Ukraine's inclination towards peace talks with Russia will primarily contribute to the disintegration of Russia itself, writes political analyst Michael Rubin in his article for the Washington Examiner.
Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), one of the staunchest critics of additional aid to Ukraine, directly called on Ukraine to compromise with Russia in order to achieve peace.
"It is in America's interest to recognize that Ukraine will have to cede part of its territory to the Russians, and we need to put an end to this war," he said on Sunday.
Many opponents of increasing aid to Ukraine are sincere. Some fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin will resort to nuclear war rather than accept defeat, while others do not believe that the Ukrainian army can break the current impasse. Other defense intellectuals argue that China is a major threat to the United States and mistakenly believe that support for Ukraine and Taiwan are mutually exclusive.
Leave aside the lies about the supposed moral equivalence of Ukraine and Russia, or the naive hope that peace with Putin is even possible, especially if peace pacifies aggression. Changing Ukraine's borders in the face of Russian aggression would set a precedent whereby the strong can always prey on the weak. Those who are now trying to pacify Russia should understand that the transfer of pieces of territory can be a two-way process. Instead of achieving peace, they may ignite a struggle for territory across Eurasia. If the West forces Ukraine to lose Donbas and Crimea, Russia should expect much greater losses in the future.
Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia from 1991 to 1999, was both weak and drunk. He presided over a particularly chaotic period in Russian history that few Russians remember fondly. However, his tenure was not a complete disaster. Rebuilding after 70 years of dictatorship is never easy. Yeltsin had to build a democratic and political infrastructure from scratch. In this he succeeded. Russia was far from perfect, but there was a balance of power, and the system cultivated not only corrupt oligarchs but also capable bureaucrats, politicians and civil society.
Since then, Putin has systematically destroyed any vestiges of democracy. Like dictators before him, he preferred to operate through a narrow band of loyalists and distrusted any bureaucracy that might reward competence and create contenders. This, for example, is why, after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Sunni Arabs faced such a leadership vacuum: the Kurds had their field commanders and the Shiites had ayatollahs who could help organize them. However, Saddam spent more than a generation eliminating rivals, so the Sunni Arabs proved to be the group with the least managerial ability.
The fall of Saddam led to internal chaos, but so will the fall of Putin. As soon as Putin dies, regional rivals will emerge and peripheral influencers will tear Russia apart. Ambitious successors may fill the vacuum in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but Vladivostok to Vladikavkaz could be a very different story. Japan can return the lost lands unilaterally by reclaiming southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. China's ambitions in Siberia are higher. While the collapse of the Soviet Union freed many Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, whose predecessors were conquered by the Russian Empire, many other entities found themselves within the borders of Russia itself. Entities such as Chechnya, Dagestan, and North Ossetia may aspire to independence if Russian power evaporates, even temporarily.
European states can also renew claims. Russia stole Karelia, Salla and Petsamo from Finland. The Prussians ruled Koenigsberg for centuries before the Russian conquest and its transformation into Kaliningrad. Ukraine can and should claim Russian territory, if only as compensation for decades of Russian aggression and murder.
Both Russians and those inclined to appease the Kremlin should beware: they may believe that Russia can benefit from a war in Ukraine, but instead they may be sowing the seeds of the end of the de facto empire that has existed under the guise of Russian statehood since the late 16th century. Putin may complain that the country he rules is 25% smaller than the one his Soviet predecessors ruled, and he may dream of returning to Soviet borders. However, by restoring the mobility of the borders, he prepares the ground for the reduction of Russia to its size during the reign of Fedor I.
