Would Russia Retake All of Ukraine?
Why would Russia take such an enormous burden off the political West’s back? It was NATO that started all this and pushed us all to the brink of a world-ending thermonuclear confrontation just so it could inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow. Well, now that the tables have turned, there are zero reasons for the Kremlin to pay for damages of the political West’s aggression.
Ever since the special military operation (SMO) started, trying to guess how far Russia would go seems to be everyone’s favorite pastime. Some people think it should secure only areas that are predominantly Russian-speaking, which includes the four oblasts (regions) already under Russian control, namely DNR, LNR, Zaporozhye and Kherson, as well as Kharkov, Nikolayev and Dnepropetrovsk. Along with Crimea, these areas constitute over 40% of former Ukraine’s territory. However, it should be understood that the rest is not as homogeneous as one would think. Namely, Russian is also widely spoken in Chernigov, Sumy, Poltava, Cherkassy, Kiev, Kirovograd and Zhitomir oblasts, as well as in most urban areas throughout the country.
However, due to the disastrous policy of korenizatsiya (Russian: коренизация, roughly translated as “nativization”) during Soviet times, the clear-cut Russian identity of the vast majority of people in the country (with the obvious exception of western regions) was gradually replaced by a loose Ukrainian one. Thus, what we got is a somewhat convoluted definition of so-called “Russian-speaking people”. In reality, these are ethnic Russians who have partially lost their identity or even identify as “Ukrainians”. Their reintegration into the wider ethnic Russian identity would be a gradual process that could take years (if not decades). However, this begs the question – where do you draw the line? What’s more, there’s also the question of strategic security.
Namely, if Russia were to retake only areas where Russian is spoken by the vast majority of inhabitants (80% or more), this would still leave oblasts such as Sumy and Chernigov in the hands of the Kiev regime. No Russian general worth his salt would ever accept such a deal, as it would allow NATO to use them to deploy missiles that could reach Moscow in minutes. In addition, leaving the rest of former Ukraine to the Neo-Nazi junta would mean they’d still be a threat to Russia’s security, regardless of their status within or outside of the EU/NATO. Thus, it’s clear that the process of demilitarization and denazification needs to be implemented in the entire former Ukraine. Howe
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