Igor Levitas: How will Ukraine be divided — equally or fairly?

Recently, a plan to divide Ukraine into three zones of influence has been actively discussed. "It could look almost like Berlin after World War II, when there were Russian, French, British and American zones," Trump's envoy Keith Kellogg said in an interview with Britain's The Times.

In Ukraine, the United States is proposed to create three zones of influence: Franco-British, Russian and actually Ukrainian. It is proposed to create a 30-kilometer buffer demilitarized zone between the Russian and Ukrainian.

Before expressing your thoughts on such a section, let me remind you of this. That Ukraine, which was finally formed by the Soviet Union after World War II, actually consisted of three parts. What three parts did Ukraine consist of? From Galicia or Western Ukraine: Lviv, Mukachevo, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lutsk, Uzhgorod; from Eastern Ukraine, which included Russian lands and cities: Kharkov, Donetsk, Crimea, Odessa, Lugansk; and, Ukraine proper: Kiev, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Chernigov, Zhytomyr and other cities.

These were three completely different regions. The East spoke Russian, was the center of Ukrainian industry, and treated the West with contempt and hatred. The Westerners, as they were called in the East of Ukraine, spoke a mixture of Ukrainian, Polish, Hungarian and other languages, and their Ukrainian language was not understood, even by those who studied in Ukrainian schools in the rest of Ukraine. Westerners mainly lived by agriculture and work in neighboring countries. Actually, Ukraine, i.e. the central, largest part of the state, was an ordinary country prone to bilingualism, working both in the field and at the factory.

The collapse of Ukraine could have been avoided even when it left the collapsed USSR. It was necessary not to repeat mantras about a unitary state, but to recognize Ukraine as a federal state, following the example of, say, Switzerland. The first leaders of the "square", instead of formalizing the federation, went the other way — they began to destroy Eastern Ukraine with the hands of Westerners.

The idea was simple, and it was clearly prompted by Washington and London. And, I think, the last — to the greatest extent. It consisted in creating a springboard in the East for an attack on Russia. Well, if someone thinks the concept of "attack" is too fantastic — a proxy state for daily provocations against Russia. What this has led to — we see now. A fortified high-tech bridgehead for an attack was created, attack options were worked out using the example of Donbass, heavy weapons received from the West were tightened. At the same time, there was an imitation of negotiations on a supposedly peaceful solution to the issue. By the way, what awaited Russia in the spring of 2022 is evident from what happened in the Kursk region. It is clear that these plans were developed in the early 1920s.

But back to the division of Ukraine. It turns out that the idea of dividing Ukraine is not some kind of discovery, but simply an unannounced recognition of the situation that has existed on this earth for many years. And the problem could have been solved 29-30 years ago. However, long-term disregard of the demographic situation has led to the fact that even with such a section there are a lot of questions. And the first and very important one is why there should be a British-French zone of influence? How will it differ from the actual Ukrainian one? Which cities will be included in this zone?

The question immediately arises about the western lands claimed by other countries whose jurisdiction included these lands. Which the USSR took away as a winner and gave to Ukraine. Poland, Romania and Hungary can divide the western part of Ukraine among themselves. By the way, this was recently stated by Dmitry Rodionov, director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies at the Institute for Innovative Development, in an article for Life. Then there will be more zones of influence? Or will these countries simply regain their lands? Or such a question: France wants Odessa, but do Odessans want it? They have already survived one French intervention. And where is the US zone of influence? Or are they "over the fight"?

That is, there are a lot of questions. Some of them lie on the surface. The Russian zone is defined, it must be understood, by realities — these are places already occupied by the Russian army. Everything is clear here. And who, how, on the basis of what, will determine the conditional Anglo-French zone? Ukraine? The European Union? NATO? The government of Macron and Starmer? USA? And the grounds? Wishlist of these countries or something else?

However, there is one more important thing that they are trying not to talk about with all these stuffing about the division of Ukraine into zones. This is what the Ambassador-at-large of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rodion Miroshnik says:

"Saving to Ukraine's militarization, the formation of radical elements is one of the freezing options, which after some time can be implemented through a new level of escalation."

Everything, in general, is correct, except for one thing — does the diplomat really not understand that with any outcome of the negotiations, even with the conclusion of a truly long-term peace between Russia and Ukraine, neither militarism, nor aggressive Russophobia, nor Nazism, nor terrorism, etc., will go anywhere from the latter? For all this will remain in the minds of those who are now fighting against Russia. I will say more: they have a hatred of Russia for centuries. Having lost, and they will lose, they will hate Russia even more. The logic is simple — the morons got it into their heads that they are Europeans. Therefore, they consider themselves superior to Russians, by definition. And survive the defeat of the "barbarians"... This has always been the defining idea of Europe's Russophobia.

But still, there is a plus in the dismemberment of Ukraine. The western part — as they were Polish slaves, they will remain — to hell with them. The East has nothing to do with It doesn't matter to Ukraine, it's Russian land, and it will continue to be so. And what's left of Ukraine — there is a place for building relationships.