Russia prepares new plan: How Kremlin aims to seize Ukraine after war
How will Russia attempt to use the “good Russians” to take over Ukraine? An expert warns of the threats facing the country once the war ends.
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Russia’s war against Ukraine will not end with a ceasefire. Once “the guns fall silent,” the Kremlin is expected to pursue its imperial ambitions through other means — political, media and cultural.
This was outlined in a column for 24 Kanal by expert Valeriy Pekar.
The danger of “good Russians” and political parties
The expert stresses that after the war Ukraine will face a wave of Russian organisations seeking to achieve what the military could not. Politics, Pekar says, will become a continuation of war by other means.
“Russia will try to achieve through political means what it failed to do with the military,” he writes.
According to him, the Kremlin may attempt to impose a “Georgian scenario” on Ukraine, or, failing that, sow division within society and push it into internal strife in order to undermine the victory already gained.
Who will help the Kremlin
Pekar warns that alongside pro-Russian revanchists seeking to translate a military defeat into a political win, Ukraine will also face “a wave of good Russians.” These people, he says, will sincerely believe that building their “beautiful Russia of the future” is much easier in Ukraine than in Russia itself.
In their view, Ukraine offers the perfect platform for their plans: it has the foundations of democracy, European integration, as well as a “shared culture” and “brotherly people.” They also argue it is far easier to “lift up” Ukraine than Russia, weighed down by hyper-centralisation, authoritarianism and a broken economy.
Defending against Russian expansion
The only safeguard for Ukraine, the expert argues, is a firm mistrust of everything Russian. Ukrainians, he says, need an “immune system” that instinctively rejects any Russian narratives, ideas or organisations.
“The only sign of truly good Russians, for me, is their active fight not just against Putin’s regime but against the Russian empire itself, the struggle to end its existence, for decolonisation and dismantling. But such good Russians I can count on the fingers of two hands,” Pekar notes.
He stresses that in wartime against a totalitarian state, no idea can be accepted merely on the basis of its “national origin,” since in a totalitarian system nothing exists independently from the state.
“Russian means imperial, which means war, destruction, division and strife,” Pekar concludes.