Illarionov: "Putin's aim is Kiev and all the Ukraine"

So what happens to western Ukraine?

Some observers have also said that the split was based on age as well as geography.

Younger Ukrainians (so the theory goes) who came of age after independence, tend not to identify with Russia.

What happens to them if Putin takes over?

bombing campaign in support of rebels and butchers

Nothing happened in Syria, ironically, thanks to Putin. Serbia and Libya indeed were extremely ill-advised, but in both cases there was an armed conflict going on before we got involved. In the case of Ukraine Putin simply wants to redraw national borders that RF itself had guaranteed, because he feels like it. Also, it is not just a military operation like, for example, the war in Osetia was. It is a complete realignment of RF into a Sovietized political system: the parliament voting to support the leader 100%, celebrities writing chauvinistic open letters, people with dissident opinions fired from their jobs, government overseers are installed at the news organizations; the whole nation is in a Cold War hysteria. The progress toward pluralism and rule of law in RF of the past 20 years has been reversed and if Putin and his circle remain in power for another year or so, we'll have the transition to USSR 2.0 complete.

Ukraine is far too important for Russia to concede to the West.

Once the mentality of the Cold War returns to RF, yes, it becomes strategic thinking and the creation of buffer zones all over again. Problem is, the Ukrainian nation has been borne and will not go down easily. It is the sovietization of RF that pushed Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence.

Will Putin go all the way into Ukraine, I don't know. The author seems to agree with you that he will. My earlier prediction was that Putin will chicken out, or someone out there will shoot him.

what happens to western Ukraine?

If RF overruns the Ukrainian military and occupies the entire Ukraine, there will be, most likely, a terrorist activity that would make Chechnya look like a garden party. Putin cannot put the entire Ukraine in a GULAG, even though he will try.

Observe that it is not 1945-54 when Stalin exterminated the Bandera rebels. NATO will quickly toughen up because it is an existential threat to them; they will set up a full blockade. The Russian economy is not going to hold together in order to sustain a prolonged guerrilla war while under sanctions.

Even an annexation of Eastern Ukraine is not going to be easy, given the passions that have been stirred.

I hear what you're saying and see your POV, I just don't see the sense in the West pretending it's so much different than a lot of what the West has done. Did we go into Iraq and kick the bastards out then turn it over to Iran or did we change the alignment of that country? To me, once you start tossing explosives around whether it's for alignment or in support of freedom is just a lot of word games. You commit your forces to support an outcome that's advantageous to your own goals. Call it what you like.

"The progress toward pluralism and rule of law in RF of the past 20 years has been reversed . . ."

I'll tell my pal Ivan that and he'll get a real laugh. Hey, I have Russian friends who have moved here and have family still in Russia. They'd go back and forth a good bit and I'm sure would like to know where they should have been looking for the past few decades to see that pluralism and rule of law. According to them things are better the last five or six years than ever because there are fewer people above the law than there were before Putin was in charge.

My son has been dating a Ukrainian girl and she and her family think the crowd we're now championing are just bought and paid for stooges of the EU. They didn't like the guy that fled, either. The main thing for them is that they don't like or want in power anyone that has Russian parents or grandparents.

Talking with them, I have a feeling there's a "pure Ukrainian" vs "Russian Ukrainian" clash or civil war brewing and being prepared for within the Ukraine. If so, I'm sure both the West and Putin know all about it being inevitable.

In that case, Putin just moved to protect the Crimea before the EU moves to protect the gas pipelines which gives him a major edge when the peace talks start. The West won't have the Crimea to use as a carrot on a stick when the borders are drawn.

Like I say, JMHO and thinking on various angles. I just sure don't see the much difference between a few things the US and EU have done in the past few decades and what Putin is doing now.

Regards

The progress in Russia was in the distance passed from the mentality that was the USSR. Chiefly that was in the freedom of speech, honesty about history, ability to travel, economic opportunity, howbeit meager. That post-soviet Russia did not build a rule of law is very true, and perhaps that is what has doomed it. Putin, I think, had a correct intuition that criminality was to be curbed, but being a Soviet man, he understood his mission as building an autocracy. The truth is that no matter how many oligarchs he puts behind bars, a society where the parliament votes 100% for an act of aggression that violates the countries' treaties with its neighbor does not have a rule of law.

One does not have to admire American geopolitical behavior to condemn this. There were some lines that we did not cross: we did not violate treaties; we did not fight for territory; we responded to perceived -- sometime wrongly perceived -- threats. We also honestly tried to build nations where - we now understand -- they cannot be built. We "took up the white man's burden". That is the difference between American imperialism and Russian aggression. We nevertheless acted in a way that allowed a dishonest or uninformed observer to point to our behavior in Iraq and Libya as an excuse of his own aggression. That was unwise; but RF is an aggressor in Ukraine just the same.

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