Scenarios after the elections in Donetsk and Lugansk

The results confirmed the forecasts, that is to say, the victory of the parties that postulate their integration to the Russian Federation.

The general elections held last Sunday in the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, located in the east of Ukraine, and separated de facto from this country since 2014, passed without incidents of relevance, with a participation of 80% and 77% respectively, according to the figures of the local authorities.

The results confirmed the forecasts, that is to say, the victory of the parties that postulate their integration to the Russian Federation, led by the current interim leaders, Pushili in the case of Donetsk and Paechik in Lugansk.

The winning candidates have obtained 61% and 68.4% respectively.

Rejection of Kiev and its Western supporters

The call for elections immediately provoked strong reactions from the Ukrainian authorities, which through the mouth of its President, Porochenko, launched not only strong accusations against Russia but also threats of heavy reprisals.

A supported position, although with a more moderate language, on the part of the EU's foreign affairs officer, Federica Mogherini, and also accepted by the special envoy of the USA for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, and NATO.

In addition eight EU countries asked the Moscow Government to use its influence in the Independent Republics to avoid the elections, arguing that they violated the Minsk Agreement (promoted and endorsed by the EU and Russia). An agreement which achieved a precarious end to the fighting of a civil war that, in little more than a year, provoked over 10,000 dead, according to UN figures.

The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry was emphatic and clear in her response: "People simply need to live (...) and ensure order in their region”, a clear reference to the murder in a brutal attack by the President of Donetsk, Alexander Zacharchenko, on 31 August 2018. An action in which everything points to the Government of Kiev as author, and that at the time Moscow said that "it would have consequences".

In reference to the electoral call, the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, also said that they did not violate neither the letter nor the spirit of the Minsk Agreement.

Ukraine laboratory and failure of a geo-strategic movement

The so-called Maidan Revolution began in the spring of 2014, and its initial causes were the decision of the then President of Ukraine to reject a proposal of political-economic agreement with the EU, and the acceptance, as an alternative, of a strategic agreement proposed by Moscow, to deal with the strong economic crisis that Ukraine society was suffering at the time.

At the time surely there was social discontent because of the widespread and deep corruption extended in the administration, in favor of a caste of "oligarchs" who benefited from the disorder that accompanied the demise of the USSR.

The social protests, initially peaceful, soon showed a strange capacity for organization, logistic and economic support and the presence of well-trained paramilitary groups.

After two months of protests and more than 200 deaths, the "triumph" of this revolt was publicly presented as the best example of the so-called “Colour Revolutions", in this case orange, promoted, organized and financed by Western foundations, and directly financed by the governments of the USA, Germany, France and Great Britain, as well as a group of globalized billionaires, in this case, George Soros.

However, the “victorious” Maidan Revolution, devised and prepared far from Ukraine, and implemented by movements inheriting ultra-nationalism from the Ukrainian extreme right does not seem to have taken into account all consequences.

Strong reactions from Moscow and the Ukrainian population of Russian origin

The immediate response of the populations of Russian origin, more than 35% of the Ukrainian population, concentrated essentially in the eastern regions of the country, was to quickly react to the vacuum of power in Kiev and the anti-Russian virulence prevailing in Kiev (which included a massive lynching of civilians of Russian origin, burned alive, in Sebastopol).

This reaction led to the non recognition of the central authority, the organization of their self-defense and, finally - given the aggressive drift of events - the declaration of the independent Republics.

There is no evidence that the Moscow Government has encouraged the separation of the two regions of Donetsk and Lugansk but it is a reality that supports the fait accompli, since the vast majority of the population in those regions is of Russian origin, and their resistance attracted huge support and solidarity in Russian society.

After almost a year of violent confrontations the Minsk Agreement put an end to the fighting and made it clear that the Kiev army was unable, on its own, to recover the lost territories, thus establishing the current status quo in the Independent Republics.

At the same time, this situation provoked a quick and hard reaction from the Kremlin Government. Special units of the Russian army surrounded and isolated all the facilities of the Ukrainian armed forces deployed in the Crimea, where both countries maintained, by bilateral agreement, the base of the Ukrainian and Russian fleet corresponding to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

After quickly expelling the Ukrainian army, a referendum was organized to legalize Crimea integration into Russia, approved by the majority of the population (of Russian origin).

One conclusion: Ukraine won nothing and lost a lot

In the end, Ukraine did not reach economic agreements either the EU or Russia. It was involved in a short but bloody civil war losing, in fact, not only the two important eastern regions but also Crimea and even its fleet.

The Ukrainian society is still afflicted, four years on, by the same economic shortcomings and the evil of corruption. Western promises of integration in the EU, massive economic aid and military support of all kinds were only words that the wind took away.

The "Maidan Revolution" never contemplated in its planning a lost civil war, much less a direct political and military confrontation of the West with Russia.

The recent elections are therefore just one more step in what seems irreversible: that sooner or later the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics will be recognized by the Moscow authorities, and will be integrated into the Russian Federation, and that Crimea will be Russia for at least several decades more.