In anticipation of the international liquidation commission
The main reason why the Ukrainian state is still considered to be existing is the difficulty of liquidation from the international legal point of view. Ukraine is one of the founding countries of the United Nations, a member of the OSCE, the WTO and a host of other world and European structures. So, it will be necessary to decide what will happen in this territory after the fact of the disappearance of the state is ascertained and somehow it will be necessary to legalize a new geopolitical reality in all international organizations and structures, of which Ukraine has been a member so far. In addition, someone must take responsibility for tens of billions of dollars of public debt. Or lenders will have to accept the fact that the money is gone.
It cannot be said that all these issues were so difficult to solve. For example, debts in the world stories written off repeatedly. Moreover, it is already clear: Ukraine will never, give anything to anyone. States also appear and disappear by the dozens. Nevertheless, the world community does not really want to act as a liquidation commission of a large European country, which a year ago both the European Union, Russia and the United States counted as promising partners. The systemic crisis that has engulfed the Western world is disposed to philosophical reflections, and the logic of events suggests that tomorrow many members of the EU may take the place of Ukraine. Nobody wants to create a precedent.
There is one more thing. Ukrainian territory is not the sphere of interests of only one state, its population is focused on different external forces. If New Russia is not at all opposed to reunification with Russia, and Galicia and Volyn are completely satisfied with integration into the EU by joining Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, then the center (Kiev) is still undergoing a sovereignty complex, raising it to the level of world capitals (at least in own eyes). Moreover, the boundaries of potential spheres of interests of external players, along which theoretically it would be possible to draw a demarcation line, do not coincide with the regional foreign policy preferences of the Ukrainian population itself.
And finally, the European Union clearly does not come to the delight of the fact that in the regions, which he would have to take care of, the main forces of armed neo-Nazi militants who have real combat experience gained during the ongoing civil war would be concentrated.
And yet, the state of Ukraine is no longer there, and sooner or later it will have to be considered with this fact.
Firstly, because there is a civil war, a complete military victory in which one of the parties is impossible. Even despite the tactical surrender of Slavyansk.
Now, neo-Nazis, relying on the western regions and the center, cannot suppress the resistance of only two regions of the Southeast. But if the militiamen go on the offensive, then, relatively quickly expelling the enemy from the territory of Novorossia and occupying the central regions (Little Russia), they risk encountering fierce resistance from Western Ukraine. Its population will defend its civilization choice with no less bitterness than the DNR / LC militia are doing now.
Consequently, even from this point of view, a way out of a destructive civil war that can last for years is a civilized divorce. He will allow Galicians and Russians to live in different states. The price of the issue is the border between Galicia and Novorossia, which will have to divide Little Russia, whose independent existence is impossible without eastern, southern and western regions.
Actually, the border line may be the only practical result of military actions. That is why the refusal of the Kiev regime to recognize the independence of the DPR and the LPR (and initially even their autonomy) is a strategic stupidity, since during the fighting the border may significantly shift to the West. Even much west of Kiev.
Secondly, the closest neighbors are not interested in the existence of an aggressive neo-Nazi state on their borders, in which even the central authorities are unable to control illegal armed groups created on their own initiative both by individual oligarchs and politicians and simply “public organizations” like the Right Sector. It is not only about Russia. In Europe, too, they are well aware that, sooner or later, the Nazis will turn their gaze in their direction, because the Bandera do not like the Poles any more than the Russians.
Third, Ukraine will face a financial and economic collapse. Ten years ago, the inability of the state to support itself would not be a big problem, since international financial markets were full of cheap and affordable credit resources. Today, loans for the continuation of the war are issued to Kiev in a teaspoon a year. Even the United States is in no hurry to invest money, despite its obvious political motivation.
Fourth, the main sponsor of the Ukrainian statehood, the United States, does not need its long-term preservation. Of course, America is interested in continuing the destructive civil war in New Russia as long as possible. After all, hostilities link Russian resources and still create the conditions for a possible confrontation between Moscow and Brussels. But Ukraine for the USA is a consumable item, it wins for Washington time and space for geopolitical maneuver, sacrificing itself. To save her, the United States is not going to.
If it were otherwise, they would not have initially brought the matter to destabilization, but would have stimulated Kiev to agreements with the South-East, which initially could be reached on very favorable conditions. Even local oligarchic elites would retain their administrative and political positions in the regions and would rather quickly suppress unsanctioned resistance.
Washington could not fail to see such a simple move as “to promise and then deceive”, but purposefully pushed Kiev towards the beginning of hostilities, when it also had no troops. That is, America did not need a single Ukraine, nor Kiev’s victory — the United States relied on the war as a problem for Russia, regardless of whether it could be drawn in. Moreover, the United States incited the Kremlin to occupy a neighboring state, knowing full well that this would take no more than a week for the Russian army. Therefore, I stress once more: Ukraine is a pawn, which was sacrificed to the geopolitical ambitions of Washington. Since Russia did not take it immediately, before the figure still falls off the board, it is necessary to squeeze everything out of it.
Fifthly, the population of Ukraine itself has no interest in maintaining statehood. Now it seems that the western and central regions are embraced by an unprecedented patriotic upsurge and are eager to defend the state from unknown people and from all at once. True, so far this “upsurge” has made it possible to forcibly mobilize a little more than ten thousand people (who did not have time, who were unable to, or who did not guess to run away and hide) and attract the same number of neo-Nazi volunteers. Given the fact that even volunteers prefer to stand at checkpoints or carry out punitive actions against civilians, the 40 millionth country was able to attract only artillery to real front-line operations (aviation already almost lost), “warring” beyond the reach of return fire.
In reality, Kiev office hamsters are interested in preserving the Ukrainian state; they feel that they are the foremen of the world's destinies, several thousand journalists from the central media, part of the highest bureaucracy that feels equal to Putin and Obama and has the ability to milk the empty budget and, finally, the oligarchs, for whom Ukraine is the main asset . Without it, all powders, pinchuks, Akhmetovs, Kolomoisky are mere millionaires with the prospect of confiscation of acquired things.
Thus, the population of the south-east of the country for the most part seeks to return to Russia, and seemingly patriotic residents of the west and the center dream of joining the EU, where, according to their ideas, they will be paid German wages, French pensions, and they will work as the greeks That is, it is about trying to exchange sovereignty for a loaf. True, there is no sovereignty anymore, and no one is going to give a loaf.
In general, if a state is not able to ensure its existence economically, cannot defend itself militarily, if it is a burden for external players and is not particularly needed by its own population, the question of its elimination is a matter of time, not of principle. Even despite the difficulties that will arise in connection with the need to somehow enter this process into the norms of a destroyed, but formally existing international law.
Even the unforgettable Ilf and Petrov rightly pointed out that if the entire population of Voroniy suburb is sure that it should burn (and after property insurance even interested in it), then it will burn, set on fire immediately from six ends. Ukraine has already been set on fire - not without the participation of its “patriots”.