Today, 70 years after World War II ended, Ukrainians echo the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists/Ukrainian Insurgent Army rallying cry of “Slava Ukrayini – Heroyam Slava,” because the Ukrainian independence movement was unique in the world in that it refused (except for short-term tactical reasons) to compromise with one or the other beastly state in pursuit of its noble cause. Neither the Allies (who partnered with Russia and gave away Eastern Europe) nor the Russians (who went to bed with Germany) can make that claim. All they can do is dissemble.
We now hear voices calling on the Ukrainian government to throw several million fellow Ukrainians in the occupied areas under the bus. Fortunately, Ukraine has a president who is more of a statesman than a politician; and who has unequivocally rejected all such appeals. He has made it clear that Ukraine will not accept less than full restoration of its territorial integrity, and will not even entertain a referendum on this issue.
Most proponents of “freezing the conflict” and leaving the thugs free to terrorize, rape, and plunder behind the newly erected “wall”would also propose that these devastated areas be allowed to eventually fall off the uninfected part of Ukraine like chunks of leprotic flesh. They claim that these areas would simply drag down Ukraine’s economy, divert attention from the real business of building ahealthy and prosperous European state, and (once again) pull east to Russia while the rest of the country pulls west.
Although – without regime change in Russia – Ukraine may not have much choice as to a “frozen conflict”, Ukraine’s strategy, nevertheless, must be one of liberation, not severance. The ethnic population in both Donetsk and Luhansk is 55-60 percent Ukrainian, though as many as 75 percent of the residents claim Russian as their native language. The Russian minority in both oblasts is less than 40 percent and is concentrated in the cities which are always more conspicuous, activist and audible than rural areas.
Even more telling than sheer demographic imbalance favoring Ukrainians in the occupied territory are opinion surveys that have consistently shown no less than 70-75 percent favoring citizenship in a unitary (non-federal) Ukrainian state (though with greater local autonomy).
In 1991, 84 percent of the residents of Luhansk and Donetsk voted for Ukrainian independence – hardly a show of solidarity with Russia, even on the part of its Russian minority. As recently as the last six months, an opinion survey conducted by the Fell Fund of Oxford University in Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions (but outside the rebel-held areas) showed that fewer than 5 percent favor the breakup of the country. The majority of respondents preferred the unitary system while Russia’s “federal” option was the second least popular. As few as 6 and 4 percent of respondents believed that the rebel territories ought to be granted independence.
So where is this push for freezing the Russian-occupied territories out of Ukraine coming from?
There are approximately two million Ukrainian citizens held captive in an enclave controlled by foreign aggressors, gangsters, mercenaries, thugs, and clowns. Has anyone bothered to ask them how sweet the forbidden Russian fruit tastes after a year of terror and privation? And when they once again become full voting participants of a unitary Ukrainian state, how many of them will want to steer the country back to the USSR? They may even show the residents of Lviv a thing or two about patriotism and loyalty to the Ukrainian state.
And what is all this hand-wringing about the widespread destruction of the economy in the occupied territories? Many areas of the world – whole countries in fact – have been devastated by wars and disasters and have rebuilt their cities and industries to better standards than the creaky Soviet dinosaurs stilldotting much of the Donbas land. Ukraine is blessed with resourceful, educated and industrious professionals and workers and first-rate engineers and architects. Once Ukraine regains control of its borders, investors will come.
And why would anyone assume that the fighting will stop if Ukraine does no more than fortify its border with the occupied territory and abandon its two million citizens to Putin’s tender mercies? Why would this not encourage – rather than discourage – further aggression but from secure bases closer in to other attractive targets.
The only viable solution is a strategy of whole-hearted commitment to liberation, a commitment made meaningful through the infiltration of hundreds of Ukrainian special forces, sappers and snipers that would make the occupied territory ungovernable and a graveyard for Russians and their puppets. This, combined with an intensive, high-tech challenge for control of the area’s information space is the only honorable, relatively low cost and ultimately successful strategy.
