Why Putin Wanted to Return Donbas to Ukraine With Veto Power

They wanted to take back both Donetsk and Luhansk.

But Crimea—no, and Donetsk and Luhansk they really did want to take back.

And why?

Well, because people have this thing called strategic thinking.

To shake up Ukraine?

Yes, yes. And then keep this wasp’s nest.

You understand, when there was, remember, that Oleksandr Yefremov?

Yes, of course.

The only decent one.

Such a separatist.

He was considered then, until 2014, the only decent face in the Party of Regions.

Nickname “Pushkin,” do you know why?

Oh, see, I do not know.

Oleksandr Serhiyovych.

Oleksandr Serhiyovych, yes. And then, obviously, he ended up like all the rest of them.

But I remember, at the beginning of 2014, when Crimea was already gone, some journalist grabs him and says

“And will you keep insisting on holding referendums on the status of the Russian language in Ukraine?”

And he answers her directly and says, “What is the point of holding it without the votes of Crimeans?”

Well, that was it, it collapsed. And Putin already understood this too, that it was necessary to just leave Ukraine as it was.

It will inevitably drift away.

Because they took away the votes, as if from the body, from the political body they removed the Russian electorate.

They took away Crimea and also took away the most populated cities of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

So the politician’s dilemma here, for a strategist, is this: if I want to keep leverage,

I have to return these voters into the system.

We are not discussing Crimea, because it is sacred, so to speak, we set it aside,

but at least we will return Donetsk and Luhansk with the right of veto, as autonomies,

with the right of veto over key decisions of domestic and foreign policy

and we will take Ukraine in a peaceful way in ten years, simply by shaking them up from within.

That was their strategy. And when this plan failed, he decided to wage war.

In other words, even if Putin had managed to return Donbas to Ukraine,

the war would still have been inevitable.

Yes, because the Ukrainian political body would perceive Donbas as a cancerous tumor.

And it would constantly be rejecting it.

You said “cancerous tumor,” these are the words of Oles Honchar, by the way.

He once said, throw Donbas into the jaws of the empire,

because this cancerous tumor will swallow all of Ukraine.

I did not know these words, but it is not Donbas that is the cancerous tumor, it is the ORDLO with the right of veto.

That is the cancerous tumor. Donbas itself is not a cancerous tumor on the body of Ukraine.