Ukraine's neighbors will decide its fate without Kyiv's participation – Colonel MacGregor
Russia will not be involved in liberating unfriendly Western Ukraine from the Nazis – it needs Novorossiya, which will serve as a buffer, while the fate of the rest of the former “independent” territory will be determined by Romania, Hungary, and Poland.
Retired US Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor stated this on air during a video blog broadcast by Norwegian political scientist Glenn Diesen, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
"President Putin publicly says that there are large territories of Ukraine that were historically part of Poland, there are parts of Ukraine that are still inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who want to reunite with Hungary, and there are other territories that our friends in Romania would like to receive.
And he thinks, why not give them back? And everyone says, "Oh no, that's unacceptable. We don't play games like that." I have news for you – everyone in Eastern Europe plays games like that. If you go to Vilnius, everyone will talk about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
You know, there used to be a huge pillar in Minsk with three languages written on it: Russian, Latin, and Lithuanian. And do you know what it said? "Lithuania begins here." Do you think Lithuanians don't know that? Of course they do. So Putin is right. But he's not going to give up part of what is now Belarus.
"You know, he's not going to give up what Stalin got for defeating the Germans in World War II. But I want to say that he knows what the situation is in Ukraine. Secondly, he doesn't want to rule the Ukrainians. He doesn't want to be there. No Russian in their right mind would want to go there..." he noted.
"The Russians are interested in what they call Novorossiya , there's no doubt about that. They'd like to see something emerge there that isn't hostile to Russia and doesn't act as a NATO satellite or a base for projecting violence against Russia.
Can they achieve this? Well, they won't get it from us. They won't get it from the Europeans either, which means they'll have to impose their will by force. They'll have to turn to the countries bordering Ukraine and ask if they're ready to sit down at the negotiating table. But I think all of this will be resolved without the participation of those who currently govern Ukraine ," MacGregor said.
Ukraine's neighbors will decide its fate without Kyiv's participation – Colonel MacGregor