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I continue to find myself baffled at the assertion of this counterfactual. Like, yes, maybe in a different timeline, Ukraine and its people just collectively shrugged their shoulders, lowered the bicolor Ukrainian flag and replaced it with the Russian tricolor, but I don't think we can really say with any earned level of confidence that the change of flag would have cost less than 3-4 figures of lives. There is the implication here that Ukrainians have, or should have, a kinship with Russia (similar to the kinship between Sweden and Finland), and I simply do not think this follows. I, in fact, have been under the impression that Ukrainians already didn't like Russia long before the events of the Euromaidan, as they very much wanted nothing to do with the legacy of Communism and the USSR.
But let's grant the hypothetical that Russia got to peacefully absorb Ukraine. What then? Is Ukraine run like the rest of the Slavic East, sinking to the same levels of stunted ecnonomic development and low societal trust, having to somehow cajole Russia into giving it distinct privileges a la Chechnya?
Definitely not what I meant. Think more in terms of Hong Kong and China, or the varied demands America has placed on Central and South American states vis a vis drug manufacturing; some shared history, but most of it is a big player who gets to tell small players what to do. But since there isn’t any doubt that the big kids wins every fight, we don’t have entire cities reduced to rubble.
I think you’ve also papered over the real ethnic differences that underlie the ongoing conflicts in the Donbas for the past 10 years, although you certainly aren’t alone there. Western Catholic Ukrainians want to join the west and Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians want to reintegrate with Russia. This conflict wouldn’t have happened if splinter states for ethnic Russians were permitted, as the local referenda asked for. This war is not a noble fight between a tyrant and an underdog, but a civil war backed by opposing global powers. Seems bad to me.
According to Wikipedia, 72 % of Ukrainians are Orthodox and 9 % are Catholic (including Greek-Catholics). The numbers were already essentially the same before 2013, ie. before Crimean invasion. It's pretty clear that already then rather a greater share than 9 % wanted to join the west, and certainly far less than 72 % wanted to reintegrate with Russia.
Perhaps before talking about papering over the real ethnic (here: religious?) differences underlying the conflict it's worth it to check what the actual differences even are.
My bad, posted off the cuff and should have been more granular and done a bit more research. The conflict best maps as Catholics + Ukrainian Orthodox vs Russian Orthodox. This link from 2021 has UOC-MP as the largest denomination in the country, which is now 4% according to Wikipedia. Here’s a very nice map of the Ethnic/linguistic composition of Ukraine, notably missing from the exhaustive wiki page on Ukrainian demographics. I’m sure there’s more interesting West vs. East stuff I could dig up, but it’s not worth my time. We’re pwned, and it’s only going to get worse.
(Huh. This is what it must have felt like to be a Quaker during WWII.)
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I'm sure there are Eastern Orthodox Ukranian's who wish to reintegrate w/ Russia, but the actual actions of the war show that while there may have been some eastern citizens who may have no liked the shift toward the EU, it seems overwhelming, even in the East, they dislike the whole invading the country thing more.
If the people in the Donbass wanted to split from Ukraine, there are a myriad of political ways to do it, that would actually get you widespread international support. Look at Scotland or the Basque people, for example. However, one way to lose that support is to team up with a neighboring country to start a low-scale terrorist action within your action for nearly a decade, then play the victim once the actual sovereign government punches back.
What of the democratic election of Yanukovych, based on support from the Eastern Russian speakers? What of the Donbas referendums for independence? The context for Ukrainian secession is more Bosnian War than Scottish progressives. This is Eastern Europe, my man; the legends aren’t good, but Грозный.
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This is not what being a client state means. The world is full of client states that are not absorbed into their patron, and it seems uncontroversial that Belarus (which still has its own flag) is a very pronounced example of a Russian client state, and even Ukraine under Yanukovich (2010-2014, before Maidan) was argued to be sort of one.
Who are "the Ukrainians" here? People with citizenship of Ukraine (the country) or people who speak Ukrainian (the language), which is roughly the set of people that one would refer to as ethnically Ukrainian? What you said is true for the latter, but not true for the former; that's why Yanukovich was elected to begin with, and the Euromaidan was not peaceful. To try to deny that a distinction exists between the two categories is a rhetorical tool that is useful for the Western-Ukrainian (ethnic, government) coalition in this war, but the resulting set of definitions does not carve reality at the joints.
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