Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 5 – Speaking at the 13th Forum of Free Russia in Vilnius, Igor Yakovenko says that what is occurring on the Ukrainian territories now occupied by Russian forces is not Russification as many think but rather “de-Europeanization because Ukraine is a European country” unlike Putin’s Russia which isn’t.
The Russian journalist now in emigration says that “centrifugal tendencies have always been a feature of Russia; and when the central powers will be weakened as a result of military defeat, these tendencies will renew and the disintegration of Russia will be inevitable” (ehorussia.com/new/node/31667).
Consequently, Yakovenko continues, “the task of the opponents of Putinism is to do everything so that Russia will suffer defeat in this war. After that, it will be possible for part of Russia to enter Europe because Russia as a whole will never fit into Europe,” something many even in the opposition are unwilling to acknowledge.
The coming apart of the Russian Federation will not be bloodless; but it is likely that the faster the disintegration takes place, the less likely it will be bloody. And it is also necessary to recognize that to avoid disaster, those who favor disintegration will have to work with many they do not approve of.
When the USSR collapsed, Yakovenko argues, “the main beneficiaries were the powers that be in the union republics who tried to take control of all of this. And despite our disgust with the current regional authorities, I think that their attempts at controlling similar processes during the upcoming collapse is the only positive way forward.”
While the first secretaries of the communist parties in the union republics were “to put it mildly not the most sympathetic people, nevertheless, it was they who were most interested in the collapse and it was they who made it the least bloody.” There is no perfect and entirely peaceful way forward now either.
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