The denazification of Ukraine is one of the explicitly stated goals of Russia’s special operation, but it’s probably the vaguest of them all, perhaps even intentionally so in order to give the Kremlin flexibility. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just elaborated on it in detail though over the weekend during a Q&A session at this year’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum. The present piece will review what he said before analyzing it in the context of the ongoing Russian-US talks for ending their proxy war in Ukraine.
Lavrov never once said the word “denazification”, but he spent a significant amount of time talking about things that are connected with this goal. The relevant part begins around halfway through his answer to a question about the Kremlin’s working relations with the Trump Administration. At some point he brought up how Trump’s unofficial Envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff recognized the importance of resolving the territorial dimension of this conflict, which prompted Lavrov to issue an interesting clarification.
In his words, “We are not about territories. We are about people who live on these lands, whose ancestors lived there for centuries, who founded cities like Odessa”, which preceded him touching upon how Ukraine has deprived them of their human, linguistic, and religious rights from 2014 onward. He also brought up how Zelensky dehumanized ethnic Russians and recently said how much he hates them. A few words about Ukraine’s glorification of Nazi-era collaborators rounded out the rest of his answer.
His interlocutor then told him how Ukraine won’t accept anything less than a return to its prewar borders, which Lavrov responded to by saying that “It’s not about them accepting. It’s about making 100% certain that the people who have been living there for centuries are not deprived of their inherent rights”. He then accused the EU of covering up for a Nazi regime and ignoring the human rights situation in Ukraine. Lavrov also said that Russia is restoring these same rights in the regions that voted to join it.
Observers should remember that Russia legally regards the entirety of the four disputed regions as having unified with their historical homeland after September 2022’s referenda and that one of the constitutional amendments that were passed in 2020 prohibits ceding any of the country’s territory. As can be intuited from Lavrov’s de facto elaboration of denazification over the weekend, a large part of this goal has to do with restoring the rights of indigenous Russians that were taken from them by Kiev.
From Russia’s legal perspective, it now has direct responsibility for implementing this across all of Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk), Kherson, and Zaporozhye, but it doesn’t yet control the entirety of their territories. That which has already come under its control was achieved via military means while the remainder is being pursued via hybrid military-diplomatic ones of continuing to advance on the ground while holding talks with the US partially centered on ensuring Ukraine’s voluntary withdrawal from here.
Denazification in the rest of rump Ukraine, which is understood in this context mostly as restoring the rights of its indigenous Russian minority, will only be pursued via diplomatic means per what Lavrov clarified with regard to how “We are not about territories” in the sense of Russia’s goals in this conflict. Its only associated one came over half a year into the conflict after September 2022’s referenda led to the constitutional imperative of obtaining control over the entirety of these new regions as explained.
The locals overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in order for it to restore their rights that were taken from them by Kiev, or in other words, to directly implement denazification as it’s now better understood to mean after Lavrov’s latest clarification. The newly interconnected constitutional and humanitarian imperatives of achieving this across all of those regions explains why Russia continues to employ hybrid military-diplomatic means to this end.
It’s in connection with this that Witkoff reportedly advised Trump that the fastest way to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine is to recognize the legitimacy of Russia’s claims over those disputed territories, but Trump’s Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg allegedly pushed back against his proposal. Kellogg is back in the news after his suggestion to divide Ukraine into spheres of influence between Russia and the West upon freezing the Line of Contact and imposing a 15-mile demilitarized zone (DMZ) along both sides.
Lavrov hinted during his Q&A session that these Western peacekeepers would really be deployed to fight Russia, which his colleague Rodion Miroshnik separately lent credence to by warning about how this could lead to “a new level of escalation”. Another argument against Kellogg’s suggestion is that it wouldn’t ensure that the rights of indigenous Russians on Kiev’s side of his proposed DMZ, both within Russian-claimed lands and beyond, are restored. Denazification would therefore remain incomplete.
Lavrov addressed these implications by wondering aloud that “you want to have peacekeepers to keep the same regime which is now headed by Zelensky? You don’t want to ask this regime whether it would be interested in implementing the international commitments including the UN Charter regarding the rights of minorities for national minorities language and religious rights?”, before declaring that “they want to use this force not to keep peace, but to keep and protect the Nazi regime, and this is the key.”
His last point aligns with what Miroshnik said last week about how Western peacekeepers’ additional goal in Ukraine would be “to take control over [Ukraine’s] political regime militarily while retaining external governance of this land regardless of how negotiations may end.” With his and Lavrov’s words in mind, observers can intuit that denazification also implies regime change in Ukraine due to Russia’s belief that Zelensky won’t ever restore the rights that Kiev took away from indigenous Russians.
In full contravention of their publicly stated values, the Europeans want to indefinitely perpetuate this sordid state of affairs through the plans that some of them have to dispatch troops there under the cover of peacekeepers like Lavrov and Miroshnik explained, which is unacceptable for Russia. Credible fears of being targeted by Russia if they send their forces to Ukraine, the US’ refusal to extend Article 5 defense guarantees to their troops there, and internal divisions within this coalition could hamstring this plan.
So long as Western peacekeepers don’t occupy Ukraine, then Russia’s implied long-term hopes for regime change will remain possible since Zelensky could be democratically replaced during the next elections, but only if they’re truly free and fair, which of course can’t be taken for granted. The formal deployment of foreign forces could help him defraud the election or lead to his patrons replacing him with another like-minded figure whose policies towards indigenous Russians would remain the same.
Either scenario, Zelensky’s (likely) fraudulent re-election or his replacement with a like-minded figure, would greatly impede the maximum implementation of Russia’s denazification goal in this conflict. In that case, Russia would probably double down on military means over diplomatic ones for denazifying the rest of the four disputed regions that remain under Ukrainian control, which would force the US to choose between escalating against Russia or coercing Ukraine into withdrawing from there.
If Trump is serious about reducing the risks of World War III with Russia by miscalculation and speedily “Pivoting (back) to Asia” in order to more muscularly contain China, which first requires resolving the Ukrainian Conflict, then he’ll go with the second option despite the pushback that he’ll receive. His opponents will predictably criticize him for forcing people who didn’t participate in September 2022’s referenda to either accept coming under Russian control or flee into rump Ukraine.
The optics could easily be manipulated to accuse Trump of betraying democratic values and even supporting “ethnic cleansing” if this leads to a mass exodus, but he could compellingly counter by arguing that the greater good of averting World War III and ending the killing justifies this. He might also add that letting the conflict continue could turn populated areas within the Russian-claimed but Ukrainian-controlled lands, like Zaporozhye city with its almost one million residents, into wastelands.
If Trump coerces Ukraine into withdrawing from the disputed territories, then it’s possible that Russia could reciprocate this compromise by limiting its denazification goal to the entirety of its new regions instead of extending it to the rest of rump Ukraine. The odds of this mutual compromise would rise by a lot if Trump also coerces Ukraine into agreeing to a demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers and Russia gives the US privileged resource investments in return.
What’s most important to know is that the Kremlin’s flexibility on denazification only realistically relates to whether or not it’ll insist on this being implemented in rump Ukraine. Up until now and judging by all public statements on this issue, Russia’s minimum demand in this respect is that the entirety of its new regions be denazified, which can only happen upon obtaining full control of them. If this can’t be achieved by diplomatic means, then military ones will continue being employed, with all that entails.
Trump should therefore take Witkoff’s reported advice seriously by recognizing the legitimacy of Russia’s claims over those disputed regions in order to avoid being placed in the dilemma of having to choose between escalating against Russia or coercing Ukraine into withdrawing from there. Truth be told, the US is already in such a dilemma, it just hasn’t realized it yet. It’s therefore better to peacefully resolve this now than to wait for the media to figure it out and put more pressure on him to escalate against Russia.
In pursuit of this, Russia could limit its denazification goal if the US assists it in achieving this in its new regions, which could set the basis for expanding the range of their mutual compromises in Ukraine by opening the door to discuss the “Trans-Dnieper” and resource dimensions that were proposed. Through these means, Russia and the US could overcome the impasse in their negotiations, thus preventing hardliners on both sides from exploiting this to undermine their talks in furtherance of maximalist goals.
