Ukraine Is Not a Sovereign State

Hello, listeners. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello, listeners. Welcome to another episode of the Jacob Shapiro podcast. Joining me on the podcast today is doctor Volodymyr Ischenko. He is a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies. I expect this will be a bit of a controversial episode.

I think that Volodymyr has some controversial points of view and some very different points of view on the Russia Ukraine conflict. And he's the perfect guest for the podcast because he's neither right nor left, don't think. I think he's just has a novel point of view and I was happy to ask him some open ended questions and ask him to develop that point of view. I pushed back in some places and I'm not sure that I I agree with him entirely, but that's the whole point of this podcast, to find people who have different ideas that aren't out there in the mainstream and to stir up conversation based on those new ideas rather than recycling the ones that we continue over and over. I had a brief heart attack that we lost 0.5 of the recording.

We have gotten it back with recovery files, but if the quality seems a little off, that is why. You can email me at jacob@jacobshapiro.com if you have any questions, comments, concerns, disagreements, wanna hear more about what we do. It's all it's all fair game. Take care of the people that you love. Cheers and see you out there.

Alright. We've been playing we've been playing tag a little bit, but it's nice to finally get a chance to talk to you. And I... I'm not just saying this. My listeners know I don't just say these things.

I discovered your writing, I don't know, about 6 to 8 weeks ago. And it's not like anybody else's writing, which maybe means I'm not reading enough or I'm not reading the right places. But I found that your perspective on Ukraine was appreciably different than just about everything else I was reading out there. And that's why I wanted to talk to you, to bring that dreaded word nuance to a conversation that doesn't have a whole lot of nuance. And I I I...

I'm worried about only getting an hour with you because I've been reading a lot of your work, and I think I could talk to you for 4 hours. But I wanna start with a controversial statement you made recently in an interview, which was... And I'm paraphrasing it. But you basically said that Ukraine was no longer a sovereign state. And I wanted the 1st question to be...

To ask you to unpack, what that means. Because I think the mainstream narrative in the West is not only is Ukraine a sovereign state, but it is a wildly successful project that is fighting off the Russian, you know, imperialist monster and that it's it's a model for European countries going forward or for anybody who is resisting aggression from powers in general. And you seem to have a very different point of view point of view on that. So let's start there, then we can kinda work our way back into some of the other things that you've written about.

Yeah. That's actually a huge question and a lot to unpack here, and I'll try to be compact. But, well, what exactly do we mean by sovereignty? I mean, the... That's...

There is, like, blue and the yellow flag over Kyiv, and that's that's about it. Or the capacity of the state to make the decisions and to implement it... Them over the territory. Right? And if you look at this kind of, like, I would say, understanding of state sovereignty, it has obviously diminished significantly since at least...

Not even since 2022 when the full scale war started and the scale of dependence of Ukraine on the western funds, western weapons, on western political support increased substantially. Well, right now, most of Ukraine's budget is coming from the West. Right now, primarily from the European Union, before that also from The United States.

And

to account that the state that that is basically a donor economy, a sovereign state, that's just an extreme overextension of the term. But this started at least since 2014 after the Euro Medan revolution, which, good

we

so called civil society, which is comprised good mostly of the Western funded NGOs as in many of other countries of the Eastern Europe. But after the Euro Magan, they acquired significant influence on company.

In

And And Another we important strong agent was the radical nationalists. Kind of like... And that discussion about the participation of the far right, fascists in the was... Has become basically toxic very quickly in 2014 because Russia obviously used the... Their participation to illegitimate what was going on in Ukraine.

And the response of the liberal public sphere was basically to deny the problem. But they acquired more influence, also pushing for certain laws, also integrating into the different state structures and so on. And that influence increased even more since the start of the full scale invasion. And right now, Andrey well, Pilecki, who comes from, like, really extreme right neo Nazi background, he's he's been used to to be known as a white leader until very, very, very recently. He's now 1 of the commanders in the year...

So he he commands the army corps over 50,000 soldiers. He is the political leader over allied civic paramilitary movement, vaguely known as Azov movement. And he's also in the polls among the top popular politicians in the country. And also the certain oligarchs became more influential over the Ukrainian state. Pravashenko was 1 of the examples, but not just Pravashenko.

Over different periods, other people were making significant influence. And as a result of the war which started in 2014 in Donbas, Ukraine became already then more dependent on on Western aid, financial and political. So the sources of Ukraine's sovereignty has already started to be narrow, diminished, the capacity of the state to to make well, sovereign decisions. And the... I mean, even since 2014, there there there there been multiple evidence of how the...

In particular, United States is influencing the decisions in Ukraine. Biden basically just openly was telling how many thousands of hours he spent with Boroshenko, how he discussed, well, very particular appointments in the Ukrainian government on the key positions, his influence on on on the decision of president Yatukovich who was also thrown during Maidan to... Well, basically, not to use any repression and so on and so forth. So as a result of all these processes, Ukraine... I mean, I don't think it's actually controversial to say.

It is not a sovereign state. I mean, the the the influence on the the the recent scandals in particular about so called corruption or anti corruption or anti corruption institutions established precisely after the European revolution, precisely under the blueprints of the Western funded civil society supported by The United States, later mainly by the European Union, establishing basically the state within the state, kind of like sovereign against the state. So they they... This is basically kind of like a closed circuit of the institutions which can investigate the local elites. They can prosecute the local elites, the special prosecutor office, the special bureau investigations, the special court.

Everything is done to do to make a comprehensive mechanism of control over the local elites. Mhmm. And... Yeah. So that's just 1 of the the the the the most brightest examples of what what is going on.

And it does have influence on what Ukraine can or cannot do.

The the next place I would take the question then is that... And I'm... I mean, we can assign blame if we want to, but I'm less interested in blame and more interested in causality. What do you think is the root cause of the loss of Ukrainian sovereignty? Do we lay that at the feet of Russian expansionism or of Vladimir Putin's perception of Ukraine not really existing?

Is this a loss of sovereignty that has nothing to do with opposition to Russia? And I I asked the question about causality because if you're thinking... If we're trying to think about what happens... You're good. If if if you're trying to think about what happens going forward, you know, you can imagine that, you know, Ukraine has lost some of its sovereignty in the sense that it has to make impossible decisions while it is fighting a war against a power that is more...

You know, that is stronger than it. Is there a chance to reclaim some of the sovereignty that you're talking about if and when the war ever closes? So I guess it's a 2 part question. What what is the causality mechanism behind the loss of sovereignty? And is it lost or is it a temporary loss that maybe can be reclaimed once you are no longer fighting a war against a bigger nation that is right next door?

I mean, the typical story is that this is basically only or mainly because the Russian attack. And only because of that Ukraine is pushed to... Into very difficult decisions, alliances, all all the discussion is basically reduced to Russia. My answer is no. This is not about primarily Russia.

It's... This is primarily about the incapacity of the local elites to organize themselves. And this is why we've got Yoramaydan. This is why we've got the war in the bus which was started started. The the significant violence has already started even before any Russian open interventions because even by any actions in Crimea, already over a 100 people were killed in Kyiv in the clashes and fights between the opposition and protesters and the government.

And already then, the participants understood that what was going on was a civil conflict between the government and the opposition. And they were warning the... Each other and the government, and the government was warning the opposition that a civil war is starting. And then the Russia next premiere and completely turned the framework. It was only about the Russian aggression.

And then the war in Donbass started with very high participation of local participants. Even if we understand that Russia also made very important key decisions and key cautions to make that civil conflict a war. Right? But the local agency was indispensable and very important. And that is...

This is about what Ukrainians were doing to Ukrainians and why they were not capable to organize themselves. And this... What what is also happening during such wars and what happened in Ukraine is not exactly the only possible option because many other states actually became stronger and more sovereign fighting the foreign aggressor. And, like, multiple of examples, typically, they're connected precisely with the revolutionary and national liberation struggles. So we can think about the starting from the French Revolution.

France was capable to defeat a mighty counter revolutionary coalition of the great powers in Europe of that age. And Napoleon became the ruler of bigger part of Europe until he was defeated in Russia. Then another great revolution in Russia in 1917. Russia was also capable to to defeat the domestic frontier revolution and also the coalition of of the biggest great powers of that age, England, France, United States, Japan, so on and so forth. And the...

Well, the the state that the Bolshevik revolution built was, like, incomparably stronger than the Russian empire. And while in a few years after the 2nd World War defeating a very mighty enemy, Nazi Germany, Stalin dominated 0.5 of Europe and became, well, the 2nd greatest power. So... Well, another example when the state was actually becoming strong in sovereign. And if you look at the more more recent examples, Vietnam, the the the tiny country, in fact, which defeated France, which defeated The United States, which which kinda, like, also was not defeated by China a bit later.

And the the the... This is a stronger state. This is a developing economy. Afghanistan, which defeated the Soviet Union and The United States. And now the most recent, Iran, which looks like it...

Well, it's capable to to defeat the strongest power in the world, The United States, you know, the strongest regional power, Israel, or it has not be kind of, like, pushed to surrender by by by their actions. But... And and these are the examples when social revolutions built the state when the war against powerful aggressors who overwhelmed overwhelmed in in in in the... In weapons, in the in the population, in economy, but still could not defeat the highly mobilized states. And the question is then why Ukraine is not such a state.

If we we had our own kind of, like, revolution, Yerba Matan revolution. Before that, we had the Orange Revolution in 2004. And before that, also 2890, the revolution on Cranid, which demanded the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union. We had 3 revolutions, but they were all, like, kind of, like, weak, deficient revolutions as they call them. They were...

They didn't have that capacity to build a stronger state over the state they destroyed. The outcome was primarily destabilization, fragmentation of the elites in the in the society. And that's why the... Also Ukrainian nationalism is so different. I mean, that's all...

A lot of what what is happening is about, well, identity and nationalism and why Ukrainians do not want to be like Russians. And in other cases, the nationalism played the kind of, like, a... Well, mobilizing progressive force. In Ukrainian case, at least in the case of of post Soviet Ukraine, because Ukrainian nationalism in the beginning of the 20th century was very different. In fact, it was tightly connected to social revolutionary cause.

But, like, almost all of the people who wanted an independent or it was autonomous Ukraine within the reformed Russia, Russian Republic or whatever, they were socialists. But the contemporary Ukrainian nationalists in majority, they are very much comradors. So, basically, they want to claim they are our niche in the western lab order. They want to become white people, to put it simply. Right?

And to... Basically, with claiming unique identity to get some niche within the order organized by The United States since the end of the 2nd World War, which at this moment may look... It looks like it's eroding and in decline. And those institutions that Ukraine so much wanted to join, at least that Ukrainian national or western part of Ukrainian politics and society, the more we were trying to join them, also destroying our own post Soviet states, the less they were actually becoming appealing, attractive, losing their power of attraction and to whatever we might call by by soft power. And that's the whole problem.

So the the the the... That capacity for us, well, to build a sovereign state has been on the mind in Ukraine. And Ukrainian nationalists made a fatal bet on the international order, which may not be in place anymore. And that's... I think that's the the the core of Ukraine's tragedy and which makes Ukraine's future so bleak.

Yeah. Okay. I I wanna get back to that because I I think there's a lot in there. But I... You you mentioned some, you know, some revolutions that built strong states that Ukraine has not.

You know, some other examples that I have heard people talk about or that I have even used as examples, I mean, I've heard people compare Ukraine today to Israel in the 19 forties and 19 fifties as it was arising. I've heard the comparison to South Korea in the... In sort of in the aftermath of the Korean War. South Korea, a very underdeveloped country. There was no South Korea before the Korean War.

Now you have this false division on the Korean Peninsula. It continues to stay with us. There's also... I... You know, and this is in your writing.

You know, there's a post Soviet experience here. So in some ways, can't compare apples and oranges. You can't compare what Ukraine is going through right now to what in Israel or South Korea went through even or French Revolution. It's really more about, well, what did Georgia go through? And what did Kazakhstan go through?

And what did some of these others go through? So if we're looking for if we're looking for analogs, are there any analogs of Ukraine's current experience right now, whether they're successful or failed ones? And how does that post Soviet experience change or not change some of the things that you're talking about?

In fact, it it... Kind of like looking for the best model has also also its own dynamics. And in case of Ukraine, this kind of like regressive dynamics because... Well, during the Soviet Union, the main slogan was that we can catch up with America. Our...

I mean, Ukraine was a part and 1 of the most developed parts of the Soviet Union. And, well, our goal was to be better than the greatest power on earth. Then the Soviet Union was collapsing and disintegrating, and the issue of Ukrainian independence appeared. And the... 1 of the...

Kinda like the mobilizing slogans to vote for Ukraine's independence in 1991 was that... Was the use of the... Well, a bit kinda like not very honest use of statistics that, for example, if you look at the Ukrainian GDP or production and just look what what what was kinda like the dump is in the borders of the Soviet Ukraine, which was, at that moment, well, an integral part of the largest Soviet economy. Ukraine looks like in comparable terms to United Kingdom, to France, to Italy, to Germany, to to both the the richest and most developed countries of Western Europe at the... At that moment.

And what was the promise was that if we break from the Soviet Union, we... In just in a few years, we become something like France. And then the huge crisis of 19 nineties happened, and the ambitions became lower. So now you... Ukraine was comparing itself for...

To this pro Western nationalist part of Ukrainian politics to Vichygrat countries, to Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, that Ukraine is simply kind of, like, needs to go to... Through the same path. We didn't have our own 19 89 revolution, but maybe our Orange Revolution or Euromaidan revolution is something like a belated 1999. But eventually, we just move in the same path. We are joining NATO.

We are joining EU, and we will will we'll catch up at least with Poland. Now after the full scale war started, the ambitions are even lower. Again, another phase of regression. So Israel and South Korea indeed present in the Ukrainian discussions. And in particular about Israel, Zelensky said that we would like to be like Israel.

Said that the former chief commander said that it will be great to be like Israel. Budanov, who used to be the chief of military intelligence and now the chief of the Zelensky administration, also said that, well, Ukraine could become something like Israel. And this this is visual thinking primarily. But it it also says something about the Ukrainian elite and the exact... With whom exactly they would like to ally.

And this is also a part of that comparable thinking that let's become a frontier state the European Union where you... EU would basically outsource its security, and Ukrainians would be kinda like... I also compare it to the federati who were the so called barbarian types in the late Roman Empire who were allowed to settle within the limits of empire precisely in order to protect the borders against other barbarian tribes. And this is the role that, I think, many among the European allies, but, unfortunately, also many among the Ukrainian allies, are happy to take... To be a federati of the European Union against Russia.

But even even that future... And also South Korea as well, which would kinda, like, require direct participation of EU forces, if not The United States forces in protection of the... Of Ukraine, which is which looks like it's a complete fantasy, especially with escalated Russian nuclear threats. But even Israeli future, to become a kind of, like, a strong militaristic, ethnonationalist state protecting the frontier of Western civilization, it requires a lot of investment. It requires a consolidated political will, at least of the European Union.

And to where the current discussion goes into... In in Europe about the problems with continuing support for Ukraine, sustainability of that support over many years, it would be required to build a strong military industrial complex to sustain the army, to basically to reconstruct, rebuild Ukraine, to bring Ukrainians back to Ukraine, and it also requires certain conditions. Demographic situation is just just catastrophic at this moment and precisely in the storms as a catastrophe. It's also discussed within Ukrainian public sphere. So the problem is is becoming like Israel, if you even forget how it sounds for so many people in the world, it's...

That's probably... There there is no conditions for that. And South Korea also was a part... Became so much advanced and technological state, in particular because The United States were invest... Investing a lot in building the frontier state to prevent expansion of communist revolutions in in the East Asia and in South Asia.

There were other states like Taiwan as well, another example, in particular. And there are no such conditions anymore. United States is also withdrawing itself. And we all... Again, with Iran, we also see the limits of their power.

And... Well, and Georgia then appears as something like... Again, this is not... Another another level of regression, another level down that a small country which also had its own revolution in 2003, its own war with Russia, which ended in 5 years... In 5 days in 2008.

Then the oligarchic Georgian party came to power in 2012, removing strongly pro western president Mikhail Sekashvili. And since 2012, the Georgian Dream adapted to certain Russian demands without actually abandoning the strategic goal to join the European Union, which doesn't... In in a way, actually doesn't sound as completely out of touch with reality because it depends on which kind of European Union will be in some years. The European Union of politicians like Orban, when Orban was exactly the 1st and and perhaps the only 1, if I'm not mistaken, European leader who came to greet the victory of the Georgian Green Party in, I think, in 2024 when the

to to United And And But Orban we came to

the... Do Belize that. And had a dinner and showed political support for them. So if European Union is moving towards that kind of politicians with AFD rise in Germany, with possible defense victory in France, with possible far right victory in The United Kingdom, then Georgia may fit that that 1. But in general words, the idea is that Georgia was capable to maneuver between Russia and also benefiting a lot economically from the war with Russia from the war between Russia and Ukraine as becoming something like a transit state in that environment, maneuvering EU demands and criticism and pressure on the on the Georgian government and also China.

Building the relations with China and the the Chinese investment is also increasing in Georgia. And so on this kind of, like, manoe... A small state, which is capable to maneuver between the great powers, I think is a more sovereign state than what Ukraine may even dream to to become. But in order to take that route, it also requires the sovereign decision of the Ukrainian elites, which at this moment, well, maybe also looks like a visual thinking that the people who make decisions in Ukraine would be capable to organize sufficiently and to to make such a decision that's... At at least at this moment may look like as the decision to save the country.

I I share many of your conclusions about the international order and about the relative weakening of The United States and especially the Iran war shows some of that. But I wanted to to stick on Europe for a moment because, yes, Europe in some ways is... It seems sort of continually incapable of getting its things together, but you are seeing some signs of life. Like, yes, you get the rise of the AFD and, yes, French elections are coming up, but then you also have... Mean, we're recording October 1, The US ordering France and Germany to release diesel from their reserves.

Otherwise, The US will not export anymore. You know, that's a direct threat to, you know, European sovereignty. You see the French saying, okay. We will deploy military forces to The Gulf if we have to to help ensure energy flows here. When you think about Europe's position, you know, sort of abandoned by The United States, Russia is not a partner, China is now an economic competitor, not an export market for German cars, you know, all of these existential realities are are causing, you know, Europe to have to sort of, I I think, take things more seriously.

And in that context, is there more room for Ukraine to be part of a European project? I mean, it seems to me that if if Europe wants to be more martial or wants to be physically stronger, then Ukraine is an important partnership and that Ukraine might be able to use that leverage. Why why do you think that is not the case?

I mean, but there also depends whether the European elites can organize about that. And at this at this moment, the... I would... I I rather see the increased level of fragmentation of the European elites rather than the the unity about any sovereign course. I mean, there there there are projects like like what Macron would like to to to or to...

What what what he was proposing. Not ex... Not necessarily supported by German centrists. Then there are also, well, divisions between... Well, this is thousand Europe, less economically stable.

And the ideas that... Well, all this far right, right, in populist forces, in fact, propose something like that, more sovereignty to the states, but not necessarily more sovereignty to the European Union because that would require more consolidation, turning the EU into something like a federation at least with some unified army. And if you cannot rely on The United States, it also requires some sort of either transformation of NATO or building a European military alliance. And then how... Even in case if AFD comes to power in Germany and National Rally comes to power in France and Maloney stays in power in Italy, and The UK is taken by Farage.

Are they going to be well along about any clear strategic project for EU. I'm not so sure. And and the... Being kind of squeezed between stronger powers, The United States, Russia, China, it looks like like strategically important to become more unified, but there's also so much of the divisions that I immediately appear in in Europe. And so I've been talking all about the divisions between the nations in the European Union, but they're also probably growing divisions between society and political elites, in particular about Ukraine, in particular about the armament, in particular about all the austerity measures that it might have...

Might might require in the future. The... Now they're discussing the European budget, and there are proposals to make very serious cuts. And it's... It looks like the the the the actual political capacity of the European elites to turn into a sovereign actor is not that great at that moment.

The other part of this question, and and you alluded to this earlier, but I think we should bring it to the fore now, which is, you know, if Ukraine was losing its sovereignty and was disorganized in all these different ways, what is Russia doing? What is the logic behind Russia was doing? Because it seemed to me that Russia was getting everything it wanted, And only by, you know, going after Ukraine in the way that it did, it actually created a much bigger problem for itself, both in dealing with Ukraine, in dealing with Europe, and and for and and for not any kind of discernible reason. Where do you think? Because, you know, this is also, in some sense, Russia and Ukraine are mirror images of each other or cousins or brother...

Whatever metaphor you wanna use. Like, these these things are actually happening in both societies with the capture of the government by oligarchs and the pushback of society against it. So just where where is Russia in all of this from from your point of view? And and why do you think Russia took a step that, least on its face to me, still makes no strategic sense?

Yeah. But still many people share this viewpoint as in in the in the West that it didn't make any strategic sense, and I actually I actually disagree with that. And if you look... For example, if if you think about this from the from the viewpoint of the conflict with NATO, which is... Well, it it is objective.

Where is NATO right now? NATO is perhaps at the weakest position in terms of its capacity to, in particular, to make a strong response to any Russian aggressive act. Than ever since, I don't know, since 1991, perhaps even earlier when Gorbachev started the attempts to reconciliate and to to stop the Cold War. Right now, NATO is as fragmented as as it has never been perhaps. In particular, as an outcome of their incapacity to defeat Russia, or to support Ukraine to defeat Russia.

Right? So... And does it make sense for Putin? I think it makes a lot of sense. And so from this viewpoint, well, it doesn't look like an irrational act.

I mean, what what what... Whatever we think, mean, it's obviously not a moral justification what what has done. So since it led to to to huge destruction, to huge loss of life. But from the point of view of the Russian leader who wants to make Russia stronger against NATO, at this moment, it looks like Putin has succeeded. Then in terms of in terms of Ukraine, right, an argument that Ukraine was actually much more Russia sympathetic before Russia annexed Crimea, before Russia supported the the war in the bus or maybe even instigated the war in the bus, and especially after Russia started the full scale invasion, which is true.

Right? There was... So there have been many more Russia sympathetic Ukrainians and, well, pro Russian parties polled, like, considerable number of votes. Before 2014, the party of regions, not not necessarily a pro Russian party, but still, which was something like what I mentioned about Georgian scenario trying to to to to be kind of like a bridge between Russia and EU and playing on something unsuccessfully. And the Communist Party, which was simply calling to reestablish a union between Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, they had the majority in the parliament.

They could poll the majority in the in the elections. And so, of course, the the... This whole spectrum of Ukrainian politics is now gone, repressed, eliminated, disintegrated. Many of those politicians are now in pro Western camp or simply supporting Zelensky or in exile and so on. And so, yeah, was it worse?

I mean, the... It it it also depends... I mean, if if if you look on this in the longer term, right, and it does not necessarily mean that Ukrainians would be forever hostile to Russia. Even though... However counterintuitive it sounds now.

The... Let's think about it. For example, United States are maxed the bigger part of Mexico in in the middle of the 19th century. Is Mexico, like, whatever hostile to The United States? Not exactly.

Like, so many Mexicans actually come into The United States to... For for work. And and it depends not so much on the historical grievances that now they now think about that as well. California used to be a part of Mexico.

Country.

Of in And

we

we

have

a significant part of its people territory, in particular because of the Russian actions and support of the separatists in Al Khazia in South Ossetia. But in 2012, they get a party that tries to accommodate to to Russia, even if not recognizing that the Abkhazia and South Ossetia are independent states. Obviously, totally dependent on Russian support. But still, well, Georgia is trying to get along with that and is still retaining that, like, chance that in case of any change in Russia, in case of any change in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they may eventually acquire those territories back. So in terms of...

And also, there is also a very important domestic dimension on which I am, like, emphasizing, 1st of all. When Russia started the war in Ukraine and... Which led to the so called relocation or emigration of the political opposition from from Russia to the to other states, to EU, to Georgia, to Kazakhstan and other places. Did Russia consolidate around Putin? In fact, it did.

And there have been so many of... It's just, for example, we need to think about the overall strategy of what Ukraine and NATO was doing at least since 2022. There was, in fact, no... So not so much serious chance to defeat Russia on the battlefield. However, the overall strategy was rather to undermine Russia from within, to impose so much of the cost by sanctions, by obviously also casualties on the battlefield by...

Most recently, the direct attacks on the key sectors of Russian economy, oil refineries in particular, these big logistical storages that Ukrainian drones were pretty successful to attack. But the idea is... The idea behind that is that the Russian population would start to feel the costs of the war. The Russian business would start to feel the costs of the war, and it it would increase the pressure on Putin to stop the war on whatever... So, basically, to to surrender some of his key demands on on Ukraine and to, for example, to stop the war with the current frontline and to freeze the conflict.

But this is not happening. Russia or... Well, the the the the the the Russian elites, quite possibly falsified significantly the most recent election outcomes. This is what we know from the independent investigations. But this also means that even if the majority of Russians did not vote for the...

For for Putin's party, United Russia, but still this shows that the Russian elite is still around Putin, and it didn't use the elections and all the growing discomfort and grievances that appeared after successful Ukrainian attacks to undermine Putin's regime despite the... So many expectations among the rest of the Western experts, politicians that this would lead precisely to that. And the consolidation of the regime, the also the emergence of the big number of beneficiaries of the war in Russia in the military industrial sector, in the civilian sectors that are also in connection to the military production. Among the businesses, the Russian billionaires, in particular, becoming richer and richer during the war. There are important beneficiaries that are...

Have become more invested and consolidated around the war project. And this is... This has been this has been achieved precisely by the by by by the by the war. And the overall... Well, Putin's idea is in the reading of some of the researchers is that it's...

It it... He actually may not be so much about Ukraine or definitely not so much about how much territory of Ukraine he controls, but this is about transformation of Russia itself. This is about making Russia... Russian state more sovereign, both domestically and this leads to its consolidation of strong authoritarian regime, but a strong regime and also internationally. And it...

There've been so many kind of, like, expectations that something exactly opposite is happening, that Russia is losing any support in... Among the former allies and friends and in the... In particularly in the in the post Soviet neighborhood. And also, the Russians... Russian elites are shocked by the invasion.

Russian citizens are not exactly supporting the invasion, but this has changed. And the outcome might be that Russia is emerging from this war is a stronger state than it was before.

Mhmm. Yeah. I... And this is why I was worried about only an hour because I could talk to for 2 more hours, but I'm gonna try start to at least get us to close the 1st chapter of our conversation and beg you to come back. But that's an interesting point, and I I kinda see the point that you're making.

But it also to me cuts against some of your writing about how... Or or at least the class based component of this conflict itself in both. And I think you can make... And I think you have made the case that for... Russian elites are profiting from the war.

I think you can make the inconvenient and unpleasant truth that Ukrainian elites are profiting from the war. But I'm not sure that you can say that the normal subaltern to use, you know, some of the language from your papers, you know, the working class person in Ukraine or Russia is not doing better from the war. And increasingly, the costs of the war are being borne by those people as the war becomes more about let's blow up energy infrastructure, let's blow up warehouses, let's blow up science centers, let's blow up schools. I mean, the actual day to day life of both Russians and Ukrainians is now the battlefield more so than Donetsk and Luhansk and random lines to nowhere. So is there a...

You know, I hear what you're saying, but is the long term cost to Russian society actually a greater danger to to Putin's project? And ditto that for Ukraine. Is the long term cost to Ukrainian society a bigger threat to what Zelenskyy or what, you know, these transnational leads that you're talking about are thinking about? Tell me a... And that's a that's a way for you to talk about the class based nature of the conflict too as we start to

wrap up. That's that's a very important question. And to a big extent, I agree. When we are speaking about the achievements, right, these are primarily the achievements of Putin or the narrow click around Putin, but I still think that he he feels pretty much satisfied with how everything is going. Of course, yeah, probably, he did have certain expectations that the so called special military preparation 2022 would quickly lead to success, and it obviously failed.

And... But since then, we see that certain kind of, like, a deeper structural forces are still kinda, like, bent the outcome of

the

conflict into the Russian... Into Putin's side. But, yeah, the Russians and Ukrainians are obviously the the complex diverse societies. They consist from from classes from different social groups. And there are winners and there are also losers.

In Russia itself, in fact, there are groups of workers, in particular, working in the military industrial sector for whom the wages basically doubled in real terms. It's not nominal wage, a real wage doubled. And they they they they they feel their support for the... What's going on. They are part of the loyal electorate for Putin.

There are groups which who lose, And this this, in particular, the more like globalized cosmopolitan middle class cut from the... World. The we're the world. Very And there were also many opportunities open for about for the Russian business as a result of the, well, Western companies going out and the appropriation of their assets, the new opportunities with the the military production and so on. That wealth that that is accumulated by the Russian rich is is an outcome of the war to a large extent.

Mhmm. An interesting development was also in particular about the regional inequality in in Russia where actually many of the poorer regions that those regions were... Which were, like, deprived in the post Soviet years. But precisely because of the concentration of the military production in them, something like a Rust Belt, they quickly got kind of like a flow of money to them, and they started to improve on relative terms to historically reach regions in Russia. And here based on on the analysis that is done by Russian political economist, who's in particular, like, looking on this regional discrepancies, who won...

Who lost among among Russian... In the Russian society. So it's in it's in in the interest of Putin, but not just in his own interest. But it also doesn't mean that what Putin does is necessarily in the national interest of Russia. And this distinction between between between what what is beneficial for the Russian holding clique, for the Russian holding class as a whole, and for the Russian society as a whole.

I think this... That's... It's still important to to to maintain, and, obviously, I do not dilute it. These are only partially convergent interests, but they are also divergent. And speaking about Ukraine, there are obviously even more divergences.

So the the the the... You you said that the Ukrainian reach is benefiting the war. They are also different. Well, the traditional Ukrainian oligarchs looks like losing significantly from the war. This has...

Specialist became more acute. This year is the Russian intensified bombardment of the metal works factories in in Ukraine, which was a very important part of the Ukrainian export before the war, and now it's almost destroyed. The Ukrainian agricultural sector, which cannot export the production, the harvest because of the... Well, at the Russian bombing of the Ukrainian ports. And and...

But at the same time, Zelensky looks like to build his kind of, like, mafia style patronage network where his cronies made kind of, like, good money during the war. And, you know, more and more from each of the new package of the anti corruption investigations. But at the same time, nobody in that network has has been punished in any meaningful way. Many who could easily escape Ukraine and just obviously undermine any remaining legitimacy of of Zelensky government at this moment. But also speaking about, let's say, less privileged troops, the Ukrainian professional middle class that's especially grouped around the Western NGOs, they benefited from the war to to to to a big extent.

And for for them, it was even though, like, the the whole war was, like, almost, like, explicitly the moment of opening opportunities. In 2022, on on the... On this wave of enthusiasm and the 1st successes in defeating the Russian invasion, they were looking at this not simply as a defeat of Russia, but as also as an opportunity to change Ukraine in the way that they would feed their dreams, to make something that was impossible before the war. So 1 of the relatively known Ukrainian writer wrote in 2022 that we pay a horrible price. But for that price, we built a Ukraine of our dreams.

And what he meant specifically was, in particular, removing Russian language from Ukrainian cities, making, well, a nationalist dream coming true, diversifying Ukraine, decolonizing, decolonizing. And, well, even looking at this not simply in terms of, like, narrow material interest, The ideological agendas that became possible to to realize this symbolic status to improve for the... For Ukrainian intellectuals coming to the West now and speaking as Ukrainian voices and acquiring international, well, fame and and and so on and so forth. So for for... Not not for not for many, not for all of Ukrainians, but at least for some of Ukrainians, the war became kind of like the an opportunity to pursue their collective and individual strategies to improve their wealth and status.

And also, yeah, coming back to the lowest part of the of the Ukrainian society, well, the workers, the workers are indeed carrying the high... The the heaviest burden of of the war because these are the people who cannot bribe themselves out of the conscription. The the whole... Again, speaking about beneficiaries, the the whole economy or, like, black gray economy around conscription, which involves not simply bribes to the conscription officers, but also bribes to the portuguards, bribes to the doctors who can write fake medical certificates that you do not... Are not fit to fight in the army.

It is estimated in billions of dollars. And this this billions are also appropriated by specific people in Ukraine. And if you're... Well, if you're an IT guy who can pay, like, several thousand thousands of dollars to get you a fake medical certificate certificate and solve the issue with the conscription office, you are in a in a privileged situation. But most of the Ukrainian workers cannot do this.

And they are conscripted and they're sent to die or they look for other opportunities to leave the country.

Unfortunately, we have to leave it there. But I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.

Yeah. I did.

Thank you. And I hope I hope you'll come back home. Thank you for listening to the Jacob Shapiro podcast. If you enjoyed today's conversation, you can find more episodes, essays, a link to our substack, and tons more analysis at jacobshapiro.com. And if you ever want to reach out directly with questions, feedback, guest ideas, if you want to inquire about booking me for an event or any of my consulting services, you can email me at Jacob@JacobShapiro.com.

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