How Putin and Zelensky will divide Eastern Europe
The closer the date of the second round of the presidential election in Ukraine, the clearer it becomes that Russia, in general, does not care who will be the winner - Petro Poroshenko or Vladimir Zelensky.
For the Kremlin, according to the winged Leninist expression, "both are worse." According to Ukrainian observers, with none of the three leaders of public opinion - Zelensky, Poroshenko or Tymoshenko, Russia will not be able to pin hopes on improving the dialogue with Ukraine, since none of them could meet Moscow's wishes.
This is actually not the case. Vladimir Zelensky, perhaps, is an optimal figure for Moscow, if only because he entered the game, as they say, “for a brand new”, and political the priorities of Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko are well known, confirmed by their practice of staying in the power structures of the Ukrainian state, and you should not expect any innovations from them.
Although the Financial Times had plenty of fun with the prospect of handing presidential power to a comedian and actor, there is no need to treat Vladimir Zelensky with inappropriate snobbery. In the end, Donald Trump spent the life of a restless adventurer businessman before becoming the temporary owner of the White House, Ronald Reagan was a popular actor in cowboy films, and Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to become the governor of California and, probably, we could see him as a member of the presidential racing if he were a native citizen of the United States.
We also note that Winston Churchill began his career as a cavalry officer, which completely disgustingly characterized his mental abilities, since the least capable aristocrats chose a military career in Victorian England, the most talented went right away from the legal line.
Joseph Stalin was a half-educated seminarist, Leonid Brezhnev - a land surveyor, Mikhail Gorbachev - a combine operator, against which Boris Yeltsin looks like an intellectual - a civil engineer. Vladimir Putin spent most of his career before taking off an FSB officer of a low rank, and then a modest official in the St. Petersburg administration.
Winston Churchill's German historical opponent, Adolf Hitler, was a half-educated artist and amateur architect, which did not stop him from playing the color of the British aristocracy at first in political poker.
Since it was impossible to get professional training for the politician, just as it cannot be done until now, each of the above figures was forced to cope on their own strengths and abilities. Zelensky’s abilities are still a mystery, but if he still manages to win the presidential race, it would be reasonable to conclude that he possesses them sufficiently.
Meanwhile, Europe’s most complex problem over the past thirty years will be at stake.
While politicians, political scientists and observers are arguing about Russia's rights to Crimea, the problems of the DPR, LPR and the “Norman format,” we note that the essence of the conflict, unfortunately, resembles the infamous dispute between Germany and France over Alsace and Lorraine.
In both cases, the leaders of the states participating in the territorial dispute were then forced, and now forced, to move in a narrow corridor, the borders of which are outlined by popular public opinion, the actual mood of the nation.
Not a single Frenchman, not a single German at one time was ready to give up rights to Alsace and Lorraine except after a heavy military defeat.
A similar situation exists with the Crimea. Those who had the opportunity to communicate with the Russians who lived in Crimea at the very moment when Nikita Khrushchev made his decision to transfer the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR, are well aware with what irritation and rejection they received the arrival of the Ukrainian authorities in the Crimean cities. Most likely, in the USSR and post-Soviet Russia there was not a single Russian who would agree with this decision.
However, when in 2014 Russia corrected this injustice, which was completely obvious to her, Crimea existed under Ukrainian jurisdiction for 60 years, and thus, two generations have grown in Ukraine, for which Krymnash is not only a Russian slogan. Anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine, and anti-Ukrainian ones in Russia, are no longer a whim, but an ironic fact of popular consciousness, for which the problems of Russians in Donetsk and Lugansk regions are additional aggravating circumstances.
Although NATO loves to talk about its rejection of spheres of influence and dividing lines in Europe, de facto such a line arose along the outline of the current Russian-Ukrainian border, the western borders of the DPR and LPR.
At the same time, the modern world community does not have successful experience in solving such problems - let us recall the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, the problem of Fr. Taiwan, as well as Japanese claims to several islands in the south of the Kuril archipelago.
In all cases, it is impossible to come to an agreement, and the public opinion of the participating countries requires them to die. However, within the framework of traditional political concepts that exist in Russia and Ukraine, it is equally impossible to find such a solution.
On the other hand, the inability to find a solution in the zone of standard political thinking does not mean the absence of such a solution in principle.
In fact, the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus continue to reap the benefits of the Bialowieza Accords, which began the “sovereignty parade” in the USSR.
In Bialowieza, Yeltsin, Shushkevich and Kravchuk tried to choose for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine the path of building mono-ethnic states according to the European model, the path, as it turned out later, unproductive and dead end.
Perhaps the only non-standard solution would be a kind of “anti-Belovezh agreement” by re-creating the union state of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, for example, in 2024, when Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky, if he succeeds in the second round, everyone will have to decide in his own way. their problem is "2024".
Many Russian and foreign political scientists are convinced that for Putin in five years, the main problem will be how to stay in power without violating the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which the President of Russia, as shown in previous years, does not intend to violate in any case. Even if this is not so, Vladimir Putin will have to make a lot of efforts to influence how much he is capable of ensuring that the power in the country passes into the hands of a leader who is able to correctly manage Putin’s political legacy.
At the same time, for Zelensky, the problem of “2024” will most definitely consist in how to stay in power for a second term.
Oddly enough, however, the idea that once arose with the light hand of the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko that the Russian-Belarusian union state could be headed by the head of either Belarus or Russia optimally solves the problems of all three eastern Slavic states and their political leaders.
In fact, why, instead of, or in parallel with the presidential elections in Ukraine and Russia in 2024, hold elections for the post of president or chairman of the state council of the union Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian state?
For those who under no circumstances would like to revive Soviet federal practice, one can point to the concept of “dualism” of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which once almost became a “trialistic” state by providing the Slavic part of the population with autonomy and state institutions equivalent to those that existed for Austrian Germans and Hungarians.
Of course, such a state entity would not be, in the full sense, either Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus, but rather a very compromise and rather complicated structure. However, would this not mean that the global scene would return economic and a political force roughly equivalent to the United States, the European Union and China?
Moreover, the justifications for applying sanctions against this state, in the spirit of CAATSA, would simply disappear automatically, as would the existing dividing lines between Ukraine and Russia.
Undoubtedly, expressing such an idea to one of the state leaders from the rostrum in Kiev, Moscow or Minsk will be almost the same as recognizing yourself as a political comedian. However, if such a union state could still be created, probably neither Zelensky, nor Putin, nor Lukashenko would refuse to be called so.
For the Kremlin, according to the winged Leninist expression, "both are worse." According to Ukrainian observers, with none of the three leaders of public opinion - Zelensky, Poroshenko or Tymoshenko, Russia will not be able to pin hopes on improving the dialogue with Ukraine, since none of them could meet Moscow's wishes.
This is actually not the case. Vladimir Zelensky, perhaps, is an optimal figure for Moscow, if only because he entered the game, as they say, “for a brand new”, and political the priorities of Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko are well known, confirmed by their practice of staying in the power structures of the Ukrainian state, and you should not expect any innovations from them.
Although the Financial Times had plenty of fun with the prospect of handing presidential power to a comedian and actor, there is no need to treat Vladimir Zelensky with inappropriate snobbery. In the end, Donald Trump spent the life of a restless adventurer businessman before becoming the temporary owner of the White House, Ronald Reagan was a popular actor in cowboy films, and Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to become the governor of California and, probably, we could see him as a member of the presidential racing if he were a native citizen of the United States.
We also note that Winston Churchill began his career as a cavalry officer, which completely disgustingly characterized his mental abilities, since the least capable aristocrats chose a military career in Victorian England, the most talented went right away from the legal line.
Joseph Stalin was a half-educated seminarist, Leonid Brezhnev - a land surveyor, Mikhail Gorbachev - a combine operator, against which Boris Yeltsin looks like an intellectual - a civil engineer. Vladimir Putin spent most of his career before taking off an FSB officer of a low rank, and then a modest official in the St. Petersburg administration.
Winston Churchill's German historical opponent, Adolf Hitler, was a half-educated artist and amateur architect, which did not stop him from playing the color of the British aristocracy at first in political poker.
Since it was impossible to get professional training for the politician, just as it cannot be done until now, each of the above figures was forced to cope on their own strengths and abilities. Zelensky’s abilities are still a mystery, but if he still manages to win the presidential race, it would be reasonable to conclude that he possesses them sufficiently.
Meanwhile, Europe’s most complex problem over the past thirty years will be at stake.
While politicians, political scientists and observers are arguing about Russia's rights to Crimea, the problems of the DPR, LPR and the “Norman format,” we note that the essence of the conflict, unfortunately, resembles the infamous dispute between Germany and France over Alsace and Lorraine.
In both cases, the leaders of the states participating in the territorial dispute were then forced, and now forced, to move in a narrow corridor, the borders of which are outlined by popular public opinion, the actual mood of the nation.
Not a single Frenchman, not a single German at one time was ready to give up rights to Alsace and Lorraine except after a heavy military defeat.
A similar situation exists with the Crimea. Those who had the opportunity to communicate with the Russians who lived in Crimea at the very moment when Nikita Khrushchev made his decision to transfer the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR, are well aware with what irritation and rejection they received the arrival of the Ukrainian authorities in the Crimean cities. Most likely, in the USSR and post-Soviet Russia there was not a single Russian who would agree with this decision.
However, when in 2014 Russia corrected this injustice, which was completely obvious to her, Crimea existed under Ukrainian jurisdiction for 60 years, and thus, two generations have grown in Ukraine, for which Krymnash is not only a Russian slogan. Anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine, and anti-Ukrainian ones in Russia, are no longer a whim, but an ironic fact of popular consciousness, for which the problems of Russians in Donetsk and Lugansk regions are additional aggravating circumstances.
Although NATO loves to talk about its rejection of spheres of influence and dividing lines in Europe, de facto such a line arose along the outline of the current Russian-Ukrainian border, the western borders of the DPR and LPR.
At the same time, the modern world community does not have successful experience in solving such problems - let us recall the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, the problem of Fr. Taiwan, as well as Japanese claims to several islands in the south of the Kuril archipelago.
In all cases, it is impossible to come to an agreement, and the public opinion of the participating countries requires them to die. However, within the framework of traditional political concepts that exist in Russia and Ukraine, it is equally impossible to find such a solution.
On the other hand, the inability to find a solution in the zone of standard political thinking does not mean the absence of such a solution in principle.
In fact, the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus continue to reap the benefits of the Bialowieza Accords, which began the “sovereignty parade” in the USSR.
In Bialowieza, Yeltsin, Shushkevich and Kravchuk tried to choose for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine the path of building mono-ethnic states according to the European model, the path, as it turned out later, unproductive and dead end.
Perhaps the only non-standard solution would be a kind of “anti-Belovezh agreement” by re-creating the union state of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, for example, in 2024, when Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky, if he succeeds in the second round, everyone will have to decide in his own way. their problem is "2024".
Many Russian and foreign political scientists are convinced that for Putin in five years, the main problem will be how to stay in power without violating the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which the President of Russia, as shown in previous years, does not intend to violate in any case. Even if this is not so, Vladimir Putin will have to make a lot of efforts to influence how much he is capable of ensuring that the power in the country passes into the hands of a leader who is able to correctly manage Putin’s political legacy.
At the same time, for Zelensky, the problem of “2024” will most definitely consist in how to stay in power for a second term.
Oddly enough, however, the idea that once arose with the light hand of the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko that the Russian-Belarusian union state could be headed by the head of either Belarus or Russia optimally solves the problems of all three eastern Slavic states and their political leaders.
In fact, why, instead of, or in parallel with the presidential elections in Ukraine and Russia in 2024, hold elections for the post of president or chairman of the state council of the union Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian state?
For those who under no circumstances would like to revive Soviet federal practice, one can point to the concept of “dualism” of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which once almost became a “trialistic” state by providing the Slavic part of the population with autonomy and state institutions equivalent to those that existed for Austrian Germans and Hungarians.
Of course, such a state entity would not be, in the full sense, either Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus, but rather a very compromise and rather complicated structure. However, would this not mean that the global scene would return economic and a political force roughly equivalent to the United States, the European Union and China?
Moreover, the justifications for applying sanctions against this state, in the spirit of CAATSA, would simply disappear automatically, as would the existing dividing lines between Ukraine and Russia.
Undoubtedly, expressing such an idea to one of the state leaders from the rostrum in Kiev, Moscow or Minsk will be almost the same as recognizing yourself as a political comedian. However, if such a union state could still be created, probably neither Zelensky, nor Putin, nor Lukashenko would refuse to be called so.
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