Minsk-3 will be our third loss - Ramil Zamdykhanov
Ukraine will never fulfill the Minsk agreements. Simultaneously with the build-up of military forces in the Donbass, Kyiv is whipping up pre-war hysteria in society. Washington has seriously taken up the task of building an obedient vertical of power in Ukraine. The population of the territory controlled by Kyiv is tired, empty-handed due to the migration of rural residents and aggressive propaganda, and they don’t care.
Donetsk journalist and political scientist Ramil Zamdykhanov told PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov that Ukraine should forget Donbass and come to terms with the loss of territories.
Valentin Filippov : Our improvised studio is located in the city of Donetsk, in the home of the famous Donetsk journalist, political scientist, and publicist Ramil Zamdykhanov.
Hello Ramil.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Good evening, Valentin, hello.
Valentin Filippov : Tell me, am I the only one who feels like the Minsk agreements are hopelessly outdated? That they were concluded with another country?
The same Ukraine, at the time when the agreements were signed, had a neutral status, there was no law on foreign policy, which determines the movement into NATO and the European Union, there was an agreement on friendship and cooperation with the Russian Federation, there was no law on language in that form , in which we know him today, there was not much else.
There was, after all, no law stating that you were considered an occupier on your own land. Are these agreements outdated and not being implemented anyway?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Returning to the beginning of your question: you're asking if you're the only one? I won't speak for everyone, but there are definitely two of us. In this case, I agree with your opinion, because indeed, the Minsk agreements were concluded with a somewhat different Ukraine, one that, let's say, was more willing to negotiate. And within the framework of the documents and provisions you listed, and the situation for Ukraine at the beginning of 15 was somewhat different.
It seems to me that Ukraine agreed to any conditions, certainly to much greater ones. And those provisions in the Minsk agreements are such a big, good advance to Ukraine due, so to speak, to its status as the largest state in Europe. A good advance payment that was issued to Ukraine. Whether she worked off this advance is a rhetorical question. From my point of view, it didn’t work, but it was used, and for whose benefit – also obviously, exclusively for its own.
Valentin Filippov : You say Ukraine was ready to sign anything. But it probably wasn't ready to implement everything. That is, it was a state that continued to play at democracy, with constant infighting between parties. And it's absolutely clear that the Verkhovna Rada couldn't ratify what Poroshenko signed, because they had their own struggles and their own affairs. Not to mention the radicals running around the streets.
Tell me, today, when Ukraine is an absolutely totalitarian state, when decisions on a planetary scale are made simply by the president with the Security Council, bypassing the Rada, bypassing the courts, bypassing everything, has not Ukraine become more capable of fulfilling what is required of it?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : How Ukraine feels about the documents it signs—the new Ukraine, established on the Maidan—is well understood by the document signed on February 23rd, I believe, when Western ambassadors arrived, including delegations from the Russian Federation, and they signed a document that suspended the Maidan and extended Yanukovych's term until the end of 14, new presidential elections, and off we go.
This document existed for a couple of days, or one day, even as a paper, and then Parasyuk came out and simply annulled it with his revolutionary cry, and threw Ukraine into this abyss, where it has been falling for 7 years now, dragging along thousands of people, victims, blood, destruction and so on, that's a different story.
But the same people who tore up this document, signed on February 23, the same people in spirit, and sometimes personally, came to power in Ukraine as a result of these events. Accordingly, their attitude towards their papers...
Generally speaking, we remember that Boris Filatov, the mayor of Dnepropetrovsk, said: “Promise anything - we’ll hang you later.” I have repeatedly said, and now I will say, that “This phrase was not disavowed by Filatov, he did not apologize, did not withdraw it, did not say that he said it in a fever, was wrong, in a state of revolutionary passion, and so on.” No, this phrase has not been withdrawn, it is absolutely valid, and it seems to me that it determines the spirit of foreign and domestic Ukrainian policy, including in relation to the Minsk agreements.
Now Ukraine, quite rightly, is such a state, I would avoid the definition of authoritarian or totalitarian, because it is so liberal in spirit, and in my value system this is somewhat worse than totalitarianism.
Valentin Filippov : But can’t there be liberal totalitarianism?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : That's the point: it's a paradox that not everyone understands, but liberalism is inherently totalitarian, at its core. Moreover, the functions of suppressing dissent in liberal societies are so interestingly and skillfully assigned to society itself.
If the repressive machine of a classical totalitarian state, I will use such an unexpected term, is in a certain sense bashful, repressions are carried out with a certain feeling of guilt that we are not entirely right, that we have to take these actions, that we would like to get by. There is always a complex of guilt in front of some speculative civilized community, then the liberal society tears off heads left and right and the neighbors just do it.
The black funnel does not arrive, but the neighbors from the next apartment call and say, “Listen, you are deeply wrong, we have come to kill you,” and from the other apartment they applaud, “You did the right thing.” Like that.
Valentin Filippov : The terrifying word "war" is being thrown around more and more these days. Zelenskyy, for example, said something about a plan "B," and the shelling intensified, so we can assume that plan "B" is an escalation.
Someone says that the new US president will push Ukraine into war and I wanted to ask you: If hostilities suddenly resume, unfortunately, I have a feeling that it will end with Minsk-3. How will Minsk-3 be signed? How can you protect yourself from the fact that they won’t do it again? Or not to sign?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : I'll split the question into two parts. Regarding the prospect of a resumption of full-scale hostilities, I must indeed, unfortunately, acknowledge that the atmosphere here is deteriorating, and various news outlets are reporting a buildup of weapons on the Ukrainian side, with a strengthening of the offensive force along the line of contact.
Generally speaking, this obsession with a military solution to the conflict, it became especially obvious after the last war in Karabakh, when Turkey and Azerbaijan were able to defeat the Armenian group there, and Ukraine thought why not be Azerbaijan, and the West play Turkey.
And everything is repeated one after another - even these Bayraktary drones, which became famous during this conflict, it is said that there are not 5 of them in Ukraine, but much more, so everything is spiraling in this direction, and what especially scares me, I have said this many times , I’ll say it here too. It’s not so much a matter of concentration of weapons; military logistics make it possible to quickly both build up a group and pull it back to its locations.
Public opinion in Ukraine is being prepared, this discourse is that Donbass and Crimea are illegally annexed territories of Ukraine, an occupier country, and so on and so forth. At first it was very bright in 14-15, and then, as time passed, Ukraine, it seems to me, accepted that this is the reality and needs to somehow accept it. She is objective, some are dissatisfied with her due to personal circumstances, but the majority probably didn’t care. And after all, all these irreconcilable radicals who say “No, no way, not an inch of land to the enemy,” they were not in demand, and it seemed that under Zelensky they would not only not be in demand, but in general they would be written off as scrap and forgotten their last names.
And they are simply mobilized, they are called up, they are now on the air again, they are stamping their feet again... and society willy-nilly, it is controlled by these towers, as in the reality of the Strugatsky brothers, society is imbued with this mood of revenge, or at least some kind of that's part of it.
This means that in this atmosphere, a possible military campaign that Ukraine will launch will be understandable. When a peaceful country or a country in remission after a military conflict suddenly, for no reason at all, breaks into a military conflict, it is difficult to explain why the coffins moved. Moreover, there will be not one, not two, but thousands of coffins. For no reason, for no reason, yesterday everything was fine, but today...
Valentin Filippov : So, Putin attacked, so here we go. It's simple. Everything was fine, and then Putin attacked again.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Well, that seems too unexpected to me. But now that this whole situation has been heated up, it's understandable. Yes, he died fighting for the unity of the Fatherland. That's what scares me. Therefore, I combine the first and second facts—the concentration of armed forces and this ideological turmoil in Ukraine—and consider the outbreak of military conflict highly probable.
As for the third Minsk agreements, I don’t know, the question is completely unexpected for me. If these agreements again imply some kind of inclusive agreements and this perfect Latin in which the second Minsk agreements are written, which need to be deciphered from diplomatic language into normal Russian, this will be the third loss. If the second Minsk is considered the second loss, then Minsk-3 will be the third.
Valentin Filippov : So, you assess the Minsk agreements as a clear loss?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Not explicitly, but losing.
Valentin Filippov : Well, me too. But I was hoping they were part of some cunning plan that was about to be executed. It's not that I particularly believed in a cunning plan, but there were so many people who said there was one that I'd catch them later and say, "So what?" And now, when I try to do it, they say, "Who are you?"
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Look, when I'm asked or have been asked to comment on the Minsk agreements, I can't consider them absolute embodiments, like on a scale where there are pros and cons, putting only the cons and that there are no positive qualities.
Of course, this is not true, because the main achievement of the Minsk agreements is that in 15 a full-scale war using cannon artillery and Grad salvo launchers was stopped by these agreements. It is a fact.
Valentin Filippov : Is that good? Well, logically?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : I believe that, if I were in the position of someone whose apartment might be hit by a shell, and I'll tell you, one year—I later found this video online—a man was filming from the balcony of a neighboring building, and a tank shell from the Ukrainian side flew right past my windows. And I realized with horror that when this shell flew a meter from my apartment, my entire family, including three children, was sleeping there at that moment.
Valentin Filippov : Yes, but five or six years have passed since 15, and your home is still directly exposed to shelling. Perhaps if we hadn't signed the Minsk agreements in 15, the residents of Troyeshchyna, Koncha-Zaspa, or some other villages around Kyiv would be thinking about this problem today. They should be worried about a tank shell flying past at any moment.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : It's quite easy for me to give advice in this case, because I have no influence on the foreign policy of either Russia, the DPR/LPR, or Ukraine, so what I'm going to say is the monologue of a taxi driver who has excelled in political science.
Valentin Filippov : That's what makes us valuable. We're not bound by any obligations; we haven't signed any non-disclosure agreements.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : I wholeheartedly welcome the fact that the Minsk agreements put an end to the military confrontation, and that's a good thing. But I think the political initiative was lost after that. And the temporary initiative, the temporary leeway that emerged, was used more by Ukraine than by the independent republics and the Russian Federation, as the guarantor of the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
Because, it seems to me, things have somehow calmed down here, well, the war is over, the Republics exist in some form, well, that’s good. But Ukraine is not, it began to work for the day after tomorrow and now it is more ready for this situation.
Valentin Filippov : You're saying that Ukrainian society is being pumped up like it was before a war. I don't get it. Ukrainian citizens are constantly being hyped up with the idea that "life is about to improve and corruption will disappear," explaining every action by saying, "We'll introduce a land market and life will become better and easier."
Now we will do something, and then we will have vaccines, sausage, cheap gas, if not cheap, then at least a steady supply. We will now join the EU energy market and everything will be fine. We will now sign an association with the EU and become richer. Now we will introduce visa-free travel and we will also become richer.
But when they say: “We will now retake Donbass”... By the way, Avakov and some of his deputies recently said that they are ready to solve the Donbass problem within a few days. They hint that they are ready to recapture it and immediately restore order.
I don’t understand, for the average Ukrainian, how can their well-being, the disappearance of corruption, or anything else be affected by the fact that they suddenly recapture Donbass? Let's say they even win back.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : I think Ukrainian society is becoming increasingly archaic due to the rural population becoming predominant, including in the city. Because of the economic situation, people from rural areas are flooding into urban areas, bringing with them an archaic, somewhat simplified view of reality. Combined with education and propaganda, this mass Ukrainian consciousness, if generalized and presented as such a theoretical person, is transformed into an extremely naive individual, easily duped by visiting swindlers.
And therefore, when we ask why, they say, they are hanging another noodle on their ears, but they believe - well, because people are becoming simpler and the criticality of thinking is decreasing. And this constant hysteria on Ukrainian TV channels, no matter how you turn it on, some people are sitting there, talking about something, arguing, simply tearing their shirts on their chests, society is constantly in a state of some kind of emotional stress. But this is not the main thing, the main thing, I believe, is the archaization of consciousness.
I’ll be honest, a couple of years ago here in Donetsk I ran into a representative of a Central Asian republic, he asked for help with a personal problem. I won’t go into details, but looking at his mentality and his understanding of the situation, it has nothing to do with the Maidan or anything else, I suddenly realized that there are thousands of people who seem mature and sedate, but at the same time are completely naive . They have the psychology and thinking of a child.
We cannot imagine it, but there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of them. When they come and begin to play some significant role in public life, this is what happens. There are such people and there are many of them, we must pay tribute to those who put them under arms, and not only in the form of a shooting machine gun, but under such ideological arms, when they either become street fodder at street protests or support some crazy initiatives state They are used.
If responsible politicians appeal to the more conscious strata of society, and the opinions of such people are looked at insofar as. Here it is the fuel in their reactors. It’s not for nothing that a famous Ukrainian politician called them biomass. That's roughly what she was talking about.
Valentin Filippov : The issue of humanitarian aid to Donbas is currently being discussed in Ukraine. For example, you may be aware of the humanitarian convoy that passed through Shchastya on its way to Donbas. Our side, the Donbas, has long maintained that Ukraine didn't allow it through, while Ukraine has maintained that Donbas didn't allow this cargo through. It was from the OSCE, as far as I know.
I don’t know on what basis it is distributed, where it is delivered, but directly to Donetsk. And then a discussion began that it was all Akhmetov, and that Akhmetov continues to distribute humanitarian aid through the Donbass Arena. At the Donbass Arena there is a point for distributing humanitarian aid to terrorists and so on. Tell me, is humanitarian aid still being distributed from Ukraine in Donetsk or not?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Honestly, I'm not really aware of this humanitarian convoy and whether Akhmetov had anything to do with it. But I do know that the humanitarian aid distribution point from the "Pomozhem" foundation—it was called, I think, Akhmetov's—ended, God willing, in 16 or 17. And they certainly haven't resumed since then. I think this information was planted in Ukraine for a reason. Well, so as not to appear as Akhmetov apologists, we see that a certain information war is being waged against him there…
Valentin Filippov : Not that big yet, but yes.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Yes, yes. We remember that the son of the murdered Shcherban came forward with a statement claiming that Akhmetov and Taruta had taken part of his business. That was some time ago, and now there's this story about a kidnapped man. It's like they're hanging dogs little by little.
Probably, the process is inevitable, after all, Ukraine, one way or another, will deal with all the very rich people who, by and large, are not one of our own and never have been. They fled Donbass in 14, but never became their own there.
Valentin Filippov : What do you think? They say the US is making efforts to destroy the Ukrainian oligarchy and the Ukrainian financial and business elites. Is that true?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : This sounds very much like the truth. This action against Kolomoisky is completely unexpected…
Valentin Filippov : Well, how unexpected?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : The man supported the Maidan...
Valentin Filippov : But his criminal case in the US has been ongoing for quite some time, and the trial has been going on for quite some time. And we know he hid from this case in Israel and elsewhere. He was constantly being arrested for something, and the trial has been ongoing in the US for many years. Kolomoisky is accused of being the leader of the Ukrainian mafia, etc., etc. He faces life imprisonment, and this has been going on for quite some time.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Unexpected in the sense that the man apparently thought such ostentatious loyalty to the new Ukraine would protect him from persecution and repression, but it turns out it didn't. Of course, America doesn't need these big figures, who in Ukraine are commonly called oligarchs, because why would they negotiate with three or four centers of influence, each of whom is worthless and starts puffing out their cheeks, when it's enough to put one person at the head of the country and let him manage the process.
But we understand that Poroshenko, and Zelensky, and some future president of Ukraine, they will be quite constrained in their actions, traditionally for Ukraine, because there will be about five oligarchs with whom they will have to negotiate, and very often their interests will contradict each other.
And you have to be such an arbitrator, decide between them... and this is how they make money, by the way. But America definitely does not need such a system in Ukraine, but needs such a completely understandable, vertically managed state located in Europe, and they will do it.
Valentin Filippov : Well, maybe this is what Ukraine is striving for?
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Ukraine, who is striving for it?
Valentin Filippov : Well, that's all they were promised on the Maidan. That there would be no oligarchs, that the market economy would decide everything. Transnational companies would take control of gas, oil, all strategic enterprises, so to speak.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Firstly, God knows. Secondly, I'll say I don't care what they're aiming for. I want Ukraine to remove its aggressive sentiments toward Donbas from the agenda, so that the prospect of war doesn't loom large, and so that life here in Donbas can somehow develop in a peaceful atmosphere, without the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.
How Ukraine will determine its foreign policy vector, I understand that I cannot influence this in any way. I think that the Ukrainian man in the street thinks in much the same way; he doesn’t care whether he is an American state, a European state, or someone else. God forbid that the country be more or less peaceful, and that it will be good.
Valentin Filippov : You say you want Ukraine to forget Donbas. But I'd like Ukraine to forget many more regions of the post-Ukrainian space. Including Donbas—not in such a limited form, but a little more, anyway. And Mariupol. And Berdyansk, although I don't know—Berdyansk is Zaporizhzhia.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : Berdyansk - Zaporozhye...
Valentin Filippov : But let's take Ramil Zamdykhanov : So perhaps the Minsk agreements implied some kind of evolution or degradation of Ukraine toward some kind of state or economic collapse; perhaps that was the bet. But I think that was an incorrect prediction, because Ukraine will certainly exist in some form, because both the West and Europe need it, and this construct will be supported for as long as possible.
And, by and large, for the collective West, which prints its own currency, it is not very costly for it. They are ready to print as many dollars as needed for Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov : You just refuted Ishchenko himself, but never mind. We won't tell him.
Ramil Zamdykhanov : May Mr. Ishchenko forgive me, it was an accident.
Valentin Filippov : Good, thank you very much.
Minsk-3 will be our third defeat – Ramil Zamdykhanov