Ukraine Is Not a Sovereign State

Intro: 00:00 Hello, listeners. Welcome to the podcast.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:06 Hello, listeners. Welcome to another episode of the Jacob Shapiro Podcast. Joining me on the podcast today is Dr. Volodymyr Ishchenko. He is a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies. I expect this will be a bit of a controversial episode. I think that, Volodymyr has some controversial points of view and some very different points of view on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And he's the perfect guest for the podcast because he's neither right nor left, I don't think. I think he's just has a novel point of view, and I was happy to ask him some open-ended questions and ask him to develop that point of view. I pushed back in some places, and I'm not sure that I agree with him entirely, but that's the whole point of this podcast, to find people who have different ideas that aren't out there in the mainstream and to stir up conversation based on those new ideas rather than recycling the ones that we continue over and over. I had a brief heart attack that we lost half of the recording. We have gotten it back with recovery files, but if the quality seems a little off, that is why. You can email me at jacob@jacobshapiro.com if you have any questions, comments, concerns, disagreements, wanna hear more about what we do. It's all, it's all fair game. Take care of the people that you love. Cheers, and see you out there.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:14 All right. We've been playing, we've been playing tag a little bit, but it's nice to finally get a chance to talk to you. And I, I'm not just saying this. My listeners know I don't just say these things. I discovered your writing, I don't know, about six to eight weeks ago, and it's not like anybody else's writing, which maybe means I'm not reading enough or I'm not reading the right places. But I found that your perspective on Ukraine was appreciably different than just about everything else I was reading out there, and that's why I wanted to talk to you, to bring that dreaded word nuance to a conversation that doesn't have a whole lot of nuance. And I, I'm worried about only getting an hour with you 'cause I've been reading a lot of your work, and I think I could talk to you for four hours. But I wanna start with a controversial statement you made recently in an interview, which was, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, but you basically said that Ukraine was no longer a sovereign state. And I wanted the first question to be to ask you to unpack what that means because I think the mainstream narrative in the West is not only is Ukraine a sovereign state, but it is a wildly successful project that is fighting off the Russian, you know, imperialist monster and that it's a model for European countries going forward or for anybody who is resisting aggression from powers in general.

Jacob Shapiro: 02:21 And you seem to have a very different point of view on that. So let's start there, and then we can kinda work our way back into some of the other things that you've written about.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 02:30 Yeah, that's actually a huge question and a lot to unpack here. And well, I'll try to be compact. But, well, what exactly do we mean by sovereignty? I mean, the, that's there is blue and the yellow flag over Kyiv, and that's about it. Or the capacity of the state to make the decisions and to implement it, them over the territory, right? And if you look at this kind of like- As I would say, fundamental understanding of state sovereignty, it has obviously diminished, significantly since at least… Not even since 2022 when the full-scale war started and the, scale of dependence of Ukraine on the Western funds, on Western weapons on Western political support increased substantially. Well, right now, most of Ukraine's budget is coming from the West. Right now, primarily from the European Union, before that also from the United States. Mm-hmm. And to account the state that that is basically a donor economy, a sovereign state that's just an extreme overextension of the term. But this started at least since 2014 after the Euromaidan Revolution, which on the one hand it actually empowered certain, groups within the Ukrainian society in their relations to the state, in particular the so-called civil society which is comprised mostly of the Western-funded NGOs as in many other countries of the, Eastern Europe. But after the Euromaidan, they acquired significant influence on the legis- on the c- on what legislation is passed, what is actually proposed what is blocked, and what is delegitimated, what is legitimated, and so on and so forth.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 04:42 Another important agent was the radical nationalists. Kind of like, … And the discussion about the participation of the far right, the fascists in the Euromaidan was has become, mm, basically toxic, very s- quickly in 2014 because, Russia obviously used the, their participation to delegitimate what was going on in Ukraine. And the response of the liberal public sphere was basically to deny the problem. But they acquired more influence. Also pushing for certain laws also integrating into the different state structures, and so on. And that influence in-increased even more since the f- start of the full-scale invasion. And right now, well, Andriy Biletsky, who comes from a really extreme right neo-Nazi background he's been used to be known as the White Leader until very, very, very recently. He's now one of the commanders in the, … So he, he'll commands the army corps, over 50,000 soldiers. He is the political leader over allied civic paramilitary movement, vaguely known as Azov Movement. And he's also in the polls among the top popular politicians in the country. And also the certain oligarchs became more influential over the Ukrainian state. Poroshenko was one of the examples, but not just Poroshenko.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 06:43 Over different periods the other people were making significant influence. And as a result of the war which started in 2014 in Donbas, Ukraine became already then more dependent on Western aid financial and political. So the sources of Ukraine's sovereignty has already started to be narrow, diminished. The capacity of the state to make well, sovereign decisions. And the… I mean, even since 2014, there have been multiple evidence of how the, in particular, United States is influencing the decisions in Ukraine. Biden basically just openly was telling how many thousands of hours he spent with Poroshenko. How he discussed, well, very particular dec- appointments in the Ukrainian government on the key positions. His influence on the decision of, President Yanukovych, who was overthrown during Maidan to, well, basically not to use any repression, and so on and so forth. So as a result of all these processes, Ukraine, … I mean, I don't think it's actually controversial to say it is not a sovereign state. I mean, the influence on the recent scandals in particular about so-called corruption or anti-corruption the anti-corruption institutions established precisely after the Euromaidan revolution, precisely under the blueprints of the, Western-funded civil society, supported by the United States later mainly by the European Union. Establishing basically the state within the state, Kind of like sovereign against the state.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 08:51 So they it is basically kind of like a closed circuit of the institutions which can investigate the local elites. They can prosecute the local elites the special prosecutor office, the special bureau of investigations, the special court. Everything is done to do, to make a comprehensive mechanism of control over the local elites.

Jacob Shapiro: 09:20 Mm-hmm.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 09:20 And yeah, so that's just one of the most brightest examples of what is going on, and it does have influence on what Ukraine can or cannot do.

Jacob Shapiro: 09:34 The next place I would take the question then is that, and I'm, I mean, we can assign blame if we want to, but I'm less interested in blame and more interested in causality. What do you think is the root cause of the loss of Ukrainian sovereignty? Do we lay that at the feet of Russian expansionism or of Vladimir Putin's perception of Ukraine not really existing? Is this a loss of sovereignty that has nothing to do, with opposition to Russia? And I ask the question about causality because if you're thinking, if we're trying to think about what happens You're good. If you're trying to think about what happens going forward, you know, you can imagine that, you know, Ukraine has lost some of its sovereignty in the sense that it has to make impossible decisions while it is fighting a war against a power that is more, you know, that is stronger than it. Is there a chance to reclaim some of the sovereignty that you're talking about if and when the war ever closes? So I guess it's a two-part question. What is the causality mechanism behind the loss of sovereignty? And is it lost or is it a temporary loss that maybe can be reclaimed once you are no longer fighting a war against a bigger nation that is right next door?

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 10:43 I mean, the typical story is that this is basically Only or mainly because the Russian attack. And only because of that, Ukraine is pushed to, into very difficu- difficult decisions, alliances to all the discussion is basically reduced to Russia. My answer is no, this is not about primarily Russia. It, this is primarily about the incapacity of the local elites to organize themselves. And this is why we've got the Euromaidan, this is why we've got the war in Donbas, which was started. The significant violence has already started even before any, Russian open interventions. Because even by any actions in Crimea, already over 100 people were killed in Kyiv, in the clashes and fights between the opposition and protesters and the government. And already then, the participants understood that what was going on was a civil conflict between the government and the opposition. And they were warning the each other and the government, and the government was warning the opposition that a civil war is starting. And then the, Russia annexed Crimea and it completely turned the framework. It was only about the, Russian aggression. And then the war in Donbas started with very high participation of local participants. Even if we understand that, Russia also made very important key, decisions and key cautions to make that civil conflict a war, right? But the local agency was indispensable and very important.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 12:48 And that is all, this is about what Ukrainians were doing to Ukrainians, and why they were not capable to organize themselves. And this, what is also happening during such wars, in what happened in Ukraine is not exactly the only possible option, because many other states actually became stronger and more sovereign fighting the foreign aggressor. And like multiple of examples, typically they're connected precisely with the revolutionary and national liberation struggles. So we can think about the well, starting from the French Revolution. France was capable to defeat a mighty counter-revolutionary coalition of the great powers in Europe of that age. And Napoleon became the ruler of bigger part of Europe until he was defeated in Russia. Then another great revolution in Russia in 1917. Russia was also capable to de- to defeat the domestic counter revolution and also the coalition of Entente, of the biggest great powers of that age, England, France, United States, Japan, so on and so forth. And the, well, the state that the Bolshevik Revolution, built was incomparably stronger than the Russian Empire. And while in a few years after the Second World War, defeating a very mighty enemy, Nazi Germany, Stalin dominated half of Europe and became, well, the second greatest power. So while another example when the state was actually becoming strong and sovereign. And if you look at the more recent examples, Vietnam the tiny country, in fact, who- which defeated France, which defeated United States, which kind of like also was not defeated by China a bit later. And the, this is the strongest state. This is a developing economy.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 14:49 Afghanistan, which defeated the Soviet Union and the United States. And now the most recent, Iran, which looks like he, well, is capable to defeat the strongest power in the world, the United States, and, the strongest regional power, Israel. What has not been kind of like pushed to surrender by their actions. But, and these are the examples when social revolutions built the state when they were against powerful aggressors who overwhelmed in the, in weapons, in the population, in economy, but still could not defeat the highly mobilized states. And the question is then why Ukraine is not such a state. If we had our own kind of like revolution, Euromaidan revolution. Before that, we had the Orange Revolution in 2004, and before that also 1990, the Revolution on Granite, which demanded the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union. We had three revolutions, but they were all like kind of like weak, deficient revolutions, as I call them. They were-- They didn't have that capacity to build a stronger state over the state they destroyed. The outcome was primarily destabilization, fragmentation of the elites in the soci- in the society. And that's why the also Ukrainian nationalism is so different. I mean, that's all… A lot of what is happening is about, well identity, nationalism, and why Ukrainians do not want to be like Russians. And in other cases, the nationalism played a kind of like a, well, mobilizing progressive force. In Ukrainian case at least in the case of post-Soviet Ukraine, because Ukrainian nationalism in the beginning of the 20th century was very different. In fact, it was tightly connected to social revolutionary cause.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 16:53 Like all, almost all of the people who wanted an independent or at least autonomous Ukraine within the reformed, Russia, Russian Republic or whatever they were socialists. But the contemporary Ukrainian nationalists in majority, they are very much compradors. So basically, they want to claim their own niche in the Western-led order. They want to become white people, to put it simply, right? And to basically claiming our unique identity to get some niche within the order organized by the United States since the end of the Second World War. Which at this moment may look, it looks like is eroding and in decline. And those institutions that Ukraine so much wanted to join, at least that Ukrainian national pro-Western part of Ukrainian politics and society the more we were trying to join them, also destroying our own post-Soviet states, the less they were actually becoming appealing, attractive, losing their- Mm-hmm power of attraction and whatever you might call by soft power. And that's the whole problem. So the, that capacity for us, well, to build a sovereign state has been undermined in Ukraine. And Ukrainian nationals made a fatal bet on the international order, which may not be in place anymore. And that's, I think that's the core of Ukraine's tragedy and which makes, Ukraine's future so bleak.

Jacob Shapiro: 18:51 Yeah, okay. I wanna get back to that 'cause I think there's a lot in there. But I, you mentioned some, you know, some revolutions that built strong states that Ukraine has not. You know, some other examples that I've heard people talk about or that I have even used as examples, I mean, I've heard people compare Ukraine today to Israel in the 1940s and 1950s as it was arising. I've heard the comparison to South Korea in the, in sort of, in the aftermath of the Korean War. South Korea, a very underdeveloped country. There was no South Korea before the Korean War. Now you have this false division on the Korean Peninsula. It continues to stay with us. There's also, I, you know, and this is in your writing you know, there's a post-Soviet experience here. So in some ways you can't compare apples and oranges. You can't compare what Ukraine is going through right now to what an Israel or a South Korea went through, even a French Revolution. It's really more about, well, what did Georgia go through, and what did Kazakhstan go through, and what did some of these others go through? So if we're looking for, if we're looking for analogs, are there any analogs of Ukraine's current experience right now, whether they're successful or failed ones? And how does that post-Soviet experience change or not change some of the things that you're talking about?

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 20:00 In fact, it kind of like looking for the best model, has also its own dynamics. And in the case of Ukraine, it's this kind of like regressive dynamics. Because, well, i-i during the Soviet Union, the main slogan was that we can catch up with America. Our… I mean, Ukraine was a part and one of the most developed parts of the Soviet Union, and, well, our goal was to be better than the greatest power on Earth. Then the Soviet Union was collapsing, and it disintegrating, and the issue of Ukrainian independence appeared. And the, one of the kind of like the mobilizing slogans, to vote for Ukraine's independence in 1991 was that was the use of the, well, a bit kind of like, Not very honest use of statistics that, for example, if you look at the Ukrainian GDP or production and just w- look what was kind of like done within the borders of the Soviet Ukraine, which was at that moment, well, an integral part of the larger Soviet economy. Ukraine looks like incomparable terms to United Kingdom, to France, to Italy, to Germany, to the, well, the m- the w- the richest and most developed countries of Western Europe at that moment. And well, the promise was that if we break from the Soviet Union, we, in just in a few years, we become something like France. And then the huge crisis of the 1990s happened, and the ambitions became lower. So now you, Ukraine was comparing itself to this pro-Western lu- nationalist part of Ukrainian politics to Visegrad countries, to Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, that, Ukraine is simply kind of like needs to go to through the same path.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 22:04 We didn't have our own 1989 revolution, but maybe our Orange Revolution, our Euromaidan Revolution is something like a belated 1989, but eventually we're just moving the same path. We are joining NATO, we are joining EU, and we will be, we will catch up at least with Poland Now, after the full-scale war started, the ambitions are even lower. Again, another phase of regression. So Israel and South Korea are indeed present in the Ukrainian discussions. And in particular about Israel, Zelenskyy said that we would like to be like Israel. Zaluzhnyi said, the former chief commander said that it would be great to be like Israel. Budanov, who used to be the chief of military intelligence and now the chief of Zelensky administration, also said that well, Ukraine, could become something like Israel. And this is wishful thinking primarily. But it also says something about the Ukrainian elite and the exact- with whom exactly they would like to ally. And this is also part of that comparable thinking that let's become a frontier state for the European Union, where EU would, basically outsource its security. And Ukrainians would be kind of like I also compare it to the, Foederati who were the so-called barbarian tribes in the late Roman Empire, who were allowed to settle within the limits of empire precisely in order to protect the borders against other barbarian tribes. And this is the role that, I think many among the European elites, but unfortunately also many among the Ukrainian elites are happy to take, to be Foederati of the European Union against Russia.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 24:04 But even that future and also South Korea as well, which, would kind of like require direct participation of EU forces, if not the United States forces in protection of the, of Ukraine, which is which looks like is a complete fantasy especially with escalated, Russian nuclear threats. But even Israeli future to become a kind of like a strong militaristic ethnonationalist state protecting the frontier of Western civilization, it requires a lot of investment. It requires a consolidated political will, at least of the European Union. And to where the current discussion goes into in Europe about the Problems with continuing support for Ukraine sustainability of that support over many years that would be required to build a strong military industrial complex, to sustain the army, to basically to reconstruct, rebuild Ukraine, to bring Ukrainians back to Ukraine. And it also requires certain conditions. Demographic situation is just catastrophic at this moment, and precisely in these terms. As a catastrophe, it's also discussed within Ukrainian public sphere. So the problem is with becoming like Israel, if you even forget how it sounds for so many people in the world it ju- that probably there is no conditions for that. And South Korea also was a part became so much advanced and technological state, in particular because the United States were invest- investing a lot in building the frontier state to prevent expansion of communist revolution since in the East Asia and in South Asia.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 26:13 There were other states like the Taiwan is, well, another example. In particular, and there are no such conditions anymore. United States is rather withdrawing itself, and we al- again, with Iran, we also see the limits of their power. And well, and Georgia then appears as something like again, this, another level of regression, another level down that a small country which also had, its own revolution in 2003, its own war with Russia, which ended in five years in five days in 2008. Then the oligarchic Georgian Dream party came to power in 2012, removing a strongly pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili. And since 2012 the Georgian Dream adapted to certain Russian demands, without them actually abandoning the strategic goal to join the European Union which doesn't in a way, it actually doesn't sound as completely out of touch with reality because it depends on which kind of European Union will be in some years. The European Union of politicians like Orbán and Orbán was exactly w- the first and perhaps the only one, if I'm not mistaken, European leader who came to greet the victory of the Georgian Dream party in, I think in 2024, when the whole European Union was kind of like the, attacking them and criticizing them for the crackdown on the civil society, on their own compatriot NGOs. But Orbán came to Tbilisi and had a dinner and showed political support for them.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 28:16 So if European Union is moving towards that kind of politicians with AfD rise in Germany, with a possible Le Pen's victory in France with possible far-right victory in the United Kingdom then Georgia may fit that, that one. But in general words, the idea is that Georgia was capable to maneuver between Russia and also benefiting a lot economically from the war with Russia from the war between, Russia and Ukraine, as becoming something like a transit state in that environment, maneuvering, EU demands and criticism and pressure on the Georgian government and also China. Building the relations with China and the Chinese investment is also increasing in Georgia. And so on these kind of like manu- a small state which is capable to maneuver between the great powers, I think is a more sovereign state than what, Ukraine may even dream to become. But to, in order to take that route, it also requires the sovereign decision of the Ukrainian elites. Which at this moment well, maybe also looks like a wishful thinking that the people who make decisions in Ukraine would be capable to organize sufficiently and to make such a decision that at least at this moment may look like as the decision to save the country.

Jacob Shapiro: 30:00 I share many of your conclusions about the international order and about the relative weakening of the United States, and especially the Iran war shows some of that. But I wanted to stick on Europe for a moment because yes, Europe in some ways is, it seems sort of continually incapable, of getting its things together. But you are seeing some signs of life. Yes, you get the rise of the AfD, and yes, French elections are coming up. But then you also have, I mean, we're recording October first, the US ordering France and Germany to release diesel from their reserves, otherwise the US will not export anymore. You know, that's a direct threat to, you know, European sovereignty. You see the French saying, "Okay, we will deploy military forces to the Gulf if we have to help ensure energy flows here." When you think about Europe's position, you know, sort of abandoned by the United States, Russia is not a partner. China is now an economic competitor, not an export market for German cars. You know, all of these existential realities are causing, you know, Europe to have to sort of, I think, take things more seriously. And in that context, is there more room for Ukraine to be part of a European project? I mean, it seems to me that if Europe wants to be more martial or wants to be physically stronger then Ukraine is an important partnership and that Ukraine might be able to use that leverage. Why do you think that is not the case?

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 31:18 I mean, but that also depends whether the European elites can organize about that. And at this- Yes I would, I rather see the increased level of fragmentation of the European elites rather than the unity about any sovereign course. I mean, there are projects like what Macron would like to, or those, what he was proposing. Not ex- not necessarily supported by German centrists. Then there are also, well, divisions between, well, it's a southern, Europe less economically stable. And the ideas that well, all this far-right, right, and populist forces, they in fact propose something like that, more sovereignty to the states, but not necessarily more sovereignty to the European Union, because that would require more consolidation, turning the EU into something like a federation at least with some unified army. And if, EU cannot rely on the United States, it also requires some sort of either transformation of NATO or building a European military alliance. And then how even in case if AfD comes to power in Germany, and National Rally comes to power in France, and Meloni stays in power in Italy, and U- the UK is taken by, Farage are they going to be, well, alone, about any clear strategic project for EU? I'm not so sure. And the in being kind of like squeezed between, stronger powers, the United States, Russia, China it looks like strategically important to become more unified, but there is also so much of the divisions that are immediately appearing in Europe.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 33:34 And I've been talking a lot about the divisions between the nations in the European Union, but there are also probably growing divisions between society and political elites, in particular about Ukraine, in particular about rearmament, in particular about all the austerity measures that it might have, might require in the future. The, now they're discussing the European budget, and there are proposals to make very serious cuts. And it's it looks like the actual political capacity of the European elites to turn into a sovereign actor is not that great at the moment.

Jacob Shapiro: 34:29 I, the other part of this question, and you alluded to this earlier, but I think we should bring it to the fore now, which is, you know, if Ukraine was losing its sovereignty and was disorganized in all these different ways what is Russia doing? What is the logic behind Russia was doing? Because it seemed to me that Russia was getting everything it wanted. And only by, you know, going after Ukraine in the way that it did, it actually created a much bigger problem for itself both in dealing with Ukraine, in dealing with Europe and for not any kind of discernible reason. Where do you think… W- because, you know, this is also, in some sense, Russia and Ukraine are mirror images of each other, or cousins or brother, whatever metaphor you wanna use. These things are actually happening in both societies with the capture of the government by oligarchs and the pushback of society against it. So just where is Russia in all of this from your point of view? And why do you think Russia took a step that at least on its face to me still makes no strategic sense?

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 35:28 Yeah. Well, still many people share this viewpoint as in the West that it didn't make any strategic sense. And I actually disagree with that. And, Hmm … if you look, for example, if you think about, this from the per- from the viewpoint of the conflict with NATO, which is, well, it is objective. Where is NATO right now? NATO is perhaps at the weakest position in terms of, its capacity to, in particular to make a strong response to any Russian aggressive act. Then ever since, I don't know since 1991 perhaps, or even earlier, when Gorbachev started the attempts to reconcile it and to stop the Cold War. Right now, NATO is as fragmented as it has never been, perhaps. In particular, as an outcome of their incapacity to defeat Russia Would support Ukraine to defeat Russia, right? Mm-hmm. So, and does it make sense for Putin? I think it makes a lot of sense to Putin. And so from th- from this viewpoint, well, it doesn't look like an irrational act. I mean, what, whatever we're thinking, I mean, it's obviously not a moral justification w- for what, Putin has done. So it's, it led to huge destruction, to huge loss of life. But from the point of view of the, Russian leader who wants to make Russia strong against NATO, at this moment, it looks like Putin has succeeded. Then in terms of in terms of Ukraine, right?

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 37:29 An argument that, Ukraine was actually much more Russia sympathetic before Russia annexed Crimea, before Russia supported the war in Donbas, or maybe even instigated the war in Donbas, and especially after Russia started the full scale invasion, which is true, right? There was sort of been many more, Russia sympathetic Ukrainians and, well, pro-Russian parties polled, mm, a considerable number of votes. Before, 2014, the party of regions not necessarily a pro-Russian party, but still which was something like what I mentioned about Georgian scenario, trying to be kind of like a bridge between, Russia and the EU and playing on something unsuccessfully. Mm-hmm. And the Communist Party, which was simply calling to reestablish a union between Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. They had the majority in the parliament. They could poll the majority in the elections. And so of course, the, this whole spectrum of Ukrainian politics is now gone, repressed, eliminated disintegrated. Many of those politicians are now in the, in pro-Western camp or simply supporting Zelensky or in exile and so on. And so, yeah, was it worse? I mean, the, it also depends, I mean, if you look on this in the longer term, right? And it does not necessarily mean that Ukrainians would be forever hostile to Russia, even however counterintuitive it sounds now. Do you…

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 39:29 Let's think about, for example, United States annexed the bigger part of Mexico in the middle of the 19th century. Is Mexico like, forever hostile to the United States? Not exactly. So many Mexicans actually come into the United States to, for work. And it depends not so much on the historical grievances that now they now think about that as, well, California used to be a part of Mexico. But about the balance of economy, the balance of well, military in particular other things. Georgia was basically also lost significant part of its territory, in particular because of the Russian actions and support of the separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But you see, in 2012, they get a party that tries to accommodate to Russia, even if not recognizing that the Abkhazia and South Ossetia are independent states, obviously totally dependent on Russian support. But still, well, Georgia is trying to get along with that, and is still retaining that, And like chance that in case of any change in Russia, in case of any change in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they may eventually acquire those territories back. And so in terms of and also, there is also a very important domestic dimension on which I am like emphasizing, first of all. When Russia started the war in Ukraine, and which led to the, so-called relocation or emigration of the political opposition, from Russia to the, to other states, to EU, to Georgia, to Kazakhstan and other places.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 41:47 Did Russia consolidate around Putin? In fact, it did. And there have been so many of, … It's just for example we need to think about the overall strategy of what Ukraine and, NATO was doing at least since 2022. There was, in fact, no, so not so much most serious chance to defeat Russia on the battlefield. However, the overall strategy was rather to undermine Russia from within, to impose so much of the cost by sanctions, by obviously also casualties on the battlefield by most recently, by the direct attacks on the key sectors of, Russian economy, oil refineries in particular, or these big logistical storages that the Ukrainian drones were pretty successful to attack. But the idea is the idea behind that is that the Russian population would start to feel the costs of the war, the Russian business would start to feel the costs of the war, and it would increase the pressure on Putin to stop the war on, Whatever so basically to surrender some of his key demands on U- on Ukraine and to, for example, to stop the war with the current front line and to freeze the conflict. But this is not happening. Russia, or, well, the Russian elites, they, quite possibly falsified significantly the most recent election outcomes. This is what we know from the independent investigations. But this also means that even if the majority of Russians did not vote for the, for pro-Putin's party, United Russia, but still this shows that the Russian elite is still around Putin, and it didn't use the elections and all the growing discomfort and grievances that appeared after successful Ukrainian attacks to undermine, Putin's regime.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 44:07 Despite the so many expectations among the West the, Western experts, politicians, that this would lead precisely to that. And the consolidation of the regime, the also the emergence of the big number of beneficiaries of the war in Russia, in the military industrial sector, in the civilian sectors that, are also in connec- in connection to the military production. Among the businesses, the, Russian billionaires in particular are becoming richer and richer during the war. There are important beneficiaries that are have, Become more invested and consolidated around the war project. And this is this has been this has been achieved precisely by the war. And the overall well, Putin's idea is in the reading of, some of the researchers is that it's, it, he actually may not be so much about Ukraine or definitely not so much about how much territory of Ukraine he controls, but this is about transformation of Russia itself. This is about making Russia, Russian state more sovereign, both domestically, and this leads to his, well, consolidation of a strong authoritarian regime, but a strong regime and also internationally. And there've been so many kind of like expectations that something exactly opposite is happening, that Russia is losing any support in among the, their former allies and friends and in the, in particular in the post-Soviet neighborhood.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 46:18 And also s- the Russians, Russian elites are shocked by the invasion. Russian citizens are not exactly supporting the invasion. But this has changed. And the outcome may be that Russia is emerging from this war s- as a stronger state than it was before.

Jacob Shapiro: 46:44 Yeah, I, and this is why I was worried about only an hour, 'cause I could talk to you for two more hours, but I'm gonna try and start to at least get us to close the first chapter of our conversation and beg you to come back. But that, that's an interesting point, and I kind of see the point that you're making. But it also, to me, cuts against some of your writing about how, or at least the class-based component of this conflict itself in both. And I think you can make, and I think you have made the case that for Russian elites are profiting from the war. I think you can make the inconvenient and unpleasant truth that Ukrainian elites are profiting from the war. But I'm not sure that you can say that the normal subaltern, to use, you know, some of the language from your papers, you know, the working class person in Ukraine or Russia is not doing better from the war. And increasingly, the costs of the war are being borne by those people as the war becomes more about let's blow up energy infrastructure, let's blow up warehouses, let's blow up science centers, let's blow up schools. I mean, the actual day-to-day life of both Russians and Ukrainians is now the battlefield, more so than Donetsk and Luhansk and random lines to nowhere. So is there a, you know, I hear what you're saying, but is the long-term cost to Russian society actually a greater danger to Putin's project? And ditto that for Ukraine. Is the long-term cost to Ukrainian society a bigger threat to what Zelenskyy or what, you know, these transnational elites that you're talking about are thinking about? Tell me a… And that's a, that's a way for you to talk about the class-based nature of the conflict, too, as we start to wrap up.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 48:08 Yeah, absolutely. That's a, that's a very important question. And you know, to a big extent, I agree. When we are speaking about the achievements, right these are primarily the achievements of, Putin or the narrow clique around Putin. But I still think that he feels pretty much satisfied with how everything is going. Of course, yeah, probably he did have certain expectations that the so-called special military operation in 2022 would quickly lead to success and it obviously failed. And but since then we see that certain kind of like deeper structural forces are still kind of like bent the outcome of the conflict into the Russian, at least Putin's side.

Jacob Shapiro: 49:06 Mm-hmm.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 49:06 But yeah, the, Russians and Ukrainians are obviously the complex diverse societies. They consist from cl- in from classes from different social groups. And there are winners and there are also losers. In Russia itself in fact there are groups of workers in particular working in the military industrial sector for whom the wages basically doubled. In real terms. It's not nominal wage, a real wage doubled. And they feel their support for the for what's going on. They are a part of the loyal electorate for Putin. There are groups which who lost and this in particular the more like globalized cosmopolitan middle class, cut from the, well, professional opportunities, business opportunities. Obviously the part of business that in Russia was over the entered towers, the global market, they lost if they were not capable to adapt back, because there were also many opportunities open for the Russian business, as a result of the well, Western companies going out and the appropriation of their assets the new opportunities with the, in the military production and so on and so forth. That wealth that, that is accumulated by the Russian rich is an outcome of the war to a large extent.

Jacob Shapiro: 50:53 Mm-hmm an interesting development was also in particular about the regional inequality in Russia, where actually many of the poorer regions, that those regions were which were like deprived in the post-Soviet years.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 50:53 But precisely because of the concentration of the military production in them, something like a Rust Belt, they quickly w- got kind of like a flow of money to them, and they started to improve on relative terms to historically richer regions in Russia. And here based on the analysis that is done by Russian political economist Ilya Matveev who's in particular like looking on this regional discrepancies who won, who lost among Russian in the Russian society. So, It's in it's in the interest of Putin, but not just in his own interest. But it also doesn't mean that what Putin does is necessarily in the national interest of Russia. And h- this distinction between- Mm … between what is, beneficial for the, Russian ruling clique, for the Russian ruling class, as a whole, and for the Russian society as a whole, I think this, that's, it's still important to maintain, and obviously I do not dilute it. These are only- Mm … partially convergent interests, but they are also divergent. And speaking about Ukraine, there are obviously even more divergences. So the you said that the Ukrainian rich are benefiting from the war. They are also different.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 52:54 Well, the traditional Ukrainian oligarchs looks like losing significantly from the war.

Jacob Shapiro: 53:02 Mm-hmm.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 53:02 This has specialist became more acute this year with the Russian intensified bombardment of the metalworks factories in Ukraine, which was a very important part of the Ukrainian export before the war, and now it's almost destroyed. The Ukrainian agricultural sector which cannot export the production, the harvest, because of the, well the Russian, bombing of the Ukrainian ports. And but at the same time, Zelensky looks like built his kind of like mafia style patronage network where his cronies made kind of like good money during the war. And we know more and more from each of the new package of the anti-corruption investigations. But at the same time, nobody in that network has been punished in any meaningful way. Many could easily escape Ukraine and just obviously undermine any remaining legitimacy of Zelensky government this moment. But also n- speaking about the, let's say, less privileged groups, the Ukrainian professional middle class that especially grouped around the, Western NGOs, they benefited from the war to a big extent. And for them it was even like the whole war was like almost- Like explicitly the moment of opening opportunities. In 2022 is on the, on this wave of enthusiasm and the first successes in defeating the Russian invasion, they were looking at this not simply as a defeat of Russia, but as also as an opportunity to change Ukraine in the way that they would feed their dreams.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 55:19 To make something that was impossible before the war. So one of the relatively known Ukrainian writer wrote in 2022 that, "We pay a horrible price, but for that price, we built a Ukraine of our dreams." And what he meant specifically was, in particular, removing Russian language from Ukrainian cities. Making, well, a nationalist dream coming true. De-Russifying Ukraine, de-communizing, decolonizing, and well, even looking at this not simply in terms of narrow material interest. The ideological agendas that became possible to realize, the symbolic status to improve for the, for Ukrainian intellectuals coming to the West now and speaking as Ukrainian voices and acquiring international well, fame and so on and so forth. So for, not for many, not, mm, not for all of Ukrainians, but at least for some of Ukrainians, the war became kind of like the, an opportunity to pursue their collective individual strategies to improve their wealth and status. And also, yeah, coming back to the lowest part of the U- of the Ukrainian society, well, the workers are indeed carrying the high- the heaviest burden of the war. Because these are the people who cannot bribe themselves out of the conscription. The whole, again, speaking about beneficiaries, the whole economy or, like black, gray economy around conscription, which involves not simply bribes to the conscription officers, but also bribes to the border guards, bribes to the doctors who can write fake medical certificates that you are, do not, are not fit to fight in the army.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 57:23 It is estimated in billions of dollars. And this, these billions are also appropriated by specific people in Ukraine. And if you're, well, if you're an IT guy who can pay several thousand thousands of dollars to get you a fake medical certificate and solve the issue with the conscription office, you are pre- in a privileged situation. But most of the Ukrainian workers cannot do this, and they are conscripted, and they're sent to die, or they look for other opportunities to leave the country.

Jacob Shapiro: 58:03 Unfortunately, we have to leave it there, but I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.

Volodymyr Ishchenko: 58:07 Yeah, I did. Thank you.

Jacob Shapiro: 58:07 And I hope you'll come back on. Thank you for listening to the Jacob Shapiro podcast. If you enjoyed today's conversation, you can find more episodes, essays, a link to our Substack, and tons more analysis at jacobshapiro.com. And if you ever want to reach out directly with questions, feedback, guest ideas, if you want to inquire about booking me for an event or any of my consulting services, you can email me at jacob@jacobshapiro.com. Also, if you found this episode valuable or interesting, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or a rating, or sharing it with someone you think might appreciate it. Take good care of the people that you love. Cheers, and we will see you out there.

Outro: 58:50 I pledge to myself on this day to try to be kind every way. To every person, big and small, I will help them if they fall. Thank you for listening to the podcast.