Mick Hartley

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former minister of defence, talks to historian Sergey Radchenko in the Spectator. 

On peace talks:

We don’t see a real readiness of the Russian government to talk. They aggressively and arrogantly refuse to see themselves as the invader. They are still talking about all sorts of narratives that they used to justify the invasion. There is also an extremely high chance that Putin would use any ceasefire simply to prepare for a new offensive.

They are planning up for a longer game, ramping up their military industrial complex. They are conducting an ongoing mobilisation: they are even planning building a new factory with Iranians for the suicide drones. It does seem that they are going for the invasion to continue. Let’s be realistic.

In this conflict, people who are trying to talk about a military victory for Ukraine are called naïve and the people who are calling for negotiations are called realists. But real realists would see that Russia is only planning for war.

On Crimea:

First, Crimea is the platform for any future invasion. Crimea was turned into a military base right on mainland Ukraine’s doorstep. By controlling Crimea, Russia controls the Black and Azov seas and through that it controls access to the whole of southern Ukraine. Essentially, Russia’s imperial ambitions for Ukraine will stay while it controls Crimea, as it’s an excellent platform for invading. Ukraine will never feel secure or be able to rebuild an economy unless Crimea is returned.

Secondly, Crimea is a symbol of the Russian imperial policy. If it keeps Crimea, then it is clearly the case that it is continuing with its policy of expanding and trying to occupy Ukraine. For as long as Crimea is in Russian hands, it is a military threat, and we need to deal with this threat.

Even if the government changes, Putin is gone, his elites have changed and they have decided that they want to be a member of the civilised global order, they can’t then say: ‘We are not an empire anymore, but we will still keep Crimea.’ It’s like somebody is robbing your home, he is convicted, and he needs to return everything he’s stolen. But then that person demands to keep the TV set they stole because they like it so much. It doesn’t make sense.

The global community can’t say we cannot allow countries to invade other countries but when it comes to Crimea, Russia can keep it. Crimea cannot be an exception. It is a black and white situation: we either defend the world order or we don’t.