Ukraine Doesn’t have a War Party Only One of Resistance and Another of Capitulation, Piontkovsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 14 – Despite Moscow’s insistence to the contrary and Vladimir Zelensky’s suggestion during presidential campaign that there is a party of war in Ukraine, Andrey Piontkovsky says, Ukraine “by definition” does not have “a party of war.” As the victim of Russian aggression, it has only “a party of resistance and a party of capitulation.”

            The only “party of war” in this conflict is in “the criminal military political leadership of Russia,” the Russian émigré commentator says. “Ukraine is the victim of aggression by a military superpower which has seized part of its territory and does not hide its goal of destroying Ukraine as an independent state” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5D03861814F31).

            “Ukraine is not capable by military means of recovering the territory seized by the enemy. But Ukraine has been able by increasing the military capacity and making use of the political support of its friends and allies to stop Russia from further aggression.” Thus, there are “only two parties [in Ukraine]: the Party of Resistance and the Party of Capitulation.”

            What is worrisome, Piontkovsky continues, is that Zelensky is presenting himself in words as a member of the party of resistance but acting via his appointments as a follower of the party of capitulation, a combination that will disorder Ukraine and give those in the West who want to sell out Kyiv to Moscow a new opening.

            After all, as he points out, the West will never be more “pro-Ukrainian” than the government in Kyiv.  Too many politicians in Western countries simply want an excuse too back away from Ukraine and cozy up with Moscow. Consequently, when the deeds of Zelensky overwhelm his words, they will be ready to act – and Ukraine will be the victim.

            To avoid this outcome, Piontkovsky says, requires two moves, one foreign by the Ukrainian government and a second domestic by the opponents of both the physical and political technological “Zelensky.”  Ukraine must demand “not simply a cease fire but the establishment of a demilitarized zone and the introduction of international peacekeepers.”

            Only by defining its task in this way will Ukraine be able too “stop the bloodletting, minimize the chances for further Russian aggression, and at the same time not make any political concessions to the aggressor.”  Moscow for its own reasons will find it more difficult to oppose these ideas than many suppose.

            And having achieved that, Ukraine, “by preserving its principled position on the issue of illegally occupied territories will be able to concentrate on the most important tasks of its domestic development, the very same on behalf of which the best people of Ukraine died at the Maidan.”

            “The occupied Donbass will be returned to Ukraine immediately after the death (biological or physical isn’t important) of ‘the good Hitler.’ Crimea will be returned later after the death of the Russian imperial project. And that event is not so far away.” A country run like Putin’s Russia can’t survive forever.

            Consequently, “what a tragic mistake it would be for Kievan Rus after so many centuries of heroic resistance to the Horde to capitulate today before this zombie.”

            But the party of resistance must also work at home: It was seriously contest the party of capitulation. That would not be hard given that the party of capitulation reflects only a tiny minority (less than 10 percent) of the Ukrainian population were it not for the influx of Russian money and Russian political technology.

            Tragically, under the guise of “the collective Zelensky,” this money and this technology could mean that the results of the parliamentary elections in Ukraine would be a victory for that minority and its entirely “hybrid” leaderships rather than for what most Ukrainians want, a strong and independent Ukraine.

            There is now hope that the party of resistance will not allow that to happen. It is gaining new leaders from a new generation “not connected with the traditional Ukrainian political class and weighted down by its mistakes.  Among the is Svatoslav Vatkarchuk who can certainly “mobilize the country in opposition to the capitulators, obvious and hybrid.”