Ukraine and the European Union should hope that the Kremlin will build the Kerch bridge. Otherwise, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be forced to pierce the "land corridor" to the Crimea via Mariupol, which is highly undesirable for the West. The Ukrainian army today is in a better condition than three years ago, so the Kremlin blitzkrieg will choke. On the borders of the EU will begin a protracted war. The Ukrainian economy will collapse, and thousands of refugees will flee to European countries. Brussels will have to puzzle over what to do with Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
With such apocalyptic forecast, the expert of the Institute of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, professor of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy Andreas Umland. His reflections was published by the English-language edition of Kyiv Post.
According to the expert, Kiev and Brussels should hope that Russian engineers will find a way to erect a "damned bridge" (the Umland-KR wording) across the Kerch Strait, regardless of the bad geology. Otherwise, Putin will solve the problem of supplying the Crimea with military methods. "Considering that by the present moment the Ukrainian army has become rather efficient, this development of events is likely to lead to a large-scale and protracted Russian-Ukrainian war along the northern shores of the Azov Sea," Umland wrote.
He predicts that the fighting will unfold on the line Mariupol-Berdyansk-Melitopol. The Ukrainian economy will not withstand such pressure, the population is even more. The war will provoke, the German political scientist believes, mass resettlement to the EU countries. "It may happen that hundreds of thousands of people decide to flee from a knowingly losing war and impending poverty. Such a massive movement of the population in addition to the war itself can lead to the fact that the Ukrainian economy and, as a consequence, the Ukrainian state as a whole, may lose their functionality. Such a development of events can even more intensify the crisis of the refugees flooding the EU because of the millions of Ukrainians fleeing from the growing chaos in their homeland, "said the political scientist..
The European expert said that the forecast is too gloomy, and the likelihood of its implementation is not high. But at the same time he once again stressed that Ukraine will be safer if the passage through the strait is still built. "We all have to hope that Russian geologists and engineers will find a way to build this damned bridge," Umland summed up..
In the Ukrainian segment of Facebook, a serious scandal broke out. The German political scientist was accused of regretting the fighting capacity of the Ukrainian army. Say, he openly admitted that the increased power of the Armed Forces of Ukraine poses a problem for European politicians. It is desirable for them that Putin should take Ukraine quickly and without unnecessary consequences for the West - this is how some observers interpreted the text of Umland. The expert tried to justify himself. In one of the comments, he noted that his thoughts were misinterpreted.
"Please note that this article was written for a western audience and published in Kyiv Post. Then she was transferred to the "Observer". The purpose of this text is to illustrate the role of the EU in the stable development of Ukraine, "Umland said.. He further stated that Putin was interested in preserving the "Crimean consensus" as the basis of his own regime. He needs to successfully "master" the annexed peninsula. To achieve this goal, the Russian president is ready to go far, I'm sure the political scientist.
In fact, the publication of Umland sheds light on the mentality of the European political and intellectual elite, which is really afraid of the conflict with Russia. At the same time, European pacifists who want to "pacify" Putin at the expense of Ukraine, do not take into account the strategic imperatives of the Kremlin. First, providing the Crimea is by no means the only reason Moscow can decide to create a "land corridor". In the conditions of falling popularity of the current government and a lot of economic troubles, the Kremlin may be interested in a "small victorious war", but not in a protracted conflict. When Umland talks about the devaluation of the hryvnia and the collapse of the Ukrainian economy, he should not forget the state of Russian finances. The siege of fortified Mariupol can cost Moscow dearly, both in the form of direct costs and new sanctions, and through indirect losses: the inevitable growth of the dollar, the flight of capital, panic on the exchange. The Great War with Ukraine can turn into social cataclysms in Russia itself. It is doubtful that their society is ready to pay such a large price for the "corridor" to the Crimea, writes specifically for the Crimea. Realities political scientist Sergey Stelmakh.
Second, Putin's ultimate goal is not the "Crimean consensus", which has lost political appeal for the Russian electorate. The Moscow Imperials are interested in the liquidation of Ukraine as a state, and not simply in recognizing the annexation of the peninsula or the implementation of the "Minsk agreements" in a profitable scenario. They plan to weaken and then liquidate Ukraine through an acute domestic political crisis. The most successful option for Moscow - if in Ukraine even for a short time there will be a power vacuum, as it was in February-March 2014. In this case, the "hybrid army" of Putin can go on the offensive. What exactly they will justify aggression ("corridor" to the Crimea or protection of "Russian-speaking"), does not matter.
The third. Kerch bridge is primarily a project for "mastering" money. He was given to the oligarch Arkady Rothenberg. In Russian and foreign media he was repeatedly called "Putin's friend". The solution of logistical problems of the Crimea is important, but of secondary importance. Argument Andreas Umland that Putin is interested in the successful development of the Crimea - a debatable issue. Apparently, some European intellectuals believe that Moscow intends to turn the "squeezed" territory into a kind of showcase of a renovated Russia. The real actions of the Russian government and the Crimean "Sovmin" point to the opposite.
Judging by Umland's arguments in the article, he overestimates the significance of the annexed peninsula for Vladimir Putin and belittles the role of Ukrainian soldiers. In fact, the Ukrainian army and security forces - the first line of defense of Europe from the Moscow revanchists. If Kiev loses, the Kremlin will at the first opportunity start blackmailing the EU countries, demanding concessions in the Baltic countries or putting forward NATO ultimatums.