Yurii Shulipa: Why Kyiv should become a leader in the Decolonization of Russia
About the author – Yurii Shulipa
Director of the International Union
«Institute of National Politics»
ABSTRACT
This work is intended to show the prospects of Ukraine's geopolitical capabilities in the context of the decolonization of Russia*during the Fourth World Hybrid War between Moscow and the West. Based on the analysis of the military-political situation, the goals of the main actors in the Fourth World Hybrid War, the nature of this war, and the attitude of Western politicians towards it, the author comes to a convincing conclusion that the beginning of the process of decolonization of Russia will occur if Kiev assumes the role of the main actor in this process. The necessity of Kiev in taking an active role in the decolonization of Russia is substantiated. The main idea of the author is that in the prevailing military and political conditions, the process of decolonization can be launched only after the transfer of the center of gravity of the war from the territory of Ukraine to Moscow. Then Western European and American politicians will join the process of decolonization of Russia. We are talking about creating conditions for the successful decolonization of Russia and the historical non-repetition of Moscow imperialism.
АННОТАЦИЯ
Настоящая работа призвана показать перспективы геополитических возможностей Украины в контексте деколонизации России* в ходе Четвертой мировой гибридной войны Москвы против Запада. На основе анализа военно-политической обстановки, целей основных акторов в Четвертой мировой гибридной войне, природы этой войны, отношение к ней со стороны западных политических деятелей, автор приходит к убедительному выводу о том, что начало процесса деколонизации России произойдет, в том случае, если Киев возьмет на себя роль основного актора в этом процессе. Обосновывается необходимость Киева в принятии активной роли в деколонизации России. Основная идея автора заключается в том, что в сложившихся военно-политических условиях процесс деколонизации может быть запущен лишь после переноса центра тяжести войны с территории Украины в Москву. Затем к процессу деколонизации России присоединятся западные европейские и американские политики. Идет речь о создании условий для успешной деколонизации России и исторического неповторения московского империализма.
KEYWORDS
Fourth world hybrid war, strategic stability, international security, decolonization, Russian aggression, Ukraine.
КЛЮЧЕВЫЕ СЛОВА
Четвертая мировая гибридная война, стратегическая стабильность, международная безопасность, деколонизация, российская агрессия, Украина.
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* Since the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Slovakia, as well as the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly have variously recognized Russia as a terrorist state, as a state sponsor of terrorism, the Russian regime as a terrorist regime due to systematic violence against civilians, deliberate attacks on civilian objects and other examples of violence, and genocide of Ukrainians to achieve political goals to destroy Ukraine as a state and geopolitical reality, the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian nation.
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The aims of the war and the pro-Russianization of the West
The Fourth World Hybrid War waged against Ukraine and the West by Moscow creates not only many problems, but also opens new opportunities for Ukraine, in particular to restore its international subjectivity in the context of future decolonization of Russia.
The goals of the main actors of Moscow's Fourth World Hybrid War against the West are:
1) Moscow – destruction of Ukraine as a state and geopolitical reality, total extermination of the Ukrainian people, Ukrainians – bearers of Ukrainian identity;
2) Ukraine – victory over Moscow (10 conditions of the peace formula for Ukraine V. Zelensky presented at the G20 summit in November 2022), (Victory Plan of the President of Ukraine V. Zelensky dated 16.10.2024);
3) USA - to support Ukraine as long as it is needed - Ukraine's non-defeat (J. Biden, J. Sullivan, W. Burns);
4) The countries of the broad Western coalition – mainly to follow the U.S. military policy and partially go beyond it, e.g. European Parliament Resolution of 18.09.2024«Ukraine must be able to strike legitimate military targets in Russia»;
5) China, Iranian and North Korean regimes – to assist Moscow in defeating the West diplomatically, as well as by providing military assistance up to and including participation in military actions against Ukraine on Moscow's side.
Stages of achieving Moscow's main goal:
a) nuclear blackmail of the U.S., its NATO allies, and the countries of Western civilization;
b) establishment of the Kremlin's military-political control over at least the entire post-soviet space, and then over Central Europe;
c) discrediting and destroying NATO as an organization helpless and unable to protect its members;
d) foreign policy isolation of the U.S. from Europe;
e) upon completion of the main stage of the war - consolidation and «legitimization» of its results by the new «Yalta deal» on the division of the world;
f) ensuring Russia's international influence over the USA and Europe, its impact on world processes and international politics (Shulipa Y. Y. How Putin kills abroad: monograph / Information edition of «National Politics». – Kiev-Berlin; Edition 1st. - K.: Stylos, 2021. - 492 p. (p.p. 47 - 48).
The key factor for Ukraine is that in the course of waging a defensive war against Moscow's aggression, Ukraine itself is simultaneously overcoming its semi-colonial dependence on Moscow, in which it has been for the past 33 years after the formal dissolution of the former USSR.
In fact, for Ukraine, the Fourth World Hybrid War is a national liberation war against Moscow's semi-colonial dictate. Just as the events at Euromaidan in 2013-2014 was for Ukraine an act of national liberation struggle against oppression by Moscow imperialism, and in the second place – the Revolution of Dignity.
The Fourth World Hybrid War, like all other wars started by aggressor countries, has its limits and one of the positive limits is the strategic defeat of Moscow associated with the collapse of Russia and the beginning of decolonization of the peoples colonized by it.
In the current politico-military environment (PME) there is a mismatch between the goals of the actors and the desired results.
The main efforts of Moscow's domestic, foreign and military policy are aimed at the destruction of Ukraine, while the U.S. and the broad Western coalition as a whole, to a lesser extent from their potentials, direct their efforts to support Ukraine only to the abstract level of its non-defeat.
Officially, the U.S. leadership has not defined the limits of support for Ukraine and the scope of its non-defeat. Representatives of US President Biden's team are deliberately avoiding answering elementary questions about:
–What is the timeframe for the U.S. to assist Ukraine for as long as it takes?
– What are the amounts of military and military-technical assistance to be provided to Ukraine in the next three months?
– What is the denomination of arms will be provided to Ukraine by the U.S. that it needs?
– What are the limits of Ukraine's non-defeat: will the U.S. provide military and military-technical assistance to Ukraine to the extent that Ukraine holds the territories it already holds, or, for example, to the extent that it holds the Kiev region?
The White House policy of «not defeating Ukraine» has put Ukraine under constant attack by the aggressor and occupier because of the failure of the U.S. to provide Ukraine with sufficient offensive and defensive weapons to ensure Ukraine's victory over the aggressor and occupier.
The White House policy of «not defeating Ukraine» deprives Ukraine of the possibility of shifting the center of gravity of the war to the aggressor's territory, which makes it possible for Russian fascist invaders to seize free populated areas of Ukraine with impunity, kill civilians and destroy Ukrainian cities with artillery and missile bombs.
The aggressor has the ability to launch group and massive strikes with long-range missiles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)virtually to the entire depth of Ukraine's rear. In 2.5 years of full-scale aggression, Ukraine has still not received from the United States and its allies a sufficient number of missile defense and air defense systems to cover its cities and strategically important facilities.
In essence, this is an irresponsible policy of the White House, in the form of inaction realized in the criminal interests of the aggressor and occupier country. This is the realization of the classic pro-Russian policy by the administration of the current U.S. President Joe Biden.
Pro-Russianity should also be considered as a crime, because such a policy is in essence a serious crime, which manifests itself in the forms of actions, most often inaction and decisions.
In the post-colonial conditions in which Ukraine found itself on the day of the full-scale invasion, the classical pro-Russian policy of the West is disastrous for Ukraine.
These are the answers to the questions of why Ukraine has found itself in such a difficult PME.
From February 20, 2014 (the beginning of Moscow's Fourth World Hybrid War against the West) to the present day, the center of gravity of the war has been in Ukraine, allowing Moscow to continue waging with impunity an aggressive, genocidal terrorist war to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians.
Throughout 2022, Ukraine's leadership, as well as much of Ukrainian society, naively hoped that the West would provide Ukraine with the minimum amount of weapons necessary to liberate all of its captured territories as of 1991.
And this is without taking into account the tragic very recent experience of the actual US attitude towards Ukraine.
Three months before a full-scale invasion in November 2021, D. Biden sent CIA Director W. Burns to Moscow to negotiate «rules» for Moscow's full-scale war against Ukraine, which were adopted verbally and according to which: «The Biden administration has promised that the United States will not directly fight and seek regime change (in Moscow, author's note). Russia will limit its attack to Ukraine and will act in accordance with unspoken but well-understood principles of covert operations» (By William M. Arkin. Exclusive: The CIA's Blind Spot about the Ukraine War. Newsweek: Jul 05, 2023).
Just two weeks before Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States evacuated its diplomatic missions from Kyiv. Other countries followed suit.
Along the lines of the 9th Department of the 5th Service of the FSB and the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the activity of the aggressor's agent apparatuses was significantly intensified. In the criminal interests of the aggressor, the defense line on the border with the temporarily occupied Crimea was demined, and on the borders with Belarus and Russia no proper defensive structures were created at all. Moscow's agents in Ukraine at all levels were preparing the country to surrender to the aggressor.
The US actually abandoned its international obligations to Ukraine, surrendering it to the aggressor in the criminal interests of the aggressor and occupier, which freely allowed Moscow to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Undoubtedly, the degree of guilt of representatives of the U.S. administration of J. Biden in unleashing and waging a full-scale war against Ukraine by Moscow in the forms of decisions and inaction will be established by lawyers in the future.
In fact, for nine months, U.S. military aid to Ukraine was delayed under the guise of a political struggle in Congress. And in the middle of May 2024, during the aggressor's active attack on Kharkiv, during a two-day visit to Kyiv, the US Secretary of State E. Blinken was asked a question: When will Ukraine receive arms? In response to this question, E. Blinken took his guitar and went to give a concert in a Kiev bar. In diplomatic language, this means that in reality, on behalf of US President Biden's team, A. Blinken said «So goodbye» to Ukraine.
Thus, by leaving Ukraine under the direct attacks of the aggressor with a minimum number of weapons, at least three times the United States has actually denied Ukraine its right to exist.
At the same time, the potential of Ukraine's military-industrial complex corresponds to the country as if it were not under a military threat to its existence.
Overcoming the pro-russianity of the West!
The foreign and military pro-Russian policy of the administration of U.S. President Biden has led to an illusion of strategic stability, international security and international law. Illusory in these spheres should be considered as a state in which official international treaties and other acts prescribe imperative norms designed to ensure compliance with strategic stability, international security, and the rule of international law, but in reality they are not implemented and are directly violated in various forms (decisions, inaction, actions), creating the perception of illusory.
We are talking about the fact that due to Moscow's conduct of the Fourth World Hybrid War against the West, at least along the Moscow-West line, strategic stability and international security have actually ceased to exist.
The actual collapse of international security is affected by the unwillingness of Western elites to call things by their names and take adequate measures to combat the existential aggressor.
The lack of leadership among the representatives of the political elites of the Western countries has had its effect. The very pro-Russian policy of the West as a whole shows that certain representatives of the political elites of the West are more afraid of the defeat of their existential enemy Russia than of the victory of their ally and outpost Ukraine.
Certain representatives of the expert and political community of the U.S. and the EU put forward absolutely false theses in favor of preserving Russia, which are refuted by the historical experience of the collapse of the former USSR. There is a feeling that the West is preparing for its own existential defeat from the axis of world evil in the Fourth World Hybrid War.
War is not only the worst evil and crime, but also an opportunity for positive transformation. With the virtual absence of leaders in the West, Kiev must take responsibility for the post-soviet space, override Moscow's influence, thereby pushing Moscow to the geopolitical margins.
Of course, Muscovy is historically a project of the Golden Horde. However, Ukraine also made certain efforts to create Moscovia. In particular, Kiev princes founded such cities as Veliky Novgorod, Smolensk, Yaroslavl and so on.
Therefore, historically, Kiev is the metropolis of Muscovy, and therefore has the right and should play a decisive role in the completion of the Moscow imperial project. This is the prospect that the Fourth World Hybrid War creates for Ukraine today and now.
In addition, Ukraine, along with Belarus and the collapsed former USSR, is a co-founder of the UN. Russia does not legally possess three UN titles: member of the UN; permanent member of the UN Security Council; signatory state of the UN Charter. All these titles in the UN Charter are assigned to the former USSR, not to the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation as a country is not mentioned in the UN Charter at all.
Since after the collapse of the USSR there were no nationally-oriented political elites in Ukraine, mostly they were anti-elites trading the sovereignty of their country in favor of Moscow, Ukraine did not use its geopolitical advantages instead of Moscow in the post-soviet space.
And if Kiev had declared in the fall of 1991 that it was now in charge instead of Moscow, such a declaration would have been supported by the international community without much trouble.
Moscow is trying to destroy Ukraine and the West in particular also because they are the bearers of the real history of the creation of Muscovy.
The Moscow fascist regime acts in the logic of a complete murderer, maniac and terrorist, trying to destroy the owners of his true biography in order to try to hide the truth about his criminal past.
In addition to the lack of a common strategic vision for the future of Russia and the post-Russian space, Kiev's need to take responsibility in the post-Soviet space is justified by the following factors:
1. The mere liberation of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders from the Russian fascist invaders and even the creation of a wide demilitarized zone 200 km deep into the rear of the territory controlled by the aggressor will not lead to Moscow's abandonment of its revanchist and revisionist designs to continue the war against Ukraine and the West.
2. On April 18, 2024, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution one of the key provisions of which is: «Decolonization is a necessary condition for the establishment of democracy in Russia».
3. On May 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for V. Putin and his accomplice Maria Lvova-Belova for committing especially grave war crimes – kidnapping (kindeping) of Ukrainian children from temporarily occupied territories in the Russian Federation.
At least without the strategic defeat of Moscow in the Fourth World Hybrid War and the liquidation of Russia as a state entity, it is physically impossible to achieve the above-mentioned necessary goals.
1) the country as a military organization;
2) mobilization economy;
3) a professional army;
4) a defense-industrial complex - sovereign and at the same time integrated into the defense-industrial complex system of NATO countries.
The response to the criminal pro-Russian policy of the Western elites should be at least a sharp increase in the production by the Ukrainian defense industry of all types of weapons necessary to ensure victory over the aggressor.
Due to the acute shortage of various types of weapons in the Armed forces Ukraine (AFU), will be unable to inflict any acceptable damage to the aggressor until at least the end of 2025.
The main military problem of Ukraine 2024 is small losses of manpower, weapons, military and special equipment of the Russian-fascist invaders. Or even in certain cases quite small losses.
Orcs – they are Russian-fascist invaders, they are the fuel of Moscow's war against the West and as long as they are alive, this aggressive terrorist genocidal war for the destruction of Ukraine and other countries will continue. And this should never be forgotten.
The acute shortage of weapons has led to the fact that the AFU is physically unable to eliminate more than 2,000 Russian fascist invaders per day. As the accumulation of the aggressor's forces creates a military threat of capturing new population centers and its advance in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya regions.
The need to shift the center of gravity of the war to Moscow
The review publication of prominent Ukrainian military commanders V. Zaluzhny and M. Zabrodsky, published on the website of Ukrinform on September 15, 2022, contains the most important military idea of shifting the center of gravity of the war to the territory of the enemy.
In this regard, the adoption in Moscow at the meeting of the Security Council of amendments to the nuclear doctrine «Fundamentals of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence»is justified by the relatively successful military operations conducted by the AFU and SBU on the territory of the aggressor.
The nuclear doctrine does not automatically oblige the country's leadership to use nuclear weapons (NW) in certain situations described in it, but gives an opportunity to consider such an option taking into account many factors in the international situation. In the current PME, China has a default veto over Moscow's use of NW.
If Moscow's fascist regime reacted so painfully to the successes of the AFU, it is a crucial indicator that Ukraine is moving in the right direction militarily. So, to achieve our common Great Victory over our common aggressor, this is exactly what we need to do!
In addition to continuing the destruction of oil assets, missile and artillery arsenals, ammunition depots, airfields, command posts and the aggressor's manpower, the AFU should in parallel increase its military efforts to shift the center of gravity of the war to Moscow and the Moscow region.
Moscow should become the main direction of strike for Kiev.
An important prerequisite for this is the Resolution of the European Parliament № RC-B10-0028/2024 «Ukraine must be able to strike legitimate military targets in Russia» of September 18, 2024, which refers to the lifting of bans on the use of weapons of European countries on the territory of the Russian Federation. The appearance of this document, and earlier the PACE Resolution on the need to decolonize the Russian Federation, indicates the beginning of the breakdown of pro-Russianism among Western elites.
First, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that Russia is a country of one city of Moscow, all key decisions on the fate of the Russian Federation are made only in Moscow.
Second, on the periphery and in Moscow's colonies, Moscow and Muscovites are secretly hated on economic grounds because Muscovites are in a much better economic position, privileged in comparison with other citizens of the Russian Federation, and because of the constant oppression of the local population in various forms by Moscow.
Third, effective group and massive missile strikes on Moscow's infrastructure will lead to the desacralization among the Russian deep-pocketed and Western elites of the Russian Federation as a «Great Holy Power» promoting its «ability to bring the entire civilized world to its knees».
The split among Moscow war propagandists will intensify. The theses about why we started this war, if in the third year the regime is unable to defend the country's capital, will be heard more often and more predominantly.
Effective missile strikes on Moscow will lead to paralysis of the aggressor's defense system, its critical infrastructure and life support facilities. All this will lead to the weakening of the Moscow regime and to the strengthening of centrifugal processes within the republics that are formally part of the Russian Federation. The «authorities» of these republics will be concerned primarily with their own survival, and therefore they will have to distance themselves from Moscow. This is one of the first steps towards decolonization.
The timing of the end of Moscow's war of aggression against Ukraine directly depends in the medium term on shifting the center of gravity of the war to the aggressor's capital.
In the future, after Moscow's strategic defeat in the Fourth World Hybrid War and the beginning of the process of decolonization of the Russian Federation, Kiev should take geopolitical leadership in the post-Russian and partly post-Soviet space. Modern geopolitics is physics in which there is no vacuum. Therefore, as an alternative to Russian fascism, a decolonization plan of action should replace it in post-soviet space.
The expression that history is written by the victors is still relevant in modern realities.
In the absence of leadership among representatives of Western elites, for the sake of ensuring the restoration of historical justice and the creation of appropriate conditions for the historical non-repetition of Moscow imperialism, Kiev should initiate through the UN Draft Resolution «Establishment of a temporary international transitional administration in the post-Russian space». Or, Kiev can act independently outside the UN platform, relying on interaction with the leaders of national liberation movements. Already now, such interactions are taking place on various platforms, but they are not of a systematic and professional nature.
The main purpose of decolonization is to give the indigenous peoples under the influence of the Moscow imperialist regime the exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination, which they have never been granted in the history of their existence. And the very possibility of realizing this inalienable right is higher and much more important than the existence of Russia, a colonial empire, for the creation of which, as well as for joining it, none of the indigenous peoples voted. For Muscovy itself exists and is held together by constant violence against other peoples.
The essence of the beginning of the process of decolonization of the Russian Federation is that its beginning is initiated a priori by Kiev by conducting successful military operations, desacralization of Muscovy as a strong and terrible nuclear evil empire, and then representatives of Western elites will be included in this process as second and third numbers.
The weakening of the Moscow imperialist fascist regime to the point of being unable to provide its own protection will be the basis for the beginning of the process of decolonization. And with it the triumph of international criminal justice over the Russian fascist invaders.
Moscow imperialism, and with it Moscow's war of aggression against Ukraine, will forever be consigned to history after the entry into force of the guilty verdict of the International Criminal Court (tribunal ad hoc) against V. Putin. Putin, representatives of his Chekist-fascist organized crime group and the main Russian-fascist invaders on the facts of planning, preparation, unleashing and waging Moscow's war of aggression against Ukraine. This is an axiom that does not require proof. Other is not given.
17.10.2024