The Second Great Falsehood about the NATO-Proxy War with Russia in Ukraine

Like the former states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, Ukraine was politically and culturally divided from the start.

The Western narrative tells two great falsehoods about the ongoing NATO-proxy war between Ukraine and Russia. The first great falsehood, ably dealt with by Benjamin Abelow (among many others), claims that Russia's invasion was unprovoked. For the record, Abelow does not claim that Russia’s invasion was legal under international law — only that it is was not unprovoked.

The second great falsehood blames Putin for Ukraine's internal conflicts prior to the invasion. More specifically, when mentioned by the Western media at all, our MSM-anointed experts hold Russia responsible for the on-again, off-again Ukrainian civil war which has plagued the nation since independence in 1991.

So why should we care?

Because the Western narrative denies or distorts hard social, cultural, and historical realities which any viable treaty, truce, or peace settlement must take into account. In so doing, the Western narrative makes impossible for Ukraine and Russia to compromise. If we hold to the Western narrative, we perpetuate a localized forever war which has the potential always to escalate both globally and into a nuclear holocaust. Let’s face some unpleasant truths instead, and then consider other options.

In regard to the first great falsehood, to summarize what the USA and allies have done to create the current crisis, Abelow lists the following eight (8) provocations¹:

1. Expanded NATO over a thousand miles eastward, pressing it toward Russia’s borders, in disregard of assurances previously given to Moscow.

2. Withdrawn unilaterally from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and placed antiballistic launch systems in newly joined NATO countries. These launchers can also accommodate and fire offensive nuclear weapons at Russia, such as nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles.

3. Helped lay the groundwork for, and may have directly instigated, an armed, far-right coup in Ukraine. This coup replaced a democratically elected pro-Russian government with an unelected pro-Western one.

4. Conducted countless NATO military exercises near Russia’s border. These have included, for example, live-fire rocket exercises whose goal was to simulate attacks on air-defense systems inside Russia.

5. Asserted, without pressing strategic need, and in disregard of the threat such a move would pose for Russia, that Ukraine would become a NATO member. NATO then refused to renounce this policy even when doing so might have averted war.

6. Withdrawn unilaterally from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, increasing Russian vulnerability to a U.S. first strike.

7. Armed and trained the Ukrainian military through bilateral agreements and held regular joint military training exercises inside Ukraine. The goal has been to produce NATO-level military interoperability even before formally admitting Ukraine into NATO.

8. Led the Ukrainian leadership to adopt an uncompromising stance toward Russia, further exacerbating the threat to Russia and putting Ukraine in the path of Russian military blowback.

In brief, the war was not unprovoked. Moreover, Russia has valid security concerns which must be part of any peace treaty or settlement.

Ukrainian Nationalism: Conflicting Original Ideals

This post will largely concern the second falsehood — the on-again, off-again civil war in Ukraine, which has roots dating back to at least the late 18^th century. Blaming Ukraine’s domestic turmoil on Putin misses the mark by at least six generations — the conflict began well before Ukraine appeared as a state on the map of Europe in the early 20^th century. In fact, for centuries prior, the designation “Ukraine” (various possible spellings) on a map referred to a territory, region, or borderland — the boundaries of which were vaguely defined and frequently changing.

As we will discuss in more detail shortly, there was the short-lived West Ukrainian People’s Republic (November 1918 to July 1919) whose territory was disputed by and largely taken over by Poland. Likewise, there was the short-lived and unstable Ukrainian People’s Republic (1917-1921), which was soon after absorbed into the USSR as a founding member state, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialistic Republic (Ukrainian SSR). It is worth repeating: unlike Poland or Russia, Ukraine as a distinct nation-state makes no appearance on the map of Europe until the early 20^th century.

So as a matter of historical fact, Ukrainian SSR was the first Ukrainian nation-state recognized the by international community, and the first with any territorial stability. This because the Soviet Union guaranteed Ukraine’s boundaries.

Left-Bank versus Right-Bank Ukraine

The two national false starts of Ukraine, the West Ukrainian People’s Republic (1918-1919) and Ukrainian People’s Republic (1917-1921), in turn reveal a deeper and pre-Soviet history. The desire for a Ukrainian nation-state generated two competing visions of Ukrainian identity and hence nationalism. This because there was no shared Ukrainian experience — the Ukrainian nationalist movement emerged while ethnic Ukrainians were living in two different European empires.

We must necessarily simplify — but not overly so. During the nascent period of the Ukrainian nationalism movement, the territory in modern day Ukraine was politically divided by the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Russian empire. In terms of both practical control and spheres of influence, this political divide was fortified by one of Europe’s great natural trans-boundaries: the Dnieper River. The area west of Dnieper River, the “Left Bank.” borders Central Europe. The area east of Dnieper River, the “Right Bank,”bridges Europe and Asia and borders modern-day Russia.

Ukrainian Nationalism: the Galician and Malorossiyan ideals

Living respectively under Austro-Hungarian and Russian imperial spheres of influence, ethnic Ukrainians had significantly different experiences. This resulted in two competing versions of Ukrainian identity and hence later nationalism: the Galician and Malorossiyan ideals.

From nearly the start, as Professor Nicolai Petro has documented extensively in his masterful The Tragedy of Ukraine, the Galician ideal emphasized “total separation from Russia,” whereas the Malorossiyan ideal emphasized not only co-existence but “mutually beneficial ties” with Russia.²

Petro neatly summaries these competing ideals:³

For Galician Ukrainians, justice demands that all Ukrainians be united by a common language, culture, religion, and historical vision, or Ukraine is doomed. For Maloross Ukrainians, justice demands that the cultural, religious, and historical pluralism of Ukraine be recognized, or Ukraine is doomed.

This divide is stark and enduring — which is not the same as claiming it is magical or that Ukraine perfectly divides into Left-Bank and Right-Bank constituencies. But as we will shortly see, Ukraine does certain distinct oblasts (administrative districts) in which the majority of people are either Russophobes or Russophiles. As the history we just reviewed would suggest, this does map out West to East. The Russophobes or Galician idealists are to the West, or “Left-Bank”; the Russophiles or Malorossiyan idealists to the East, or “Right Bank.”

Mapping Ukraine’s Elections

As recognized by West, Ukraine is divided into “27 first-level administrative divisions, which consists of 24 oblasts, 1 autonomous republic and 2 cities with special status.”⁴ For election purposes, the oblasts are similar to what an American citizen would call a state; a city with special status similar to Washington, DC. The autonomous republic is Crimea; the two cities with special status, Kyiv and Sevastopol. (The montage below shows both the administrative divisions and major cities)

Your author is indebted here (as well as elsewhere in this post) to Professor Petro, who has astutely observed that the “starkly divided voting patterns in Left-Bank and Right-Bank Ukraine after independence” testify to enduring conflict between the Galician and Malorossiyan ideals.⁵

Moreover, and please do note, neither NATO nor Putin created this divide, even if either or both could be accused of exploiting it. Indeed, as Petro has observed, the “conflict within Ukraine, between its Russophile east (Malorossiya) and its Russophobe west (Galicia)” has been “going on for at least 150 years.”⁶ But before we dive deeper into the history, let’s review some election results first. Our discussion of the election which brought Zelensky to power will be saved until later in this post, however — what Zelenksy has done since coming to power requires more context.

The 1994 and 2004 Presidental Elections

The results below from the 1994 and 2004 Presidential Elections in Ukraine reveal the extreme differences between the far Western and Eastern oblasts, with Central Ukraine being generally more moderate — a political buffer zone.

The strongest contrast in results: the historical Galician homeland (particularly, the oblasts of Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsh) versus the Donbas region (the oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk) and Crimea. (In both maps, the darker orange versus the darker blue). Otherwise, in more general terms, we see a clear West-East distinction. This pattern holds for the regional elections also.

The 2006 and 2007 Regional and Parliamentary Elections

The two maps below show the 2006 election for the Oblast leadership by party affiliation, and the 2007 elections for Members of Parliament also by party affiliation.

Again, for the regional elections, the West-East divide persists, and the strongest contrasts are between the historical Galician homeland versus the Donbas region and Crimea. To understand this better, we need to know some more history.

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Stepping Back to WWI: Divided Ukrainian Nationalism

As mentioned earlier, to simplify just a bit, in 1917 the territory of modern-day Ukraine was largely divided between the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Russian empire. WWI would be downfall of both empires. The Ukrainian peoples from both former empires and on both sides of Dnieper River aspired to national independence.

In the Eastern Galicia region of the now former Austro-Hungarian empire, an area also claimed by Poland, Ukrainian nationalists created the short-lived West Ukrainian People’s Republic (November 1918 to July 1919). By July 1919, Poland had asserted control over most of the territory — and many Galician nationalists shifted their attention and energies eastward where the Malorossiyan nationalists were making some progress. Both cooperation and violent conflict ensued.

Ukrainian nationalists from both main camps did succeed in creating the short-lived and unstable Ukrainian People’s Republic (1917-1921). But this state was soon after absorbed into the USSR as a founding member state, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialistic Republic (Ukraine SSR). The remainder of the territory once claimed by Ukrainian nationalists, particularly by the Western or “Left-Bank” or Galician nationalists, was now under control of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania.

Two Different Failed Ukraines — and the Soviet Paradox

In this sense, both attempts at creating an independent Ukrainian state failed —Ukraine now existed on the map as an internationally recognized political entity because of the Soviet Union. The modern-day boundaries of Ukraine would not be established until after WWII, with Crimea added by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. (More on this soon enough).

Since the Galician ideal emphasized “total separation from Russia,” these Ukrainian nationalists generally understood the Soviet Union as a colonizing power which had usurped their new republic.⁷ Starting in the 1920s, the rhetoric against Russia, and hence also against the Russophile east (Malorossiya) region of Ukraine, became increasingly violent and extremist. This was not without cause.

The Holodomor and Other Horrors

During the greater Soviet famine of 1930-1933, Ukrainian SSR (the former Ukrainian People’s Republic, to which the former West Ukrainian People’s Republic had not yet been added) suffered immensely. The Holodomor, as the famine in Ukraine (1932-1933) is known, killed millions of citizens. This was perhaps the greatest catastrophe which Ukrainian people suffered under Soviet rule, but not the only time Kremlin policies wrought havoc on Ukrainian society, intentionally or otherwise.

The historian Andrea Graziosi has argued that the Holodomor was caused by Stalin’s industrialization efforts and attempt to collectivize agriculture, but then was then weaponized by the Kremlin against Ukrainian citizens to suppress dissent more generally, and the nationalist independence movement specifically.⁸ This weaponization of a famine caused by failed policy only hardened the resolve of the Galician idealists while further polarizing Ukrainian society. This and other Soviet mishaps set the stage for Ukrainian cooperation with Nazi Germany during the invasion of the Soviet Union in WWII.

The Galician Ideal and Nazi Ideology: Deep Affinities

The name of Stepan Bandera (1909-1959), who was born in Galicia, is mentioned now and then by some of our MSM-approved intelligentsia. Bandera’s crimes as a leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) remain well-documented. Even Wikipedia acknowledges that OUN-B (the Bandera wing of the OUN) “engaged in various atrocities, including murder of civilians, most of whom were ethnic Poles, Jews and Romani people.”⁹ We will return to a discussion of Bandera soon enough.

Less well known to our MSM-approved intelligentsia is Dmytro Ivanovych Dontsov (1883-1973). Donstov was not as hands-on as Bandera — not as directly involved in acts of violence. Instead, Donstov contributed to the Galician ideal ultra-nationalism as a writer, publisher, philosopher and propagandist. His influence was significant and enduring as noted by the scholars John A. Armstrong, Trevor Erlacher, and Myroslav Shkandrij among others.¹⁰ Petro likewise has argued that the writings of Donstov “continue to serve as an inspiration and model for many contemporary Ukrainian nationalists.”¹¹

An intellectual modernist who combined a fashionable variant of Nietzschean ethos with an equally fashionable variant of Social Darwinism, and this pairing was not original, Dontsov argued that the nation is like “a species in nature” and so “in constant struggle with other nations for existence and space.” Hence healthy nations are conquering nations which make history by imposing their will upon the world and other weaker nations.¹²

Rejecting the concepts of co-existence and mutually beneficial relationships which were central to the  Malorossiyan ideal, Donstov held that Ukraine must overcome Russia — must purge the Russian elements from the Ukrainian nation and people. This was a matter of both right and necessity, with no sacrifice being too great to achieve Ukrainian nationalism. Establishing a purified Ukrainian nation-state was¹³

above the life of any given individual, above the blood and deaths of thousands, above the wellbeing of a given generation, above abstract mental calculations, above universal human ethics, above any imaginary concept of good and evil.

It also meant dealing harshly with the minority Jewish population, the residual Polish population, and so on, as Dontsov explicitly stated elsewhere.¹⁴

His most significant works published in the 1920s and 1930s, Dontsov, as they say, was a man of his time. He gave a Ukrainian gloss to various strands of ultra-nationalist ideologies and metahistorical fantasias then freely circulating in Europe — but perhaps advocated most eloquently and effectively by certain members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.¹⁵ Be that as it may, such was the new and improved Galician ideal nationalism — which indeed had shared roots and deep affinities with Nazi ideology. Hence it should not surprise us that when Germany invaded Ukraine during WWII, the Germans found a significant body of collaborators.

The Ukrainian Waffen-SS Division, 1^st Galicia

Since conquering Russia was the German end goal in this case, the German invasion of Ukraine seemed to the Galician ideal nationalists an opportunity for purging the Russian elements out of Ukraine, and establishing a purified ethno-linguistic nation-state. This would be a new Ukraine in alliance with another and stronger nation-state, Nazi Germany, which similarly professed aspirations of ethno-linguistic purity and claimed the right to dominate inferior peoples— Russians being on that list.

In fact, Nazi Germany had offered a similar deal to like-minded nationalists in Croatia, Yugoslavia — and this resulted in the short-lived Independent State of Croatia, which became infamous for their genocide campaigns against Serbian, Jewish, and Romani peoples.¹⁶

Unfortunately for the Galician ideal nationalists, however, Hitler viewed Ukraine more as resource colony than a junior partner. But even after Germany denied them a partnership similar to that of Croatian ethno-nationalists, the Galician ideal nationalists still claimed Russia as their primary enemy. In fact, Germany found enough Ukrainian collaborators to form an entire division: the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as 1st Galicia or SS-Galicia. (Please see montage below).

Historians credit the SS-Galicia with participating in the Huta Pieniacka, Pidkamin, and Palikrowy massacres among other atrocities.¹⁷ Distinguishing itself through war crimes and not victories on the battlefield, the SS-Galicia proved better at killing civilians than Red Army (Soviet) soldiers.

From the SS-Galicia to the Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA)

In context, the actions of the SS-Galicia were part of a larger ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by Ukrainian Galician ideal nationalists — which brings us back to Stephan Bandera, and also brings us to the Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA).

During WWII, when the tide started turning against Germany, key OUN-B members under the direction of Bandera took control of UPA. The UPA had previously served as auxiliary police for the German occupation, and several members had been directly involved in “the mass killing of west Ukrainian Jews.”  But now these ultra-nationalists undertook a more general ethnic cleansing of Western Ukraine, murdering “tens of thousands of Poles, most of them women and children.”¹⁸ 

The historian Alexander V. Prusin¹⁹ has summarized the ethnic cleansing campaign as follows:

On the surface, the OUN-UPA anti-Polish campaign in Western Ukraine seemed to have achieved its long-desired objectives. Mass murder and flight of Polish refugees irreversibly changed the ethnic composition in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in favor of ethnic Ukrainians. In reality, however, it was a Pyrrhic victory for the nationalists. Forced to deploy its forces against Poles, Germans, and in the spring of 1944 against the Red Army, the OUN-UPA was bound to crack under the enormous pressure of fighting simultaneously too many enemies. The major political beneficiaries of the ethnic cleansing were the Soviet authorities.  

Why? Because after WWII ended, the Soviet authorities used the chaos caused by the OUN-UPA as justification for restoring order, and for annexing Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, now predominately Ukrainian in population, as part of Ukrainian SRR.

Ukraine United?

Hence the former West Ukrainian People’s Republic (1918-1919) was now largely joined to the former Ukrainian People’s Republic (1917-1921) — Ukrainian unity at last, but only because of Soviet conquest and under Soviet rule.

For all its stated ideals and ambitions, the actual accomplishments of the OUN-UPA were largely limited to massacring civilians by the thousands — with Jewish communities particularly but not exclusively targeted.²⁰

But why should we care about the past?

The Donstov-Bandera Legacy in Contemporary Ukraine

On 22 January 2010, Stephan Bandera was posthumously awarded the highest state honor, “Hero of Ukraine,” by the outgoing President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. This was later rescinded, but the efforts to rehabilitate Bandera continue. That under his leadership thousands of civilians were murdered seems a point in his favor — as these murdered people were not ethno-linguistic Ukrainians.

Likewise, as Professor Per Ander Rudling has documented, in “Ukrainian ultra-nationalist mythology,” the SS-Galicia is “depicted as freedom fighters who fought for an independent Ukraine.” But what the same historical revisionists “omit or deny” about the SS-Galicia” are “its ideological foundations, its allegiance to Adolf Hitler, and the involvement of units associated with the division in atrocities against civilians.”²¹

Finally, although the Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA) did turn against Germany when it was clear that Germany was losing in Eastern Europe, the UPA was considerably less interested in helping the Red Army drive the German forces out of Ukraine, and considerably more interested continuing their ethnic cleansing campaign under the cover of the greater war. Unfortunately, this opportunistic sense also endures — as we know from the 2014 massacres in Odessa²² and the Donbas.²³ Both of which likely remain unknown to vast majority of Americans supporting the NATO-proxy war.

Us and Them in Contemporary Ukrainian Political Life

Unlike the ideology professed by National Socialist German Workers' Party, the Galician ideal as transformed by Donstov, Bandera, et alia, was neither discredited nor discarded at the end of WWII: it remains powerfully influential. Knowing the history helps us understand the extraordinary speech on 15 November 2014 by Petro Poroshenko, then President of Ukraine, concerning Ukrainian citizens of the Donbas (part of the “Right-Bank” or historically Malorossiyan area of Ukraine):

Because we will have our jobs — they will not.
We will have our pensions — they will not.
We will have care for children, for people and retirees —they will not.
Our children will go to schools and kindergartens —
Theirs will hole up in the basements.
Because they are not able to do a thing.
This is exactly how we will win this war!

This is a President who understood himself at war inside a nation clearly divided into “we” and “they” — we, the holders of the Galician ideal, and they, the holders of the Malorossiyan ideal. Our children will get an education; their children must hole up in basements as we call in the airstrikes.  

Given that in 2014 the Ukrainian government had dropped cluster munitions into urban civil areas in the Donbas, and likewise allowed right-wing militias to engage in politically motivated acts of vigilantism and terrorism,²⁴ it is fair to say that Ukraine was in a state of civil war. The conflict had been simmering on and off since the collapse of the Soviet Union — since Ukrainian independence in 1991. It escalated after the Maidan coup in 2014.

The Path Forward — from a Galician Ideal Perspective

On 15 October 2019, the Ukrainian politician Oleh Tyahnybok explained the path forward (from the Galician perspective):²⁵

After they [Donbas and Crimea] return to the bosom of Ukraine, they will have to undergo full de-separatization and re-passportization. Every person who wants to be in the Ukrainian state, and have the right to anything, will have to prove his loyalty to Ukraine … Only when it is really Ukraine, and not citizens who hate Ukraine, can you hold elections there … [Meanwhile] block the water, block electricity, no trade, don’t supply them anything. Let them howl to their own government, that is destroying them. We should not feed them! Don’t give them any pensions!

Starve and sanction your fellow citizens until they convert to your ideal of nationalism, of Ukrainian identity. Deny their right to vote unless and until they vote appropriately. Prosecute and persecute, purge and purify. This is what Victoria Nuland and Hillary Rodman Clinton supported as “Democracy Building” in Ukraine. What American taxpayer dollars also supported — and still do.

Crimea: Never Historically Ukrainian

Tyahnybok’s rant (2019) above explicitly mentions Crimea. Crimea, against the wishes of its people, was transferred to Ukrainian SSR in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev. Despite strong objections from within the Kremlin itself, Khrushchev had a number of political and practical reasons for doing so — as one contemporary source (1954) discussed in detail.²⁶ But Khrushchev never anticipated a Ukraine fully independent of Russia: “the transfer had the intended effect of binding Ukraine inexorably to Russia, ‘Eternally Together’, as a poster commemorating the event proclaimed.”²⁷

So if we follow the American logic that the whims and wishes of Nikita Khrushchev must be respected when it comes to the sovereign territory of Ukraine, then Crimea is part of Ukraine provided Ukraine is eternally joined to Russia. For this, we go to war?

Alternatively, we could simply respect the wishes of the Crimean people: as Petro has documented, “polls conducted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Crimea between 2009 and 2011 also show a majority of Crimeans favoring reunification with Russia.”²⁸ Crimea had wanted to rejoin the Russian Federation — the 2014 annexation was not a hostile takeover but a welcome homecoming.

The greater controversy here is not Crimea, but the people living in the Donbas and other Russophile areas of Right-Bank Ukraine. These are the Ukrainian citizens which Ukrainian politicians such as Petro Poroshenko and Oleh Tyahnybok have declared economic, cultural, and — at times — military war against.

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Zelensky and Ukrainian Nationalism

This brings us to the election of 2019 which brought Volodymyr Zelensky to power as the President of Ukraine. We see the same general pattern as in the previous elections. In the map below, the darker the green the stronger the support of Zelensky. People unfamiliar with Zelensky’s campaign, however, might find the results surprising — Zelensky dominated Eastern Ukraine, particularly the Donbas.

This is because Zelensky ran on a platform of peace and neutrality. He was elected because he won the support of Russophile eastern (Malorossiyan) regions of Ukraine. He fared most poorly in Russophobe western (Galician) regions of Ukraine. Not coincidently, Zelensky’s first language is Russian — not Ukrainian.

Zelensky is Jewish: such matters because it seemed to many that Zelensky might remain non-partisan in matters of the Christian faith, had no axe to grind, and so would not support the Ultranationalist (Galician ideal) demands to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. (Which Zelensky subsequently did).

Moreover, Zelensky had received credible death threats by Galician ideal nationalists. Something to which people in the Donbas could relate. So here was a charming compromise candidate whom many people in Russophile eastern Ukraine believed they could trust. Yet in very short order, at the urging of the USA, Zelensky betrayed the people who voted for him and broke pretty much every promise he had made —every plank of his campaign platform.

History Zelenskified — Revisionism Through Destruction

As an update and side note, under Zelensky’s directive, as reported by Geopolitics Live on 17 May 2024 Ukraine recently demolished a centuries-old Ukrainian Orthodox chapel in Kyiv, the Desyatynny Monastery's Vladimir-Olginsky Chapel, which was built between 989-996 AD. This was the first stone Orthodox church in the Kievan Rus' — it was part of not just Slavic but Eurasian history.

So for over 1000 years the Vladimir-Olginsky Chapel stood, from 996 to 2024, but a combination of woke-ism and Galician nationalism did what and time itself could not. One wonders why the building simply could not have been repurposed given its historical importance – not even the Soviets were so destructive. But if like myself you are an American citizen, consider this an example of your tax-payer dollars at work. Below, a photo of the Vladimir-Olginsky Chapel shortly prior to its demolition.

Image courtesy Geopolitics Live, 17 May 2024.

Acts of violence against buildings are one concern; against people, quite another. American Exile covered in an earlier post how Ukraine is facing Demographic Destruction due to persistent policy failure, military conscription, and more.²⁹

A 21st Century Winston Churchill — Really?

But to the West, Zelensky is a new Winston Churchill and fighting for democracy even as he has suspended elections, declared martial law, consolidated and took control of the media, imprisoned non-conforming journalists, supported the persecution of Ukrainian Orthodox Church members, refused an absurdly reasonable peace treaty, sold off (at least conditionally) national assets to Blackrock, and committed various other blatantly authoritarian acts.

Perhaps our elites were thinking of Churchill and India?

Otherwise, prior to his election as President of Ukraine as a peace and neutrality candidate, Zelensky was a professional entertainer whose most celebrated achievement was playing the piano with his penis. So the point of comparison is what: Churchill had his cigars, and Zelensky has his piano-playing penis? Your author can make no sense as to why Western elites and the MSM worship Zelensky for betraying the people who voted for him. One trusts that Zelensky got his thirty pieces of silver.

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The Case for Letting Ukraine Formally Divide

We have two obvious late 20^th century precedents: Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

When Czechoslovakia, a former member state of the Soviet Union, peacefully divided into two new republics, the Czech and Slovak Republics respectively, neither Europe nor the world came to an end. Nor did the USA insist on the territorial sovereignty of Czechoslovakia, forcing the people of Slovakia to accept the demands of Prague.

When the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia fell into series of civil wars, from 1991 to 2001, the horrific violence finally ended with the creation of six new republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and North Macedonia.³⁰ This brought a considerable measure of peace to Europe, and the world likewise did not end. Moreover, once again, the USA neither insisted on territorial sovereignty of Yugoslavia, nor forced the new republics to reunite under the authority of their preferred Yugoslavian leader.

This brings us to a meta-philosophical bedrock issue: from whence sovereignty?

Sovereignty from the Consent of the Governed

Does sovereignty come from the people — or by the whims of American foreign policy and a small number of Western elites?

In both cases, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the will of the peoples involved — “peoples” as a plural since we had historically distinct groups — was finally respected by international community. Indeed, in the Anglo-American tradition from John Locke to the Founding Fathers to John Stuart Mill and beyond, sovereignty ultimately derives from the people. There is no legitimate government without their consent.

Since your author is an American, to quote from the Declaration of Independence (emphasis mine):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” To quote from the Preamble to the Constitution (emphasis mine):

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The people in Eastern Ukraine have suffered greatly from Kyiv regimes. If we are concerned about the will and the welfare of the Eastern Ukrainians, we must acknowledge their right to separate from a deeply dysfunctional Ukrainian State which has been propped up by the West for the sole purpose of antagonizing and weakening the Russia Federation.

The Easy Call: Crimea

So what do the people of Crimea want?

The demand that Russia return Crimea to Ukraine is a non-starter. First, it is against the will of the people — people whose families have lived in Crimea for generations, and in some cases, centuries. Second, because of its Black Sea ports, Crimea holds far too much strategic value for Russia — more so now given the increased NATO encirclement of Russia, and the stated ambition to make the Baltic Sea a NATO lake.

Any credible negotiation of a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia must acknowledge that Crimea is off the table. The people — who identify as Russian — do NOT wish to be part of Ukraine, and Russia likewise will not yield the territory.

The real dispute concerns what the West recognizes as the Ukrainian oblasts of Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — the four oblasts that form the Eastern border of Ukraine stretching down to the Crimean Peninsula.  Lugansk and Donetsk together compromise what typically is referred to as the Donbas — where the Ukrainian civil war had been most active.

The Donbas and South

In 2014, separatist movements in both resulted in the Lugansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic — neither of which were internationally recognized and both of which claimed autonomy from Ukraine. After each republic held a referendum on joining the Russia Federation, which allegedly determined that doing so was the will of the people (the vast majority), Russia subsequently recognized both republics and annexed them into the Federation. Perhaps needless to add, neither the referendums nor the subsequent annexations have been internationally recognized as legitimate. Yet.

More recently, and seemingly a result from the failed peace treaty efforts of April 2022, Russia has claimed the oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson (as shown in the map above). Whether this is for bargaining power or is the price the West must pay for attempting to weaken and even destroy Russia by continuing the proxy war in Ukraine, only the Russian leadership can truly say.

Next, Mykolaic and Odessa?

More than a few Western commentators have speculated that Russia will further annex the oblasts of Mykolaic and Odessa (both west of the Dnieper River), cutting off Ukraine entirely from the Black Sea.

Otherwise, failing the neutrality of a post-war Ukraine rump state, the Russian Navy in Sevastopol might be facing off against a NATO Navy in Odessa — the port-city founded by Catherine the Great (although the area nearby has been occupied since antiquity). Moreover, Odessa was where Sergei Eisenstein filmed the Battleship Potemkin (1925) — the great epic of Soviet and indeed modernist era cinema. For both strategic and cultural reasons, no doubt Russia would prefer that Odessa not fall into NATO hands.

But all such for now remains speculation: Russia has made no claims yet on the oblasts of Mykolaic and Odessa, nor on the port-city Odessa.

Lugansk and Donetsk

The international community has not accepted the validity of the referendums held in Lugansk and Donetsk, and hence does not recognize the Republic of Lugansk and the Republic of Donetsk as either autonomous entities or as republics within the Russian Federation.

Yet there are highly plausible grounds for believing that a majority of residents in the Donbas do wish to separate from Ukraine. So this seems a straight-forward matter. Repeat the referendums but this time with international observers to ensure that the voting is free and fair.

The flaw with this obvious solution?  The USA and the UK will insist that such rewards Putin and hence Russia military aggression. The NATO military aggression which helped destroy Yugoslavia and then let be divided it along lines acceptable to the West — well, that somehow is different. But again, our primary concern here should be what the peoples of Lugansk and Donetsk want for themselves. Not what American and British politicians think they should have.

Zaporizhzhia and Kherson

In realist terms, with disregard for human rights, the fate of these two oblasts may largely depend on whether or not Ukraine will renounce its ambitions to join NATO.

If Kherson falls into NATO hands, Crimea can never be safe. If Zaporizhzhia and Kherson fall into NATO hands, both the Donbass and Crimea are threatened. All the talk of Russia’s historical involvement with these two oblasts notwithstanding, Russia clearly wants control of both for strategic reasons — they provide a necessary buffer zone now since Ukraine has at the urging of the USA renounced neutrality and seeks to join NATO.

But what Russia wants might not be what the people of Kherson in particular want. Although their voting patterns indicate the oblast leans more towards the Malorossiyan than the Galician ideal, Kherson is among the least polarized oblasts in Eastern Ukraine. In fact, they are more centrist than Odessa, their neighbor to the West and South. So it is not all at clear that the residents of Kherson wish to join Russia as a republic; and the same largely holds for Zaporizhzhia.

Do the people of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia wish to remain in Ukraine? Wish to form autonomous republics? Or, wish to ally with Russia as largely autonomous republics, but still part of Russian Federation? Only free and fair referendums can decide this issue. But these referendums cannot be held while the war is ongoing as too many residents have been displaced, and those in territory now controlled by Russia could understandably feel coerced. We do not need a peace treaty per se, but must have an agreed-upon and prolonged cease-fire so that these free and fair referendums could take place.

Under the current terms set by Zelensky and endorsed by the USA and the UK, no such cease-fire is possible. More bluntly, Zelensky’s pre-conditions for any peace treaty are best described as delusional. Unless the true goal is to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian who can be conscripted with no regard whatsoever for the people of Ukraine.

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Realistic Considerations for a Peace Treaty

This war could end in short order if Ukraine would commit to military neutrality and renounce its ambition to join NATO. Russia has expressed no issues with Ukraine joining the EU — that is a matter between the EU and Ukraine. NATO is the problem.

But although the war could end in short order, or drag on for years longer, it will not end with the restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 boundaries — unless those boundaries are mere lines on a map demarcating a nuclear wasteland.

Crimea and the Donbas: Gone

The Republic of Crimea, formerly the oblast of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, is part of the Russian Federation. This reflects the will of the vast majority of the Crimean residents, and moreover for strategic reasons Russia will not return the Crimean Peninsula.

The Donbas is likely lost as well. The Ukrainian civil war was largely waged within the Donbas, and was waged against the vast majority of residents. These residents are Russian-speaking, and/or have some Russian ancestry, and/or have kinship affiliations inside the Russian Federation. Further still, many of them are dual passport holders: Ukraine and Russia. Nationalists in the Western Ukraine often see this as questionable loyalty; nationalists in Eastern Ukraine see it as normative, just part of Ukraine’s greater Slavic heritage.

Yet again, this conflict between West and East Ukraine has deep roots, existing well before Ukraine as a state appeared on the map of Europe. But starting in the early 20^th century, the West-Bank or Galician ideal of nationalism had become irredeemably Russophobic: as the situation stands in the early 21^st century, the West-Bank or Galician ideal cannot co-exist with the East-Bank or Malorossiyan ideal of nationalism, nor can it co-exist with the longstanding realities on the ground in Eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian ultra-nationalists — the West-Bank Galician idealists — will now always try to purge and purify Ukrainian citizens with any affiliations to Russia. Since over 40% of Ukrainian citizens have ties to Russia by language, kinship, or even commerce and trade, this is a recipe for endless on-again, off-again civil war: which in fact has been the history of post-Soviet Ukraine. Hence the Donbas will almost certainly not be returned to Ukraine — nor should it.

Zaporizhzhia and Kherson: Bargaining Chips or Security Buffer?

Zaporizhzhia and Kherson might be on the negotiating table for a peace treaty — to be returned to a neutral Ukraine. But every day that goes by, this possibility becomes less likely as Putin has discussed the need for a buffer zone in light of increased long-range drone strikes and missile attacks. Moreover, Russian troops are dying while Russia fights to maintain control of both oblasts — this results in an emotional and political investment.

Western Ukraine, a Rump State in Progress

Putin has repeated stated that Russia has no desire to conquer Western Ukraine, and particularly the oblasts historically associated with Galicia. This makes perfect sense since Russia does not want to share a large border with Poland and Hungary, two NATO nations. Nor would the current Western Ukrainians make for good citizens within the Russian Federation.

Southern Ukraine and the Global South

The possibility does remain that Russia will further annex the oblasts of Mykolaic and Odessa, cutting off the rump Ukrainian state entirely from the Black Sea. But this is high risk. Russia’s partners in the Global South want this war to end. Many nations now understand that Russia was provoked — and that Russia undertook the invasion as pre-emptive defense, even if illegal under international law and perhaps also an ill-conceived decision. Subsequent remarks by high-ranking American and European officials have confirmed Russia’s seeming paranoia: there does exist an ongoing campaign spanning decades to weaken and even destroy Russia.³¹

The Global South wants Russia to survive. But this support can corrode quickly if Russia appears as the great conqueror of a weaker nation, and not as the victim of a NATO-proxy war and endless Western economic sanctions.

Likewise, the more territory Russia conquers, the more difficult a peace treaty becomes. Yes, Russia might gain some bargaining leverage — but at a blood price which could make the homeland Russian citizens highly discontent. Did our troops die so you could give this land back to the enemy?

The West also is likely to become more intransigent: having failed at the proxy war, they need to win at the treaty table. All the meanwhile, Ukraine undergoes further destruction, and more Slavic peoples die to the amusement of Western Europe and the USA — a matter to which two NATO allies, Hungary and the Slovak Republic, have already registered their considerable disgust and discontent.

Accepting Reality, Moving Forward

Russia, by repeated statements from their leadership, is open to a peace settlement which accounts for their security concerns, and which respects the rights of Russian-speaking or Russian-ethnic people in Ukraine. But Crimea is not on the table; and your author believes that one way or another, the oblasts of Lugansk and Donetsk are likewise gone. The Republic of Lugansk and the Republic of Donetsk will exist as either autonomous entities or as republics within the Russian Federation.

It would be insanity for the West to insist that Crimea be returned to Ukraine, and it would be a large-scale humanitarian crime of the highest order to force the citizens of Lugansk and Donetsk back under Ukrainian rule. It would be beyond insanity for the West to fight a war over this: Ukraine with the 1991 borders, more truthfully Ukrainian SSR, was a Frankenstein-state from the start, created and held together with violence by the Soviet Union.

Indeed, Soviet domination was the only unity which Ukraine as a state ever knew. Efforts at Western domination under the false flag of Ukrainian unification have already produced a body count which matches the worst horrors of Soviet rule, and an economic devastation exceeding that of Stalin’s misadventures in Marxism.

The dissolution — the subdivision — of Ukraine should have been predictable as break-up of Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. So let it happen — but now, peacefully as possible. Rather than sleepwalking into WWIII with the survivors waking up to a nuclear holocaust, we should allow history to run its necessary course — even if that course does not run in the direction preferred by a small number of Western elites.

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1. Benjamin Abelow, How the West Brought War to Ukraine (2022).

2. Nicolai Petro, The Tragedy of Ukraine (2023).

3. ibid, p.99.

4. “Oblasts of Ukraine (27 Administrative Regions),” Mappr (2024).

5. Petro, The Tragedy of Ukraine (2023), p.98.

6. ibid, p.293.

7. ibid, p.99.

8. As discussed in Nicolas Werth, “The Great Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33,” Sciences Po (18 April 2008).

9. Stepan Bandera — Wikipedia (2024).

10. Please see John A. Armstrong, “Collaborationism in World War II: The Integral Nationalist Variant in Eastern Europe.” The Journal of Modern History (1968), v. 40 (3): 396–410. Trevor Erlacher, “The birth of Ukrainian active nationalism: Dmytro Dontsov and heterodox marxism before World war I, 1883–1914.” Modern Intellectual History (2014), v. 11(3): 519–54. Myroslav Shkandrij, “National democracy, the OUN, and Dontsovism: Three ideological currents in Ukrainian Nationalism of the 1930s—40s and their shared myth-system.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2015), v. 48(2–3): 209–21.

11. Petro, The Tragedy of Ukraine (2023), p.90

12. Petro, The Tragedy of Ukraine (2023), p.89. Via Google Translate: V. V. Polishchuk, “The Concept of Integral Ukrainian Nationalism.” Малорусская Народная Историческая Библиотечка (15 October 1997).

13. ibid: Petro, pp.88-90; Polishchuk, “Integral Ukrainian Nationalism.”

14. Petro, The Tragedy of Ukraine (2023), p.86: “In 1926 Dmytro Dontsov wrote his most influential work, Nationalism, specifically to identify Russians, Jews, Poles as foreign elements, and to demolish the notion that Ukraine should be tolerant of diversity.”

15. Trevor Erlacher (2014) understands Donstov more as trafficking in heterodox Marxism. But Donstov openly alludes to Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, and offers a political theory based on analogies with then popular understandings of evolutionary biology. Marx did praise Darwin, but the struggle which Donstov discusses seems to have more in common with the Social Darwinists than the Marxists, as it is based upon ethnic and racial categories rather than economic class, and likewise emphasizes competition for territory.

16. Two articles at Wikipedia offer a good starting point and have adequate scholarly citations: Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia — Wikipedia (2024) and The Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia — Wikipedia (2024).

17. Pers Ander Rudling, “‘They Defended Ukraine’: The 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr. 1) Revisited.” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, v. 25 (2012): 329–368. Download available from Per Anders Rudling —Academia.edu. Tadeusz Piotrowski, Genocide and Rescue in Wołyń: Recollections of the Ukrainian Nationalist Ethnic Cleansing Campaign Against the Poles During World War II (2000). Available at Google Books.

18. Timothy Snyder, “A Fascist Hero in Democratic Kiev,” The New York Review of Books (14 February 2010). Paywall-free version: Derechos.org.

19. Alexander V. Prusin, “Revolution and Ethnic Cleansing in Western Ukraine: the OUN-UPA Assault against Polish Settlements in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, 1943-1944.” Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (2003): 515-536.

20. Piotrowski, Genocide and Rescue in Wołyń (2000). Available at Google Books. See also the Jews and Poles Database maintained by Jan Peczkis.

21. Rudling, “The 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division.” PDF available from Per Anders Rudling —Academia.edu.

22. John Wojick, “Ukrainian rightists burn alive 39 at Odessa union building,” People’s World (5 May 2014).

23. "Ukraine: Abuses and war crimes by the Aidar Volunteer Battalion in the north Luhansk region," Amnesty International (8 September 2014).

24. Damien Sharkov, “Ukrainian Nationalist Volunteers Committing 'ISIS-Style' War Crimes.” Newsweek (10 September 2014; updated 28 February 2016).

25. Translation from Petro, The Tragedy of Ukraine (2023), p.147. Original source: "Тягнибок: людей на Донбассе нужно заставить «выть» [Tyahnybok: People in Donbass Must Be Made to Howl]," Dnr24.su (15 October 2019).

26. “The Transfer of the Crimea to the Ukraine,” Bulletin of the Institute for the Study of the History and Culture of the USSR, v.1:1 (April 1954): 30-33. Archived by the International Committee for Crimea.

27. Transfer of Crimea in the Soviet Union — Wikipedia (2024).

28. Petro, The Tragedy of Ukraine (2023), p.214. Moreover, as Petro additionally clarifies: “Crimea is the only region of Ukraine whose population identifies itself as primarily ethnically Russian.” p. 210.

29. American Exile, “The Soros Solution, the Rand Corporation, and the Demographic Destruction of Ukraine (Part I of II),” 14 April 2024.

30. For a thorough discussion of the Yugoslav wars (1991-2001), please consult the outstanding collection of essays, Burn this House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia (1997; updated 2000), by Jasminka Udovički, et alia.

31. American Exile reviews a partial history of this campaign in “The Soros Solution, the Rand Corporation, and the Demographic Destruction of Ukraine (Part II of II),” 15 April 2024.