The Duran has an introductory Ukrainian history lesson this morning on the heels of Alexander Zakharchenko’s announcement of the formation of Malorussiya and a transition to independent statehood over the next three years.
This announcement paves the way for the merger of the LPR (Lugansk People’s Republic) and DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) into one new country. It also signals that all of southern Ukraine wants to be free from Kiev since representatives were present all the way out to Odessa.
Informally to this point the two breakaway provinces have been calling themselves ‘Novorussiya.”
Now the gloves have come off with respect to the failing regime in Kiev. The Minsk II agreement is dead. Zakharchecko just told us that. So, now everyone will no longer be able to hide behind the empty rhetoric of implementing an agreement that none of the major players are a signatory of.
At the same time, this declaration does take off the table further reunification with Russia; a move I’m sure Putin appreciates as it will make it easier for him to negotiate with the U.S. on a formal solution in the future.
Because now those talks have to take place without the fiction of Minsk II acting as an excuse for nothing to change.
By taking reunification off the table Zakharchenko guts the neocon narrative that Vladimir Putin is trying to take over the world like they’ve done with Crimea for the last three years. The other thing it does is signal to the other ethnic groups that no longer want to be ruled by Kiev that they will have a home to come to when (not if) the Poroshenko government falls into chaos.
Moreover, this wouldn’t be happening now if there hadn’t been some discussion about it between Donald Trump and Putin when they met for more than two hours at the recent G-20 convocation of global oligarchs.
It Malorussiya does indeed survive this process, expect the whole of southern Ukraine all the way to Odessa to join them eventually. After that the Moldovan province of Transnistria will be free to do so as well. And all of it can enter into formal defense and economic treaties with the Russian Federation as well as enter the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The leaders of the Donbass have signaled in the past that they would be amenable to reunification, but in reality, that was a non-starter given the realpolitik of the situation in the wake of the 2014 coup against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.
But, what this really signals to me is that like the Obamacare replacement failure, so much of U.S. foreign and domestic policy had been hijacked by John McCain can be unfrozen. With his health problems are likely far worse than has been let on to this point, the neocon dream of war with Russia is in its death throes.
McCain has been the fulcrum by which nearly all of the Deep State’s opposition to Trump has depended on.
This is why they ramped up the “Russia is evil” rhetoric to 11 last week after the G-20 and why Tucker Carlson’s take downs of Max Boot and Lt. Col. Ralph Peters were so significant. The media will continue to spin this narrative for as long as possible, but in reality, the American electorate is moving on.
This is also why they pushed through the poorly-understood expanded sanctions on Russia and Iran. They were only going to have McCain for so long to push that through committee.
With McCain no longer in a position to block anything and his seniority on multiple important Senate committees in jeopardy it is likely that we will see a resumption of talks about Ukraine that are finally constructive. Trump doesn’t care about Ukraine. He’s not interested in funding Poroshenko’s war. The EU and IMF have reached their limit.
This announcement ups the time-table significantly to finally resolve this situation. And if the U.S. leaves Poroshenko out to dry, he won’t be in power much longer and Malorussiya can officially call for assistance from Moscow.