Paul Goble
Staunton, June 8 – Yevhen Bursanidis-Seletsky, a co-founder of the movement for the independence of Kuban, says that despite Russian acts of genocide, the Crimson Wedge as Ukrainians refer to that region, very much has a Ukrainian future if Kyiv will devote more attention to the situation there.
And there are compelling reasons for the Ukrainian state to do so, he continues because “if a Ukraine without Crimea is like a car without headlights, then a Ukraine without Kuban whether as part of the Ukrainian state or as a confederal ally is like being a car without doors” (abn.org.ua/en/history/malynovyi-klyn-past-present-and-future/).
Russians acts of genocide and repression against ethnic Ukrainians in the Kuban have reduced the number of people there who identify as Ukrainians, but these moves by Moscow and Russian society as a whole have not extinguished the sense most people in the Kuban have of being linked to Ukraine.
Kyiv was not able to do much in Soviet times and chose not to take action in support of Kuban Ukrainians and other wedges in the current borders of the Russian Federation because it wanted to show itself as a good international citizen that could not be accused of interfering in what Moscow viewed as its internal affairs.
But Putin’s attack on Ukraine in 2014 and his expanded invasion of that country launched in 2022 and continuing to this day have changed the situation. Kyiv is now paying more attention to the Ukrainian wedges within the borders of the Russian Federation. If it follows this up with action, Bursanidis-Seletsky says, both those regions and Ukraine as a whole will benefit.
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