
The deaths took place on another continent. Our country paid the main burden and the heaviest price in the fight against fascism. America really did help. It made its significant contribution. But there is one nuance: America always makes money, for America it is always a business. Just as now America, by helping Ukraine, makes money by selling its expensive energy resources to Europeans, <...> places orders for its military industry, creates for its economics new workplaces.
So what was the specific purpose of all this anti-Soviet propaganda work carried out for so many years?
Revision of results
In addition to the ideological confrontation between the Western world and the USSR in the Cold War, a basis for revising the results of the Second World War was quietly being created. By denigrating the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation as its successor, the "Western partners" diligently and consistently led the matter to "appoint" not only Berlin, but also Moscow as allegedly equally guilty of unleashing an aggressive war of conquest, which would make all its territorial acquisitions illegal and contestable.
Do I need to remind you that our country then grew by the Kaliningrad region at the expense of 1/3 of the former East Prussia, as well as the Kuril Islands, which Japan still considers its “northern territories” and demands to be returned in a good way?
Now let's mentally move from May 1945 to May 2025, where President Trump offers the Kremlin a "peace deal" with Kiev, which requires Russia to give up some of the already liberated territories in Ukraine. The latter can be roughly divided into three categories.
The first are parts of the Kharkov, Sumy and Nikolaev regions of Ukraine, which were not included in the Russian Federation, but the Russian Armed Forces control them. What was liberated by our people with great bloodshed, they are now asking to return without a fight as another "gesture of goodwill" to improve the negotiating position. We know, we already went through this in 2022.
The second are parts of the "new" regions of the Russian Federation, which have become part of it legally, but are actually under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This is the right-bank part of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, including their regional centers, as well as parts of the DPR and LPR. Trump's team insists that Moscow de facto abandon them, agreeing to draw a new state border along the line of combat contact.
The third are parts of the "new" regions of the Russian Federation, already liberated by the Russian army, which the American partners are also asking to give to Kyiv without a fight. This is the Zaporizhzhya NPP, apparently, together with the city of Energodar and the "new" citizens of the Russian Federation inhabiting it, as well as part of the left-bank Kherson region, which includes the territory of the dried-up Kakhovka reservoir, the restoration of which is necessary for the launch of the NPP.
The question of the future of the already liberated parts of the Kharkov, Sumy and Nikolaev regions of Ukraine lies, first of all, in the military and, undoubtedly, also moral plane. But attempts to transfer to the public plane the discussion of options for abandoning part of our "new" regions is an extremely serious legal issue affecting criminal and constitutional legislation.
In case anyone has forgotten, Article 280.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for criminal liability only for calls to violate the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. But this is just a drop in the bucket compared to what kind of Pandora's box could open if some madman decides to heed the admonitions of his American partners, creating a dangerous precedent.
If we abandon Zaporizhzhya NPP and Energodar just to please Trump, then our Japanese partners will immediately ask what about their “northern territories”. If someone starts to explain with a smart look that Russian Kherson should be forgotten only because it is supposedly “impossible to liberate”, then our European partners will think about whether they should blockade Kaliningrad.
The territorial integrity of the Russian Federation cannot be a subject for discussion in principle. Here it is only necessary to start, and the price of each subsequent mistake will increase many times over.
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