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 most vocal 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 some territory to the Russians, and we need to end this war,” he said on Sunday.
Many opponents of increased 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 military is capable of breaking out of the current stalemate. 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 by which the strong can always prey on the weak. Those who are currently trying to pacify Russia should understand that handing over pieces of territory may be a two-way process. Instead of achieving peace, they may incite 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, Russia’s president from 1991 to 1999, was both weak and drunk. He presided over a particularly chaotic period in Russian history that few Russians remember fondly. Yet 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. And he succeeded. Russia was far from perfect, but there was a balance of power, and the system cultivated not just corrupt oligarchs but also capable bureaucrats, politicians, and civil society.
Since then, Putin has been systematically destroying any vestiges of democracy. Like dictators before him, he has preferred to operate through a narrow core of loyalists and distrusted any bureaucracy that might reward competence and create challengers. This is why, for example, the Sunni Arabs in Iraq faced a leadership vacuum after the fall of Saddam Hussein: the Kurds had their field commanders, and the Shiites had ayatollahs to help organize them. But Saddam had spent more than a generation eliminating rivals, leaving the Sunni Arabs as the group with the least ability to govern.
The fall of Saddam brought internal chaos, but the fall of Putin will do the same. Once Putin dies, regional rivals will emerge and peripheral powerbrokers will tear Russia apart. Ambitious successors may fill the vacuum in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but from Vladivostok to Vladikavkaz it could be a very different story. Japan could unilaterally reclaim lost territory, reclaiming southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. China’s ambitions in Siberia are higher. While the collapse of the Soviet Union liberated many of the Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus whose predecessors had been conquered by the Russian Empire, many others have found themselves within Russia’s own borders. Entities such as Chechnya, Dagestan, and North Ossetia could seek independence if Russia’s power evaporates, even temporarily.
European powers can also renew their claims. Russia stole Karelia, Salla, and Petsamo from Finland. The Prussians ruled Königsberg for centuries before the Russian conquest and transformation into Kaliningrad. Ukraine can and should lay claim to 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 the 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 that ruled by his Soviet predecessors, and he may dream of a return to Soviet borders. However, by restoring border mobility, he is preparing the ground for a reduction of Russia to the size it was under Fyodor I.
