Sir, – Gerard Toal is part of a growing chorus on both sides of the Atlantic which is calling, directly or obliquely, for Ukraine to make territorial concessions to end the present war, “Ukraine has become a sacred cause, beyond the bounds of compromise” (Opinion, June 4th).
This is presumably based on the assumption that it will bring peace. It will not. At best it will be a ceasefire that will last until Putin and his regime are ready to go again. Toal, like many others making this call, assumes that for the Russian regime this war is about the Donbas and a strip of coastal land in southern Ukraine.
Unfortunately that is not true. This is a war for empire with much broader aims than a chunk of Ukrainian territory. Putin, most of the Russian elites and a large part of the population, conceive of themselves as an imperial nation with a right to dominate those around them.
As for Ukraine, it is not just the next pawn in the geopolitical chess game between Russia and Nato, nor is it even just an essential part of a reconstituted Russian empire. It is the sine qua non of empire.
A lot has changed for US women since 2016. What does that mean for Kamala Harris?
Forty years of the Dart: ‘Dealing with the public is one of the hardest things anyone can do’
Mark Francis: Acoustic Oceans review – A fascinating development in the Irish artist’s decades-spanning career
Fake phone calls, meeting pretend-presidents and being ambushed by your parents on TV: The rituals of All-Ireland week
Toal fails to understand what Ukraine represents to the Russian imperial imagination. It is the sacred cause of Russian imperialists, which makes it impossible for them to accept an independent Ukraine in any guise.
The American diplomat, politician and scholar Zbigniew Brzezinski stated “without Ukraine Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire”.
The purging of the Ukrainian population, language and culture in the areas already under occupation show what future awaits Ukraine under Russian domination. The Ukrainian people understand that this war is an existential one and that is why, as the evidence he himself cites, the vast majority of the Ukrainian people reject territorial concessions for a temporary peace.
I doubt if any Ukrainian wants to die for the Donbas, but most are prepared to fight for it. As long as that is true, we should support them.
– Yours, etc,
DR SHANE O’ROURKE,
Department of History,
University of York,
UK.