Andrew Korybko
Most Westerners already know that Ukrainian
nationalists fiercely hate Russia so they’re unlikely to fall for the fantasy
that he’s peddling to scare them away from supporting a ceasefire
Forbes contributor Melik Kaylan, who’s described by that outlet as having covered global geostrategic conflicts for three decades, published a highly speculative piece last week about “Moscow’s Hidden Plans For Exploiting A Ceasefire With Ukraine”. He predicts that “ultra-nationalist elements of the army (will) revolt and stage a coup against Zelensky for giving away Donbas and Crimea” if there’s a ceasefire, after which they’ll align with Russia due to being subjected to its propaganda and aliened by the West.
According to Kaylan, versions
of this approach have been employed by Russia in the past in Georgia and
Armenia, the first by supposedly meddling in its 2013 elections to get
conservative-nationalists elected and the second after pro-Russian veterans of
the original Karabakh War came to power. These are imperfect comparisons though
since neither had a military coup nor were the nationalist who came to rule
those countries driven by anti-Russian sentiment like is the case with most
Ukrainian nationalists.
While there do indeed still
exist some representatives of that ideology’s moderate school, in the sense of
those who are proud of the regional identity that’s formed around their lands
over the centuries but aren’t obsessed with hating Russia, the radicals still
far outnumber them. It’s therefore unrealistic to imagine that there are enough
moderates in the army to attempt a coup, that they wouldn’t be stopped by the
radicals, and then their new regime will successfully repair ties with Russia.
What’s much more likely is that the radicals among them might attempt a coup if there’s a ceasefire, perhaps with the support of the SBU, though it wouldn’t be for pro-Russian purposes but to perpetuate the conflict that they’re doomed to lose anyhow in order to become “martyrs” for their cause. Even if that doesn’t unfold or fails, there’s no way that they’d sit back and let moderates take over the armed forces and then repair ties with Russia. They’d either rise up on their own or be ordered to by the US.
