Candidate of political sciences, historian, religious scholar, political scientist and officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andrii Kovalev knows a lot about this. The military man shared his thoughts during a conversation with an ArmyInform correspondent.
He emphasizes: “You need to look more closely at the words because the devil is hiding in the details.” We publish the second part of the interview with the officer.
“The war must be transferred to the territory of the enemy under any circumstances”
— Mr. Andriy, what does Victory in this war mean to you?
— For me, the only victory in this war will be the disintegration of the Russian Federation. The war must be transferred to the territory of the enemy under any circumstances.
Even when the disintegration of Russia begins, several factors will still threaten national security. For example, a civil war or a series of civil conflicts may begin on the territory of the Russian Federation. This will take place in the immediate vicinity of Ukraine, so it may threaten us. Therefore, it is necessary to think about measures to protect yourself.
Yes, during the collapse of Russia, when it will crack at the seams, Ukraine can also be overwhelmed with those fragments.
Yes, our country should expect a migration crisis of an incredible scale in the conditions of the collapse of the Russian Federation. Many of those people will “remember” that they are “Ukrainians” and will want to return to Ukraine. Therefore, measures must be introduced to prevent these people from entering the territory of our country.
During one of the conferences in one of the Baltic states, we were presented with a plan for how this country would act in the conditions of the collapse of the Russian Federation.
Yes, Estonia, Finland, and the United States are already calculating the scenarios of the collapse of the Russian Federation, they have such strategic planning, and they know how to react to it because for them national security issues are at a very high level.
But in general, I still do not see a vision of the collapse of the Russian Federation. Russia has been at war against us for 10 years, but for most Ukrainians, the Russian Federation is terra incognita, they don’t know what it is. There is a big difference between Moscow and Russia. And Moscow is far from the whole of Russia.
“Muscovites turned enslaved nations into schizophrenics”
Russia specializes in creating brands of lies, one of which is “united and indivisible”. But it is not united and as such is subject to division. We need to look more closely at the words because the devil is in the details. The key word in the phrase “Russian Federation” is “federation”.
A federation is a union of states. There are about 90 objects of the federation in the Russian Federation, of which about 40 are national republics. The majority are those who, together with Ukraine, proclaimed an act of state sovereignty in the early 1990s, and some of them even an act of state independence. Tatarstan and Chechnya, for example, were independent states. And the Sakha Republic is called Yakutia in Moscow.
This is another strategy of the Muscovite, who conquered the territories around him: first, to defeat his neighbour, his enemy, he must be renamed by giving him an offensive nickname. That is, not Ukrainians, but “Khokhls”, not Bashkortos, but “Bashkirs”.
There are dozens of such examples. They, for example, never called the Mari people “Mari people”, but called them “Cheremis”.
Then the people must be subjugated, and the elite must either be destroyed (if it does not compromise) or offered a compromise. For example: we do not touch your culture and religion, just show us loyalty.
Muscovites used, unfortunately, Orthodoxy as a way of enslaving the people, and turned the enslaved nations into schizophrenics. This is the key strategy of Muscovites: for the enslaved nations to have two states, hypostases, with two parallel egos.
Like, for example, Erzyans. They said they would be loyal to Muscovites and attend church on Sunday. But on Monday, they also go to the forest and pray to Ineshkipaz, for example.
Another example is that the Russian Empire built the Kazan Orthodox Cathedral in the centre of Kazan. It was not a religious symbol, but a monument-triumph, a symbol of the Muscovites’ conquest of Muslim Tatarstan in Muslim Kazan.
The Tatars had a dream: to destroy this temple when they gained independence. And they did destroy this temple.
Recently, Muslims in Tatarstan rebuilt this cathedral in the centre of Kazan in the same place as a symbol of their renewed loyalty to Moscow.
“Serhii Kozhugetovych Shoigu is fiction”
Do you understand that Russia is a boiling cauldron? For quite a long time Muscovites did not interfere in the private lives of residents of the federation subjects. They practiced their religion and spoke their language.
But if someone wanted to break out of the national “territory reservation”, then he had to call himself “Russian”, invent a Slavic (and in fact – Greek) name, and then he could already claim the right to belong to the “all-imperial » elites. So, for example, the surname Mardvintsev appeared in the Russian Federation.
The Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation also renounced his “I”. Because Sergey Kozhugetovich Shoigu is fiction. It’s just that the dude made up the name “Sergey” at some point. Actually, his name is Shoigu, and his last name is Kozhuget.
Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev is from Erzyn. Putin is a Veps. But now in the Russian Federation, only about five thousand people from the once majestic people of Veps recognize themselves as Veps. To be a Veps in the Russian Federation, to belong to the people from which Putin comes, is considered “extremism” in the Russian Federation.
Now Russia, realizing the potential of enslaved nations, is trying to fight it with national policy: national schools are being closed, etc. Russia wants to turn everyone into “Russians”.
“The collapse of Russia will be led by Putin’s elites”
I am quite skeptical about national liberation movements in the Russian Federation. If they existed, they would have already acted: they cleaned out Putin’s regime, etc. Therefore, I believe that the collapse of Russia will be led by Putin’s elites. Yes, the same elites who are now in power in the republics. And as soon as Russia begins to collapse, they will be at the head of this collapse.
Just as local communist elites led the collapse of the USSR at one time, so in the Russian Empire, national liberation movements led the collapse of the empire: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine in the end.
Do you remember how in the USSR they talked about Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia? “This is our foreign country.” Because the Soviets did not feel safe there, they went to these countries as if on an excursion – the Baltic nations emphatically showed that they were different and that they were under occupation.
Unfortunately, the Ukrainians did not have time to do such a “vaccination”, and they drove us through the rink of genocides, repressions and extermination.
Ukraine is now as close as possible to the fact that Russia will catch fire and it will begin to fall apart. But not only Ukraine should work on this.
Let me remind you that the USSR collapsed when the American political elites made this decision for themselves. Yes, even the Republicans, led by President Reagan, began to effectively dismantle the USSR, starting this process. But now the American elites do not understand that Russia needs to be destroyed.
We must speak honestly and openly about this: the partner countries that helped us, in particular, European countries, in 2022-2023 fully financed the war against Ukraine from their budgets. They bought goods and energy carriers in Russia for exactly the same amount that the Russian Federation spent during this time in the war against Ukraine.
Therefore, only when there is a political consensus on the collapse of the Russian empire will it begin to collapse.
This process will be led by Putin’s elites on the ground, from among, for example, “United Russians.” Then they will all start saying, “Since childhood, we have been for independent Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, the independent republic of Tuva.”
“The national slogan of the Tuvans is `Kill Russia’ “
By the way, the Republic of Tuva has the highest level of Russophobia in the whole of Russia. Maybe even bigger than in Ukraine. The national slogan of the Tuvans is “Kill the Russians.” Believe me, if a white Russian-speaking man gets lost somewhere in Tuva, he will most likely be killed.
Bashkortostan was on fire recently, and there was almost an uprising. The topic is ecological: they destroyed their mountains and they wanted to build a fertilizer plant and extract soda. In Soviet times, one of the mountains was destroyed in this way, simply leveled to the ground. This time the Bashkortos came out and defended their mountains.
In fact, at the root of all national liberation movements, most often in the first place are ecological movements. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ukrainians also started a movement for the liberation of Ukraine under environmental slogans, the catalyst being the Chornobyl disaster. A political force called the “Movement for Reconstruction” appeared in Ukraine at that time.
It was an organization promoting political changes and liberalization in the USSR. Then it began to be called a “Movement”. This movement became the catalyst for the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. In Russia, they will slowly mature into this.
Putin is aware of the threat of the collapse of Russia, so he is trying to lure the subjects of the federation, the future theoretically independent states, into a war against Ukraine. That is why mobilization is so active in the national republics. That is why he gives national republics defence orders – so-called defence orders, in fact are military orders. In Tatarstan, for example, the Russians built the latest factory for the production of drones, and the Tatar elite agreed to these conditions: to fulfill orders, to earn money, to participate in the war against Ukraine.
It must be understood that what is called the “Russian Federation” is fighting against Ukraine – it is a union of about 90 states. And these are completely different nations.
At the beginning of the large-scale invasion, my friends and I analyzed who mostly fought in the Russian army. These are Buryats, Dagestanis and Bashkirs. Why? Because Putin first artificially drove these subjects of the federation into poverty and pennilessness and then gave them a choice: they could trade on the market for, for example, 5 thousand rubles a month, or they could go to the USSR and get 40 thousand rubles a month.
Did you know that the largest number of military units per square kilometre is located in Buryatia? This country is a solid military unit. This was laid back in Soviet times because Buryatia was a very uncertain country for the Soviets, they were afraid of uprisings and could not be conquered for a long time. Therefore, many military units were stationed here.
“I see the way to a just peace exclusively through the disintegration of the Russian Federation”
We have to fight. And in no case should it be about some kind of capitulation. When someone wants to “give” you peace, you should always ask yourself the question: what kind of peace is this?
Peace is different: through capitulation, with the famous Roman saying “Woe to the vanquished”, when the victor dictates the terms of peace. These conditions can be, for example, mass executions of the Ukrainian intelligentsia; it can be the latest famine, resettlement of peoples, or genocide. Yes, it may be peace, but at what price?
And there can be a just peace. I see the way to a just peace exclusively through the disintegration of the Russian Federation.
Only after the collapse of the Russian Federation will peace prevail in this part of Europe and this part of the world. Even if we go to the borders of 2013 and build a very high wall there; even if, as in Israel, we create an “Iron Dome” that will shoot down 98% of missiles that fly from Russian territory, 3-5 years will be enough for them to rearm, learn the lessons of war and return to us with a new war.
Collective Muscovites will not calm down. Even if the political regime changes in the Russian Federation but Russia remains within the same boundaries, with the same harmful imperial habits, we will still have 140 million people on our borders infected with the bacillus of chauvinism. For them, Ukraine is one big irritant. They believe that Ukraine’s independence is an injustice to them, and they dream of a new USSR.
The Russians, like a grandmaster in chess, calculated many steps ahead, laying many “safeguards”. And the worst of them is that Ukrainians should never know anything about Russia. Yes, there are more than 200 nations and nationalities in the Russian Federation, but Ukrainians cannot name even five nations that live in the Russian Federation. Therefore, when we try to defeat the enemy, we must first of all know him.
It is impossible to overcome the unknown. The enemy must be made known, understood, and broken down into particles. Because for now, we are trying to fight a symptom in this war. But we are not fighting the disease. In my opinion, we will win when we start fighting the disease and not the symptoms.
