Vladimir Putin would view drawing Ukraine into a single economic and political arrangement with Russia as an enormous geopolitical achievement, but if he were to succeed initially, the Kremlin leader would be setting the stage for the demise of the Russian Federation itself, according to a Moscow commentator.
In an essay on the Forum-MSK.org portal yesterday, Yevgeny Ikhlov says that “the creation of a Russian-Ukrainian confederation would be the most grandiose foreign policy victory of [post-1991] Russia.” But “at the same time [it would be] a terrible national defeat of Ukraine” and ultimately for Russia too.
The Ukrainian economy would be reduced to being a fiefdom of Russian monopolies, Ukrainian politics “to a branch of the Kremlin,” and “Ukrainian culture to be a rudimentary part in an all-Russian mass culture.” It would be left insulted and injured, and it would become a far bigger problem than many in Moscow now realize, Ikhlov suggests.
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