The end of the war can be seen by winter, what’s next: the forecast of political analyst Gennady Druzenko

We all look forward to the moment when this brutal war will finally end. Years of pain, loss and uncertainty have made each of us dream of peace and stability. But at the same time, when the shelling stops, another question will come to the fore: what next? We should already think about what the future of our country will be, what challenges await us after the war and what development paths to choose. After all, the end of hostilities is not the end, but only the beginning of a new era.

Political analyst, lawyer, volunteer, co-founder and president of PDMSh named after Mykola Pirogov, Gennady Druzenko expressed the opinion that the active phase of the war will be over by winter. With the approach of winter, a critically important period will appear for Ukraine, which may become a turning point not only for its military operations, but also for its political and socio-economic future. This implies that Ukraine will face the difficult task of choosing from three possible paths of development, each of which has its own challenges and prospects.

According to him, the parties simply will not have the opportunity to continue fighting on such a scale. Despite the patriotic upsurge and constant propaganda from both sides, the number of people willing to kill and die for their homeland is getting smaller and smaller. The mobilization resource is becoming less qualitative every day. And there is simply no political will to announce general mobilization in Russia or to lower the age of mobilization to at least 20 years in Ukraine. After all, almost everyone who wanted or at least was not against fighting is already at the front, and the multi-million support armies on both sides prefer to destroy the enemy in absentia, that is, in absentia. In addition, the very ethos of war as an existential one (they say, only one will survive) has long been and irreparably undermined.

According to Druzenko, Ukrainians are increasingly convinced that the war is not going on for Ukrainian statehood as such, but for its borders. And the main question is who and how will be the beneficiary of Ukraine in these (new) borders. And this stimulates the smartest and most resourceful to think and invest resources not in the defense of the country, but in joining the team of (future) beneficiaries. The second front, on which the Ukrainian authorities are waging an uncompromising war against Ukrainian citizens and Ukrainian businesses, has already become much closer and more tangible for most Ukrainians than the front on which we are fighting the horde.

“Russians are also far from feeling an existential threat from the Ukrainian offensive, and therefore, from the motivation to save Russia at any cost. Despite the crazy propaganda, the Kursk offensive only confirmed the guesses of many Russian citizens: this is not their war. “Khokhly” are Nazis only in to Putin’s sick imagination, it is not scary to be under them, and the main thing is that the front line does not linger for a long time in your “small homeland”. Therefore, it will not work to mobilize the “huge country” as in 1611-1612, 1917-1920 or 1941-1945 It remains to fight with mercenaries and contractors, but with such intensity of utilization in Ukraine, they will simply not be taken anywhere.

Therefore, I consider both the Kursk Offensive and the Pokrovsky Offensive as the last trump cards of the parties before the war begins to slip in the winter and gradually fade away. But the stakes are not equal. The Russians have declared that they want to annex the Ukrainian Donbas forever and even wrote it in their own constitution, but it is not clear what we should do with thousands of square kilometers of the PRC if we continue to declare adherence to the UN charter and internationally recognized borders. 

… As Napoleon said, bayonets are good for any purpose, but sitting on them is inconvenient. The more “originally Russian” (subsidized) territories come under the control of Ukraine, the heavier the burden will be on our state in terms of their content. Let me remind you that the whole of Kurshchyna is a little less than 0.18% of the Russian territory.”, – emphasizes the political analyst.

In addition, Gennady Druzenko provided his forecast of the likely development of events.

“So, according to my forecast, the war in the trenches will begin to significantly slow down in the winter. Perhaps for a while the parties will compensate for this with a certain analogue of the “war of cities” during the Iran-Iraq war. That is, instead of capturing square kilometers, they will focus on destroying each other’s critical infrastructure. Because this requires much fewer people.But in this war to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure, I am afraid that the West and China will make sure that it goes down as quickly as possible, without causing shocks on global markets and man-made disasters felt far beyond the borders of Ukraine and Russia.

And then, when the front lines stabilize and become temporary, not recognized by anyone, but more or less strong borders of post-war Ukraine, the very internal logic of the war for independence will put us before a fundamental choice. Because the people will sooner feel than realize that the cause of this destructive war and the terrible victims it brought to the Ukrainian land is not only the “Kremlin grandfather” obsessed with phantom imperial pains (although he is primarily the one), but also the weakness and ineffectiveness of the Ukrainian state , which seemed not only to Putin an easy victim for the Russian bear. Therefore, statehood was preserved with an incredible effort and at a great cost. Its actual borders are not defined in Moscow or Yalta, but on the battlefield, where the dynamic balance of forces has been established between us and the enemy. As, by the way, almost always happened in real, not fictional history. After that, Ukrainians will be faced with the question of what to fill our independence with to make it strong? And that it guarantees not only the protection of individual identity, but also security, development, well-being and self-realization for its citizens.

And here we will have two and a half paths.

First. How Americans, French, Italians, Indians, having defended independence, sit down and agree on new rules of the game in post-war Ukraine. Call your Constitutional Convention. Relinquish the uncharacteristic functions of the president as a cornerstone and guarantor of Ukrainian statehood. Create a more balanced system of checks and balances. Make difficult compromises. Balance different branches and levels of government. Leave enough autonomous space for the individual and protect it with effective courts. To finally force our natural ego to earn for the common good.

The second way is more likely than the first. Find and believe in the next messiah. Especially since the war created and continues to create a whole pantheon of new heroes. “Parental fantasy,” as my teacher David Williams called it, is deeply rooted in human nature. Most do not like to take responsibility and nolens volens look for a “father” to whom they are ready to delegate the burden of choice, responsibility and freedom. Thus, we may have a moderate “messiah” Valery Zaluzhnyi or less moderate and more passionate Ukrainian “caudillos” appear on Bankova. In this case, there is a chance for radical reforms, which Ukraine desperately needs. After all, both Atatürk, Chiang Kai-shek, and Park Chung-hee were great modernizers who brought their countries from the third world to the first. Unfortunately, there are many more negative examples of Latin American and African dictators in uniform who brought their countries to the edge of civilization. Not sure if we’ll have any luck with the newfound “guide” as Asian tigers and not the other way around.

And the last option is not to radically change anything after victory. Let the country drift. To squabble between the remnants of her wealth close to power. Calls for international aid. Conduct endless negotiations with the EU. To write off all fakes on treacherous Muscovites. To feed the people with identity instead of development and well-being. To be proud of the heroes of the liberation struggle, especially the fallen ones (it’s safer that way), and to brand all critics of the regime as “Kremlin agents”. And to pump from the inside for decades. There are many examples.

Unfortunately, the possibility of outlined options increases from the first to the third in a geometric progression. Because, it seems, we have learned to fight, but there is still no agreement on a common future. But the choice is still ours…”.