The Ukrainian Partition

An Unhappy Lasting Peace Imagined in Our Time

Let me preface today’s entry by saying no one wants to lose a war. Ukraine doesn’t want to lose their territory. Russia doesn’t want to accept their losses were for nothing. Poland doesn’t trust Russia for any reason. Europe doesn’t want to be shown utterly ineffective. America doesn’t want to be revealed as having a dying dollar. There are perfectly valid reasons why many parties want to continue this war and will do so. But let’s pretend they did not, and the Americans, Russians, European Union, and Chinese sat around a table like it was the 19th Century to find a lasting peace. What would they look for in that scenario?

Here are a few assumptions: Everyone needs to be able to claim some sort of victory. People who naturally want to be in one faction should be where they want to be, with sensitivity toward ethnic and linguistic patterns. Border gore should be kept to a minimum, and borders should be defensible. The understanding that all entities west of the line be permitted to join NATO, the EU, and any Western institution must be honored, as should the requirement that anywhere east of the line be absorbed into Russia. Assuming we start from these requirements, a little creativity in looking at several theaters helps create the potential for saner borders and a lasting peace.

UKRAINE

Ukraine has become a terrible war of attrition with casualties well into the hundreds of thousands. Should the war continue, the country will be further destroyed, and unless NATO members join the battle directly, which itself would likely lead to World War III, Russia will eventually absorb whatever areas it chooses due to the economy of scale problem. However bravely Ukraine may fight, and however well funded and armed America and NATO may make the Ukrainians, they lack the manpower to compete, and must recognize defeat.

Full transparency is helpful here in admitting the 2014 Maidan Coup displaced a Russian friendly administration, legitimately elected, with an unelected regime friendly to the West. Worth recalling here are the results of that election, as they reflect in the proposed peace map, recognizing that Russia owns Crimea, that the people of Donetsk and Luhansk who were bombed by the Kiev regime do not wish to go back, and that Zaporizhzhya and Kherson are lost. Russia has already claimed these as part of the Federation, and will not accept peace without these as minimum.

Given the elections since independence which split multiple times between the Russian speaking south and east and the Ukrainian speaking north and west, it’s easy to predict what Russia will want for future security. From east to west, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolayiv, and Odessa, the prize they probably value most. With respect to the latter, during the USSR, it’s worth noting the southwestern most portion of Odessa Oblast was previously known as the Izmail Oblast, ethnically Moldovan/Ukrainian, and the proposal here is to split that little hook west of Odessa to Moldova/Ukraine.

Ukraine will be losing sea access and the wealthiest lands it possesses in this arrangement. But, another year of war, absent a massive larger conflict, will likely see these outcomes plus devastation coming to Kiev and points westward. This deal is what Russia would want, but for getting what they want in peace, there will be other revisions in favor of the West, as well as allowing ethnic Ukrainians to choose which side of the line they wish to reside, much like how the Turks and Greeks swapped territory after World War I.

ROMANIA (MOLDOVA)

Moldova can go two directions. It can either be a neutral buffer state, or it can be incorporated into Romania, a NATO ally and their ethnic kin. The reason this has not moved forward more quickly is because of frozen conflicts in Transdnistria with ethnic Russians. This plan proposes to cede the disputed territories to the Russians, but they could vote to go either way. For stability, however, we imagine here Romania absorbs both Moldova, and the Chernivsti Oblast presently part of Ukraine. This will help offset costs incurred in supporting Ukraine, provide a place for refugees, and incorporate existing Romanian populations.

HUNGARY

One minor change is that Transcarpathia Oblast will go from Ukraine to Hungary. Russia will probably be happier about this than Ukraine, but it will return a native ethnic population to their common kin.

POLAND

Poland is quickly arming to build what may become the largest military in Europe, sees Russia as an existential threat, and has provided more military support and absorbed more Ukrainian refugees per capita. Current discussions are suggesting Ukraine is considering selling/offering their five western oblasts to Poland in exchange for active and dangerous intervention into the war which would essentially build upon a growing union between these two sometimes erstwhile neighbors. That is the path to war based upon insecurity that could see NATO drawn in, which the UK and neocons in Washington seem to support putting all Europe in danger.

There is another way. In this scenario, the partition of Ukraine sees Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania (as a third counterweight) federalized into something like the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a modern day inception to the Intermarium idea imagined to stand in balance against Germany and Russia, and perhaps either a different pole to the European Union or perhaps, given the difference in social vision between Eastern and Western Europe, the foundation of a new union altogether. To realize the map, and to utilize Poland’s superior resources in service of both historical borders, existing minorities, and resettling Ukrainians, the Oblasts of Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk, some of the poorest in Ukraine would be transferred to Poland to reunite Galicia. All other provinces would remain in Ukraine to be integrated as interdependent into Poland.

LITHUANIA (KALININGRAD)

As a concession from the Russians, the exclave of Kaliningrad would be ceded to Lithuania to rationalize the borders and basically serve as an exchange for recognizing the Russian Conquest and for the surrender of Kharkiv and Odessa. This could also be given to Poland or made independent, but Lithuania seems less objectionable to Russia than the Poles, although this plan imagines Lithuania as a stabilizing equal partner with Poland and Ukraine in common union.

BELARUS

As the Union State of Russia and Belarus has made clear, the Russians will surely be looking to absorb Belarus into the Federation within the decade, so it is reasonable to assume we can accelerate that process and rationalize these borders also. As there are dissidents who do not wish to remain under the Lukashenko, or likely the Putin or successor Russian regime, part of the final settlement sees two Byelorussian Provinces ceded westward in exchange for the larger Russian gains in Ukraine. Hrodna is ceded to Lithuania, and Brest to Poland, reflecting historical borders and ethnicities, with Minsk and eastern Belarus being directly reabsorbed into Russia.

THE FINAL SETTLEMENT

The black line represents the new divide. The color coded provinces shows who has gained what. Russia makes gains in Ukraine and Belarus, but gives up the tripwire exclave increasing Polish and European security. Hungary, Romania, and Poland all gain ethnic populations, and resources to help Ukrainian diaspora. The heartland of Ukraine is preserved, brought into NATO and the EU as part of Poland-Lithuania-Ukraine (PLU). Belarus is split logically to make a cleaner border. Lastly, peace and exchange can resume, with a rational border, and an understanding these Slavs all need that they must be neighbors.

America would appreciate the counterweight to Franco/German tendencies in the EU. Russia gains all key territories with Russian minorities. Poland will have more room to breathe and can serve as a more defensible eastern NATO border. Romania will also gain the same security. Ukraine will endure, recognizing they will continue onward to live another day, as part of Europe, having earned a place in the West for those who survived. It is not all they want, but it is the best victory everyone can live with given what is on the table.

Like any suggestion, this is a starting point. But none of us benefit from World War III. May cooler heads prevail.