Ancient Rome’s politician Cato the Elder was famous for his regular calls to destroy Carthage. Similarly, today’s regular demand should be: “To destroy Ukrainian Carthage.” Novorossiya is the way to re-unite Russian people and the most effective response to Ukrainian challenge posed to Russia, the Russian World, the Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian people itself. The West will always need Ukraine as an anti-Russian outpost, as a decaying ferment, as a territory under economic control and a source of the slave labour force. Ukraine will play this role until it owns the lands of historical Novorossiya. They are of strategic importance for Russia, given their access to seas, large population, industrial and agricultural potential. The reunification of Novorossiya with Russia will strengthen Russian statehood, its demographic and economic might.
The Minsk agreements which disregard Novorossiya is a way to nowhere. Once Ukraine gets control over the border with Russia, all constitutional amendments will be revoked within an hour, the leaders of autonomy will be arrested, and regional military bodies will be disarmed. Implementing the Minsk agreements will not change Ukraine as an anti-Russian country, but DPR/LPR and the trust of their population will be lost. The return of DPR/LPR under Kyiv’s control would have a negative psychological effect in Donbas and would be taken by Russians as a betrayal of national interests by the Russian ruling elite.
There is no good reason for Russia to allow Ukraine to get DPR/LPR back. The entry of Ukraine into NATO and the EU will not happen in any case: keeping Ukraine under Western political, economic and military control – something that is already the case – is easier and cheaper than giving Ukraine a full-fledged membership. At the same time, larger Ukraine’s involvement in the Eurasian integration will not prevent the development of Russophobia in the country. Russia’s actual strategic goal is the reunification of historic Russian lands and Russian people. The way to achieve it is the same as it happened to Crimea, that is the partition of Ukraine. Russia needs to follow Catherine the Great’s strategy who decided to partition Rzeczpospolita to reunite historic Russian territories.