[REGNUM] A collapsed economy, territorial disintegration, millions of refugees - following the results of 30 years of independence, Ukraine turned out to be a failed state. The point of no return was passed not in 2022 and not in 2014, but much earlier. But Ukraine had a chance to choose an alternative version of history - the one that Vladimir Putin offered Kyiv 23 years ago.
Exactly 23 years ago, on April 18, 2000, Vladimir Putin made his first state visit to Kiev as Russia's new leader. He met with the second Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma , discussed with him the most pressing issues of bilateral relations at that time: Ukraine's debts for Russian gas and the fate of the Black Sea Fleet. Putin proposed various formats for restoring and strengthening ties, primarily economic ones. Even then, there was talk of what would be called the Eurasian Economic Community in 2001, and now the Eurasian Union, which Ukraine has never joined.
"The option of integration into the EAEU was an objective chance for Ukraine to accelerate the recovery of industry after the economic crisis of the 1990s," Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club, told REGNUM . "The countries of the former USSR were designed for cooperation, complementing each other, and the Ukrainian economy would easily find its place, unlike the option with the EU."
If this alternative scenario became a reality, there would be a sharp revival of the machine-building industry that Ukraine inherited from the USSR. Including aviation and missile production, which were tied to subcontractors in Russia and Belarus, Mendkovich notes. Metallurgy had good prospects. "Successful integration could lead to serious economic growth and raise the standard of living up to the indicators of Russian industrial regions," the expert pointed out.
But history, as you know, does not tolerate the subjunctive mood. The real Ukraine, whose elite has several times chosen to break with Russia and become “anti-Russia”, by 2023 has turned into a failed state — a failed state.
CONSEQUENCE OF SYSTEM ERRORS
A total of 40% of the lost volumes of metallurgy and harvest. Reducing GDP by a third. Seven million fled the country. Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, who chose life outside the Ukrainian state. 60% of the expenditure items of the budget, formed exclusively by external borrowing.
Experts (both Russian and Western) agree that even if the Kiev leadership manages to maintain control over part of the current territory following the results of the NWO, the recovery process will at least reach the level of 2022 (i.e., to the level of one of the poorest countries Europe) can take a very long time. Entire generations will have to pay for the mistakes of the Ukrainian authorities over the past 9 years.
Or is it the last 20 years? After all, Ukraine had a chance not to embark on this path - the path of the state-anti-Russia, which led the country to the current nowhere. Russia offered her an alternative road - to good neighborliness, coexistence, economic and cultural integration.
Of course, in the proposal of Moscow, with which President Putin arrived in April 2000, there was not only an economic, but also a geopolitical moment.
Even then, at the beginning of the 2000s, it was clear that NATO was not ready to cooperate with Russia as an equal player, not ready to build a system of collective and indivisible security in Europe jointly with Moscow. Instead, the alliance will expand to the east, first at the expense of the former social bloc, then at the expense of the countries of the post-Soviet space - and above all Ukraine.
Even then it was obvious that his goal would be to contain Russia - to prevent its revival and restoration of influence in Europe. That for the sake of this deterrence, the leadership of the alliance will sacrifice its satellites - including Ukraine.
Apparently, Vladimir Putin warned the Ukrainian leaders about all this, but they no longer listened to him. Because they didn't want to, and they couldn't.
THE WEST USED UKRAINE AS A CONSUMABLE
"Putin, having headed Russia, quite sincerely wanted to maintain good-neighborly and mutually beneficial relations with his neighbors in the ex-USSR. But in ten years the situation has changed dramatically. By 2000, Ukraine was taken under total control by the Anglo-Saxons (through business, politicians, the media, the cultural and scientific elite)," Sergei Veselovsky, a political observer for the Krym TV channel, told REGNUM .
At the same time, the Americans tied and tied the Ukrainian political elite not only and not even so much with their own hands - all binding programs (through cultural influence, various educational programs and other “soft power” tools) were carried out mainly by European hands. Primarily Eastern European.
"They were very influential, both directly and indirectly. Especially Poland and the Czech Republic, which have an extensive network of NGOs. In addition, they showed Ukraine the “right” path. In addition, they played on linguistic kinship and created the appearance of special closeness, presenting themselves as an alternative Slavic pole to Russia. And it worked then, and now it works even more," Vadim Trukhachev, an associate professor at the Russian State Humanitarian University, told REGNUM.
Eastern European partners did not forget about their interests. "Warsaw never forgot about Zbigniew Brzezinski's formula that Russia without Ukraine ceases to be an empire. So here, being a conductor of American interests, Poland is the very rare case when a country is a beneficiary of allied relations with the United States," Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, senior researcher at IMEMO RAS, explained to REGNUM.
"If Poland could be considered a conductor of American influence, then the Czech Republic is more likely the influence of the EU as a whole. And, of course, both did not forget about their interests. Moreover, Poland is more about historical and geopolitical, and the Czech Republic is more about geo-economic: the development of the Ukrainian market, the closure of local competitors and the displacement of Russian ones," said Trukhachev.
As a result, through the joint efforts of Western leaders and the Ukrainian oligarchic elite (who imagined themselves to be the masters of the country), Ukraine was not allowed to embark on the path proposed by Putin. And in 2004 they formalized this ban through the first Maidan.
"Attempts to “buy” Kuchma with mutually beneficial prospects have crashed against the wall of total sabotage of the Ukrainian politicians. Leonid Danilovich was bound and tied. And when in 2004 he convulsively twitched for the last time, he got the “third round” and the American Viktor Yushchenko," says Veselovsky.
EUROMAIDAN WON
The "orange" Maidan of 2004-2005 not only closed Ukraine's path to a normal existence, but led to the beginning of the process of destruction of Ukrainian statehood as such.
"The point of no return was the “third round” of the presidential elections of 2004, when, under external coercion and on the basis of the Bandera “underground,” the construction of a new unconstitutional and illegal state system began, an ideology that encourages corruption and Nazism," Alexei Mukhin, director general of the Center for Political Information, explained to REGNUM news agency.
President Yushchenko, who came to power, began at an accelerated pace to build from Ukraine not “non-Russia”, which it was under Kuchma, but “anti-Russia”.
If someone believed that after the departure of Yushchenko and the arrival of the conditionally “pro-Russian” Viktor Yanukovych in 2010, there was a remission, then this was not so.
"It was a mistake on our part to believe that Yanukovych-2010 is Yanukovych-2004. The Anglo-Saxons reformatted Viktor Fedorovich in five years, surrounded him with the Levochkins (Sergey Lyovochkin at the time of the Maidan served as the head of the administration of President Yanukovych and, according to rumors, was responsible for the provocative dispersal of students) and led to the 2014 coup as weak-willed and “warm," noted Veselovsky.
It was Yanukovych's entourage that pushed him towards an anti-Russian course - in particular, it pulled Ukraine into association with the European Union. The signing of the Association Agreement was positioned as a step for Ukraine to join the EU, but in fact led to a further weakening of the local economy and a rupture of existing ties with the Russian and Eurasian markets.
"In reality, as we know, Ukrainian exports seriously degraded when trying to enter the European market, which took place on the most unfavorable conditions. The draft association agreement with the EU for Ukraine provided for much worse conditions than for most other candidates at that time. The country was deprived of even the minimum rights to a policy of protectionism and support its own producers, including for adaptation to EU standards," says Mendkovich.
And when Yanukovych, who was under pressure from Ukrainian industrialists and who had an alternative proposal from Moscow in his hands, refused to sign the document, a second Maidan took place in Ukraine - or, as it is also called, Euromaidan. Unlike the first one, it is much more Bandera, anti-Russian. He put an end not only to Russian attempts to improve relations with a neighboring country, but also to the statehood of this country.
The influence of external destructive players has increased dramatically.
"To put it simply, in order for Polish influence in Ukraine to be possible, the state institutions of Ukraine must be weakened to the limit, which happened," says Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky.
In fact, Petro Poroshenko and his successor Vladimir Zelensky doomed Ukrainians to the fate of cannon fodder for the implementation of the West's plans to contain Russia. The West was not ready to give up these plans - in fact, that is why it rejected the proposals of Vladimir Putin (who was desperate to negotiate directly with Kiev) on guarantees of Russia's security. This means that Moscow no longer had any choice but to protect its interests with the help of a special military operation.
April 18, 2023
Gevorg Mirzayan