2025-34 UKRAINE, in INNATE (1st Dec)

The land is flat. It stretches for miles. And many many years ago, there were just a few settlements; they traded; they spoke the same basic language, its word for ‘word’ was ‘slovo’, and hence the name, ‘Slavs.’ Some villages became towns; then, in battle or in bed, a few bigger towns developed into city states. One of the first was Kievan-Rus, a state or an empire of the 9th to the 13th Century which grew to extend from Kiev, not quite to Crimea in the south, but up north to rule many smaller cities, one of which was called Moskva. Next, in 1238, from the east came the Mongol hordes; they took Moscow and two years later, sacked Kiev. They went further west to Hungary and so on, as well as to the south and east, to Baghdad and Beijing but, like every other empire before and since, they fell first into four bits and then completely apart.

A little later, while western Europeans went west to kill and conquer in the Americas, the Russians expanded militarily to the east. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible (awful, or full of awe) took Kazan, the first of many conquests; another, in 1860, was Vladivostok (the ruler of the east) and to the south, Vladikavkaz, (governing the Caucasus). To the north was the Arctic. And apart from the mountains, deserts and seas to the south – the Caucasus, Pamirs and Himalayas; the Kyzylkum, Taklamakan and Gobi Deserts; and then the Black, Caspian and Aral Seas – there was no other natural limit to what was otherwise continual expansion.

In 1867, however, the Russians decided the Pacific Ocean was far enough, so they sold Alaska to the US for $7m (about $200m in today’s money). In contrast then to the three other compass points, there were no obvious physical barriers in the west where lived the Lithuanians, whose lands at one stage went all the way to the Black Sea, and the Poles. The border here was religious: Orthodoxy versus Catholicism; Moscow, it was said, was the third Rome, blessed against the Swedes (Charles XII) in 1709 at the Battle of Poltava (in today’s Ukraine); against the French in 1812 at Borodino (Napoléon); and against the Nazis in 1941-2 in WWII in Moscow (Hitler).

The main difference between the Western European empires and the Russian (or Soviet) version was the fact that the latter was always contiguous. While the former were far flung, Moscow wanted total control. Yugo-(southern-)slavia was difficult – too far away – but after ‘adjusting’ the Czechoslovak border near Uzhhorod, now in western Ukraine, Stalin ensured he had a common border with Hungary (1956) and the Czechs (1968). Meanwhile Ukraine – the krai or border lands – was part of the empire, to which in 1954 Nikita Khrushchev ‘gave’ Crimea.

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In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. Whereupon the West, which has many ‘monolingual experts’ – an oxymoron of the highest order! – ‘advised’ Gorbachev on democratisation. “You need our system of democracy,” they suggested – majoritarianism, majority rule and all that – without accepting that the Russian word for this ‘majoritarianism’ is ‘bolshevism’ {большевизм}. That was one mistake. You also need the right of self-determination, they added; another error. So if a republic, oblast (province) or krai, or any other minority wanted to secede, and if a majority of that minority voted ‘yes’ to do so, they could succeed to secede; but if a minority of that small majority then wanted to secede as well, and if a majority of that minority of that small majority voted to secede, then they too could succeed. Etc., ad nauseam.

So just as
(i) Ireland opted out of the UK, and NI opted out of opting out to opt back in again (1920s), a status confirmed in the border poll of 1973, when 98.9% voted ‘yes’ but, led by the SDLP, some 40% abstained – and The Troubles continued;

so too
(ii) Georgia opted out of the USSR (1991) by 99.5%, and South Ossetia opted out of Georgia (2006) by 99.9%, whereupon the Georgian enclave of Akhalgori tried to opt out of opting out...

so too
(iii) Croatia opted out of Yugoslavia (1991) by 93.4% while the Orthodox abstained, so the three krajina – there’s that word ‘krai’ again – opted out of Croatia by 99.8%, where the Catholics abstained;

so too

(iv) Bosnia opted out of Yugoslavia (1992) by 99.7% while the Bosnian Serbs abstained, and the latter in

Republika Srpska opted out of Bosnia by 98%... and Herzeg-Bosna also wanted to opt out of Bosnia; and so too

(v) Ukraine opted out of the USSR (1991) – see below – so Donetsk opted out of Ukraine by 90.0%

(2014) so Dobropillia (69.1%, almost 2,000,000 voters) tried to opt out of opting out and to opt back in again... and

(vi) etc., and so on, ad nauseam.

In a nutshell, the right is wrong. It has led to so much violence. No wonder the headline in Moscow’s Pravda newspaper in 1988, when the first ethnic clashes took place in Nagorno-Karabakh ‘in’ Azerbaijan ‘in’ the USSR, was “Vot nash Olster,” {Вот – наш Ольстер}, ‘This is our Northern Ireland.’

And little wonder then that, for many years, Russia called this right of self-determination ‘Matrioshka nationalism,’ after those famous Russian dolls. In 2006, however, when the above vote in South Ossetia suited Vladimir Putin’s policies, referendums just sort of became OK.

But back in 1990, the USSR was beginning to fall apart. There was some horrible violence in Georgia, where eight protesters were murdered by the Russians; tens were killed in Azerbaijan; and then, in 1991, eleven died in Lithuania. This last, the West decided, was the final straw. So we ditched Gorbachev and supported his protégé turned opponent, Boris Yeltsin – and that was a huge mistake. Not only were our diplomats at fault, for so too was the western media, not least The Irish Times. If something was western, like Mercedez-Benz, or if someone was supported by the West, like Yeltsin, it or he was apparently brilliant. So Yeltsin was ‘good news.’ But if an Irishman published an article on consensus in Moscow News and another in ‘Novy Mir,’ {Новы Мир}, New World, (where it featured alongside a piece by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn), that was just non-news.

So in 1991 it was Yeltsin, and then came Putin with wars in Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine. But Boris, not unlike his English counterpart, had only ambition: no policies, certainly no principles, just (a bottle of vodka and) ambition. At that time of 1991, because some western ‘experts’ regarded the USSR as being so similar to Yugoslavia, the West decided to ditch Slobodan Milošević as well, because he was an extreme nationalist... and support Croatia’s Franjo Tudjman instead, even though he too was an extreme nationalist.

Yes, Yugoslavia was now falling apart as well. In a nutshell, “all the [Balkan 1990s] wars started with a referendum,” (Oslobodjenje, Sarajevo’s legendary newspaper, 7.2.1999). In 1995, the settlement agreed in Dayton for Bosnia recognised the ‘facts on the ground’ – acts of aggression – which define today’s legitimate borders. It was another huge mistake, with consequences for Crimea in 2014, and now, in 2025 for Ukraine where, yet again, the aggressors – and not only the aggressors – are working to reward aggression.

But back, first, to 1991. Ukraine opted out of the collapsing USSR, for otherwise, to quote the then Ukrainian communist leader, Stanislav Hurenko, “We’re in the shit.” The new state, which the West also advised to be majoritarian, first held a referendum on independence in December that year, and every Ukrainian province or oblast voted in favour by 80% or more... except Crimea, where the Tatars abstained, and where only 54% voted ‘yes’. So another blunder was to assume that such a small majority could still be regarded as ‘the will of the people’.

In 2004, Ukraine elected Viktor Yushchenko as the new president. They used the French-type two-round system: thus, with spontaneous demonstrations in Kiev’s city centre, (with many protesters sleeping in ‘spontaneously’ USA- donated tents), Ukraine, a country of mainly Slav Christians, divided into two: Russian-speaking Orthodox in the east, and Ukrainian-speaking Catholic/Uniate in the west. The two are – or were! – so similar. But divided they had now become. It’s called democracy. And divided they now are. It’s called war.

Six years later, in 2010, another presidential election, the loser of the previous contest, the other Viktor, Yanukovich, was victorious... again by a whisker. Hence the protests in Maidan, also in the city centre. They turned violent. Horribly. So the EU changed its mind; democracy, no no, it’s not majority rule at all, it’s the opposite, it’s power- sharing. A delegation rushed over to Kiev. Too late. They arrived on the very day that Yanukovich ran into exile! Yes, too bloody late.

But the West had won? Ha! Putin was not going to do nothing. He planned another referendum in Crimea where, with the ‘assistance’ of little green men everywhere, the locals voted to re-join Russia, supposedly by 96.8% – the Tatars again abstaining. Donetsk and Luhansk now followed with their referendums, 90.0% (as stated above) and 96.2%... and, as it happened, 2014 was also the year of Scotland’s poll: little wonder the word ‘Shotlandiya’ {Шотландия} was used by Russian separatists in Luhansk. ‘Everything is connected,’ as Vladimir Vernadsky, the Russian Ukrainian, once said, {Всё связано}, vsyo svyazano.

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In 2020, I was travelling overland to China, a journey which involved crossing the Caucasus mountains – it is a most beautiful border – from Georgia’s Tbilisi to Russia’s Vladikavkaz. “Zdravstvuite,” I said, (the Russian word for ‘hi’); so I was detained, interrogated with ridiculous questions like, “Where was your grandmother born?” – I didn’t know – but I was eventually released. “It would have been better,” my mini-bus taxi driver said afterwards, “if you didn’t speak Russian.”

After a night in town, I caught the train which first goes west to Rostov, and then heads north round the Ukrainian border up to Moscow. And half-way there, very near the border, the train stopped at a brand new railway station; no town, no village, nobody, just a brand new railway station in the middle of nowhere. Logistics for today’s war.

On my return to Belfast in 2021, I informed BBC Radio 4 and my Irish Green Party colleagues of what I thought was very worrying. What I do not understand, however, is (i) why US spy satellites pretended not to notice these sabres being rattled – apparently, I later learnt, there were three new railway stations – and (ii) why, therefore, the West expressed surprise in February 2022, when the Russians invaded.

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So, after nearly four years of war, what’s next? The first thing to acknowledge is that there are several non-military ways of confronting violence, as Mahatma Gandhi would have told us. Ambassadors and others in Moscow could have gone to Pushkin Square and joined the local protesters – they were there – or hold their own demo. We all know how difficult it is for Russians themselves to protest; for embassy staff, however, and/or for famous, preferably old westerners – retired presidents such as Barack Obama and Mary Robinson for example, old kings like Charles, old popes, Leo, et al – a few or many could go to Moscow to just stand there, in protest, and fast maybe; it could be fantastic; at the very least, it would be a tactic which would risk the lives of only a few old folk, rather than a military tactic which could endanger those of hundreds of young Ukrainians... and Russians, let alone yet more poor civilians of all ages in Ukraine.

Secondly, the West should acknowledge its own mistakes: not only (i) supporting majoritarianism and Yeltsin, for example, but also (ii) failing to understand how Putin thinks, in blaming him for everything (including the war in Georgia which, apparently, Putin started... while watching the Olympics in Beijing?! – no no; Mikhail Saakashvili, the then president of Georgia, was just as guilty), and (iii) not accepting that it was unwise for NATO to expand eastwards. Indeed, in 1985, with the then inevitable dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, formally and finally dissolved in 1991, was NATO’s job not finished? Should not the generals et al have retired?

But we are where we are. The war is still raging. Russia, which cares little for its own soldiers, is marching westwards, slowly but relentlessly, creating yet more ‘facts on the ground.’ Ukraine is losing territory. Kiev has only the moral upper hand; the way it conducts its military offensives against Moscow’s military, as opposed to the latter’s ceaseless attacks against Ukraine’s civilians and its infrastructure, in particular its energy supplies. Kiev’s morale is still high, but for how much longer? Russia meanwhile has strength in numbers, despite having lost many men of fighting age who have fled to Georgia and elsewhere, and despite a surprisingly large number of civilians opposed to the war, at least in private.

So let us accept that any peace treaty will require compromise; that we in the West must accept some difficult changes, (and I know that many Poles and others will not like what follows), but I suggest we should remember our histories, and use them to good effect. Why not, therefore, to facilitate a cease-fire, (re-)create Mitteleuropa: a neutral, nuclear-free zone, from Finland to Greece?
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A ‘Mitteleuropa’ proposal.
1. Crimea to be under joint, triple or UN authority, its local administration based, not on majority voting, but on multi-

optional, preferential decision-making.

2. All other pre-2014 borders to be recognised. All Russian forces to be withdrawn from Donbas, etc., and all Ukrainian forces from Russia.

3. A neutral Mitteleuropa or Middle-Europe to be created: from Finland and the Baltic States, via Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, to Ukraine, Moldova and the Balkans, all to be non-nuclear and not in NATO but, if desired, in the EU.