Will Ukraine be the next East/West Germany?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Let’s assume the war in Ukraine drags on for 6-8 months, and for some reason, the Russians are unable to capture Kyiv and force Ukraine to capitulate. Let’s also assume that Zelensky is still alive and well. Putin sees a way out that allows him to save face and creates a Russian-friendly buffer with Ukraine. The rest of the world is trying to broker a peace agreement between the two parties, and there seems to be only one solution.

Split Ukraine in half, much as they did with Germany following WWII. Russia either absorbs the eastern half or creates a puppet regime there, and Zelensky keeps the western half as a democratic country. It’s not what either side wants, but neither side is willing to stop the fighting, and it would save countless lives. Is such a scenario even imaginable, and could it ever happen?

2

I see it as being quite possible.

3

I think it depends on whether Zelensky would even consider it. Giving away half of your country to your sworn enemy would be a hard pill to swallow. It might be all or nothing for him.

4

It seems very likely to me that the end of hostilities will see Russia retaining de facto control over a swathe of Ukrainian territory stretching from Crimea along the Sea of Azov coast to the Donbass. This could be either part of a negotiated settlement or just a “frozen” ceasefire line. I hope this is not the case because it effectively rewards aggression with territorial gains, which is a terrible precedent, but what’s anyone going to do?

5

Germany was partitioned in this way as part of its unconditional surrender and agreements made between the Soviet and Allied powers when Germany was essentially stateless. This was after almost six demoralizing years of war (starting the clock with the 1939 invasion of Poland) and a brutal authoritarian regime that was never very popular with the German volk. The Ukraine, on the other hand, was invaded without provocation despite being governed by a popular leader who has inspired partisan resistance and will just become a martyr even if the Russians execute him. I don’t see the people of Ukraine accepting any kind of negotiated surrender beyond returning to the pre-2022 status where Russia retains control of the Crimean Peninsula, and frankly given the degree of economic damage Russia will suffer even if they can manage to control major Ukrainian cities and the low morale of their largely conscript army, it’ll be a surprise if they don’t lose that, too.

Stranger

6

Except, at least the current Russian position is, no…not unless if by east/west Ukraine you mean a west Ukraine that is unarmed and has agreements with Russia to be ‘neutral’ but in Russia’s sphere of influence, with the eastern parts of what is current Ukraine being annexed by Russia directly. If Russia takes the entire eastern half of Ukraine, it’s possible they will stop there to negotiate, but they will be negotiating from the point of their current demands. That would mean they would essentially annex entire eastern Ukraine (no puppet) and western Ukraine would be that puppet.

It might not work out that way, but at least right now that’s the only thing Russia (i.e Putin) is going to be satisfied with. He definitely wouldn’t be satisfied with an independent Ukraine, even if it was a rump state comprising only the western parts, not if that rump state was actually aligned with the NATO and the west the way west Germany was.

7

At the moment, I feel like Russia is going to end up trimming off a corridor of land in the South-East. I don’t think it will end up like Germany, split in half.

I expect that Russia will build a wall or DMZ to protect the corridor but that will probably leave the whole rest of the Russia/Ukraine border open to shoot rockets into, from Luhansk all the way North to Belarus and over West to Poland.

I could easily see that taking on parallels with Palestine/Israel and on-going terror acts - rockets, bombings, sabotage, etc. - from Ukraine in to Russia/Belarus. And to be honest, this might be a fairly effective course for Ukraine. Russia is expending what military it has, trying to take the Ukraine corridor. After they’re done, they’re going to be fairly spent and that’s a long-ass border to try and defend. Israel isn’t going to sell them Iron Dome, the US isn’t going to give them Patriot, etc. There’s liable to be not much to prevent Ukraine from driving over to take Gomel, Kursk, etc. if the West keeps them supplied with new tanks, missile launchers, etc.

If they can get started quickly enough, they might be able take more out of Russia than Russia got out of them because there will probably be a friendlier reception. That said, that friendliness will not be there if Ukraine just sits back and bombs the region for a year before sending troops in. They really sort of need to start going for it ASAP. And probably they would really need to form an alliance between other former Russian states to go for it, since they’re also going to be pretty worn out, during the opening. (Addendum: Probably the best way to do this would be to send in small groups of saboteurs to take over the city government, rather than try to take it militarily. You just bring them in to fortify the city.)

Over the long run, though, due to the inability for Russia to defend their border, I would expect that regular attacks on Russia would result in an escalating return of larger and larger missiles coming back as response.

The US is probably going to want to shut all that down before it starts, however, so I would expect that we’ll be advising Zelensky to take the loss and giving him financial incentives to let it go.

So an alternative path would be that Zelensky smiles, accepts US aid, and starts preparing an assassination team to go in and get Putin. Given that the two nations are pretty similar in complexion, language, and culture and they share a long border, that may be relatively do-able.

One result of all of this that is very likely is a unified block of former Soviet states that is united in getting revenge on Russia. Given that several of those will be NATO, that’s going to prove problematic, so, if Zelensky is working on organizing something like that, I expect that it’s going to happen without warning.

8

If this war ends with Russia having gained territory, then the war doesn’t actually end. It might go into remission for a few years or a decade, but then Russia is going to go back for another slice of the salami. The only way the war can actually end is either by all of Ukraine falling to Russia, or Russia (or at least, Putin) ending up in an unambiguously worse position than it was before.

9

I’ll also note that if Russia declares Martial Law on Friday, it might be a good day for Kaliningrad to declare independence. Why go down with the ship when you’re on your own and surrounded by friendlies?

10

Kovbasa…may Russia choke on it.

Stranger

11

I agree, unfortunately. And the most likely outcome, unfortunately, is probably with a peace, of sorts, and this all coming back in a few years or maybe a decade…after everyone has forgotten about all of this and gone back to sleep.

12

What makes you think that Russians in Kaliningrad think they’re surrounded by friendlies?

13

That seems to have been Russia’s original goal. I came across a series of articles from Tass, from February 25, and one of them was pretty explicit about what Russia was hoping to achieve:

https://tass.com/pressreview/1410663

14

We’re not looking at a situation where two countries are at loggerheads over some dispute. We have a country that launched a full-scale invasion against another country without cause, an invasion that’s now targeting residential areas. Defending one’s country against ruthless invaders is not a diplomatic dispute.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, should they have been offered half of Hawaii if they’d knock it off? If your neighbor starts hurling explosives over your fence, would you be satisfied if TPTB gave him half your property to get him to stop?

I get it that we’re trying to be practical here. I get it that we want to stop the death and destruction that’s currently happening, but dividing Ukraine would be a terrible injustice that would set a very bad precedent.

15

I believe the thinking is that it is better to ‘compromise’ by giving Russia some portion of the Ukraine that Putin claims (quite without historical merit) to be ethnically Russian rather than to engage in a wider European conflict with the potential to escalate to a nuclear exchange and all that entails. Of course, we’ve seen the prequel and that didn’t work out with Germany and Czechoslovakia, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that Putin, having figured out a new hat trick, won’t repeat it again and again.

Stranger