The Telegraph’s recent article about “The slow death of the coalition of the willing”, which was analyzed here after going viral on social media among Russians and “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” alike, entailed a startling prediction. According to the authors, “If Europe fails to back Ukraine or does not keep its promises to Kyiv, the geopolitical consequences could be severe. Future Ukrainian governments could turn away from the unreliable West to other powers in the neighbourhood.”
A day later, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service reported that “European bureaucrats intend to continue to deceive the Ukrainian people, hoping to use them as ‘cannon fodder’ in the confrontation with Russia. To prevent Ukrainian disillusionment and an ‘anti-European turn’ in Little Russia in the coming years, Brussels offered pre-accession talks with Ukraine in June of this year as a sweetener.” Casual observers might therefore believe that Ukraine could indeed meaningfully turn away from the West one day.
After all, it’s extraordinarily rare that a top Western media outlet and Russian spooks arrive at the same conclusion, so many might be under the impression that this is a credible scenario. To be sure, history is rife with examples of unexpected pivots unfolding with gusto, so anything could hypothetically happen. In this particular scenario, a post-Zelensky government could exploit popular disappointment with the West to reorient Ukraine closer to Turkiye and/or relatively repair relations with Russia.
The first possibility would be predicated on Turkiye’s centuries-long ties with Southern Ukraine, build upon Ankara committing to provide maritime security guarantees to Ukraine, and make the country a de facto Turkish protectorate. Since Turkiye is already helping the US contain Russia along its entire southern periphery in the South Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and Central Asia, expanding the scope of its containment role to the Black Sea would be acceptable for Washington amidst a Ukrainian-European rift.
What would be unacceptable for it would be if Ukraine attempts to relatively repair relations with Russia even if this is done in parallel with reorienting closer to Turkiye in an attempt to allay American fears. In that event, the US would reasonably worry that the Russian-friendly half of post-Zelensky Ukraine’s balancing act might become something more meaningful, which could in turn risk restoring the Kremlin’s influence over Ukraine and thus neutralizing the country’s role in the post-war security architecture.
The US would accordingly be expected to activate the nationwide protest network under its control, the existence of which is arguably proven by the protests in support of recently dismissed Defense Minister Mikhail Fyodorov, for legitimizing a “deep state” coup by the secret police and/or military. If these efforts don’t suffice for replicating “EuroMaidan” and severing Russian-Ukrainian relations, then another civil war would likely follow, except this time waged from the nationalist cradle of Western Ukraine.
For as much as the Telegraph fears the scenario of Ukraine meaningfully turning away from the West and Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service hopes that it’ll happen, it’s unrealistic to expect that the US would peacefully allow this after all that it invested to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian bastion. The US would rather spark another Ukrainian Conflict that could once again become a NATO-Russian proxy war than let the country return to Russia’s “sphere of influence” even if that’s what most of its people want one day.
