Ukraine. From Soviet Breadbasket to Western Engineered Basketcase.

The Breadbasket It Once Was.

Preamble.

A lot has been written about current events in Eastern Europe of late, most pointedly about the Russian invasion that western governments claim is imminent. This article will be looking at the current situation and the possible reasons for Moscow to carry out what Washington is sure that it will.

Yanks To The Rescue.

After a coup in 2014, the US State Department ensured that ‘its men in Kiev’ got the top jobs and started steering the country in a direction favorable to Washington’s interests. Many in the West praised the new ‘democracy’ (that had been achieved by overthrowing a democratically elected leader), yet that was the least of the country’s worries as it made its way forward. Many could draw parallels with what happened in post-Soviet Russia, everything being auctioned off or shipped out of the country, yet the awkward truth is that the Ukraine didn’t really have anything to pilfer for years before the coup due to a series of completely corrupt politicians having cleared the place out since 1991. It did still have remnants of its Soviet past, as well as a strong agriculture sector, some mining and steel.

That poses the first question : Why on earth would Russia invade and occupy a country that is in freefall? Much has already been said about the Crimean Peninsula becoming part of Russia in 2014, yet what western sources never quote are the immense figures that Moscow has spent trying to bring the place up to scratch again. The Kerch Bridge was obviously a huge investment as well as a showpiece, yet the Russian Federation has spent billions more in its attempts to reverse 25 years of neglect. The road ahead was always going to be a challenge, but with huge potholes quite literally in every road, that investment was very necessary. Now consider things on a national scale. Nobody in Russia has even the vaguest idea how high the costs would be, but bringing the whole country back up to today’s standards would bankrupt Russia. And for what? Anything that was worth anything has ‘disappeared’ over the last few decades with the last seven years seeing western enterprises either take everything else or poisoning the once rich Ukrainian land with GMO pesticides.

Politics and History.

Then we come on to the politics and history of the place. This excellent video is quite long, yet for someone who has the time, explains the last few hundred years of history very ably. Most parts of the country have fallen into and then out of various power spheres on multiple occasions meaning that the Ukrainian state as it exists today is not so much a modern invention, yet one that has had a very troubled past. Add to that the resurgence of right-wing extremism and a worship of nazism by so many and things become even more troubling. With so many different social and cultural groups, many of which seem opposed to any sort of internal harmony, is this the kind of situation that any right-minded country would willingly burden itself with?

The Politicians.

The political classes themselves also have a lot to answer for. Having spent the last 20 years rigging elections or organizing revolutions (just depending on who won or lost) does not inspire faith in the lawmakers. Neither do the frequent brawls that have been seen in the Rada (parliament). If the country is to be run as a democracy credible to western eyes, it has to be done right; a bunch of politicos with past histories of having hands in the till, on the throats of their opponents, in a ballot box or on a bullhorn organizing a protest just does not make the grade.

The Ukrainians.

Then we come onto the people themselves. The average Ukrainian to this day does not harbor hostilities towards either Russia or its people. To the contrary, the two peoples had until very recently considered themselves brothers, and should the nationalist rhetoric calm down, this sentiment would return. Yet for all the brotherly love between the the two, in many ways the two groups have grown apart since independence in 1991. Economically, they’ve been on a variety of economic paths since that time, yet as things stand today, the average Ukrainian is looking at a future with very little promise and in many cases rather enviously at his Russian counterpart. Millions of Ukrainians have already moved to Russia, a post-Maidan work market making the move necessary rather than desired. This has only exacerbated the population decline seen in the country since the fall of the USSR, this being reflected in the demographics of many other former Soviet states. Low fertility, emigration and a loss of territory explains to a degree the Ukraine’s downward trend, yet millions of people moving north into Russia says a lot about what the population think of their own country. Regarding a theoretical Russian invasion of the Ukraine, a portion of the quote made by Winston Churchill regarding the bombing of Dresden would very aptly describe the economic landscape that would greet any Russian invader; ‘we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land’.

Over The Fence.

Next we’ll have a look at the Ukraine’s neighbors. Obviously there’s Russia which by this point we’ve all got to know as well as the Donbass republics and Belarus. Then we have Poland, Romania and Moldova. Romania and Poland are both EU and NATO member states, Poland playing a far greater role in both organizations’ affairs than Romania whilst smaller Moldova is party to neither. All three countries are former Soviet states, yet both Moldova and Romania are fairly innocuous in the recent affairs regarding Russia. Poland on the other hand has been vociferous to say the least in its posture towards Moscow and more than one writer has commented that Warsaw’s politics are closer to those Washington than of Brussels. The history of Poland is inexorably entwined with that of the western half of the Ukraine, extreme right-wing politics being just as prevalent amongst the younger generation there as it is in the Ukraine. Poland is as much the leading edge of NATO’s Drang nach Osten as the Baltic states, and something that Russia does not want as a close neighbor through choice.

Industry.

As has been discussed before, Ukrainian industry is hardly even a shadow of its previous self, corruption being the main cause of its failure. That aside, the government in Kiev has hardly made any great steps to remedy the situation. The recent affairs regarding Motor Sich are a case in point with investment from Chinese company Skyrizon being halted on national security grounds. The country hardly has any aviation interests today, yet the one chance this company had to succeed has been scuppered by the government, doubtlessly after being ‘advised’ from Washington. Many parallels could be drawn between the decline of Ukrainian industry and that seen in the Steel and then Rust Belts of the US, yet this has happened far faster and with far more devastating economic effects. Moreover, the entrepreneurship and innovation seen in other former Soviet states just has not emerged here. With so little on the table yet so little else in the offing, rather than the question of where a Russian occupation could help, it is more where that occupation could start, the place now being in such rack and ruin that even one of the five-year plans so beloved by the Bolsheviks would be hard pressed to make any noticeable impact. In short, the work necessary to make the place work again is just not worth the work in any new leader’s future.

Summary.

Any summary on this theme is going to be a balance between the plusses and minuses this hypothetical situation offers, and it’s not difficult to see that it’s an absolute no-brainer for Moscow to even entertain the idea of taking over in the Ukraine.

The murky goings on in the swamp that has become the Rada plumb new depths each day, steering an already lost country into further uncharted waters. Even if Moscow was to take on the country where it left off in 1991, the dead weight and corrupt culture surrounding Ukrainian lawmaking would take years to eliminate. The political opportunism we’ve seen, especially since the 2014, has left no opportunity for the country to thrive as it once could. US lackeys make up the majority of lawmakers in Kiev and unless Russia was going to administer the place from Moscow, the project would fail from the start.

As much as Russia does not want a completely bankrupt nation on its doorstep, it does not want to bankrupt itself in the hopes of saving it. Kiev has only survived its hand to mouth existence to date through holding out one hand to the IMF whilst the US has its other arm up its back. With the level of debt that the country already has, this is not an economic situation that any occupier would want to inherit. Even if we were to forget the previous points, one only has to scale up the investment made in Crimea to see how much is would cost to bring the country back where it was before we factor in the additional costs of sending it where it should have gone years ago.

Many say that Russia would pillage the place, yet as is today, there’s nothing left to steal, a barren economic wasteland that would be shunned by even the most voracious. The country is today a huge black hole with millions of the Ukraine’s own people moving to Russia, saying ‘the country is no longer mine’…