Head of the First Voluntary Mobile Hospital named after Mykola Pirogov, Gennady Druzenkowho previously told what is needed for Ukraine to win at the front, shared his thoughts on a possible humiliating peace with Russia.
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“UKRAINIAN RES PUBLICA IS THE KEY TO VICTORY
From what I currently hear and see around us, the critical year 2024 awaits us. When – if we do not radically change – we will have to negotiate a humiliating peace with Putin. Not to negotiate, but to accept the front line as the de facto border between us and Russia. An uncertain border that does not even dream of inviolability, but a border. A dynamic frontier that will resemble the frontier of civilization in the Cossack times in Ukraine or the Wild West in the USA…
And this is not the worst scenario. Rather realistic. This does not mean that we will lose. This means that we will not win because we have abandoned the path of radical changes. These will be bitter medicines for our chronic diseases, the relapses of which have become particularly acute recently. And which can be described in one word – infantilism.
This is also a child’s faith in the hero of the savior, who should save the country and lead us all to a bright future – be it Zelensky, Zaluzhnyi, Poroshenko or someone else. And the naive self-assurance that “the guys from the front will return – they will restore order” (God forbid that they do not oversleep, do not start a wave of suicides and do not throw grenades in the streets). This is the cargo cult of NATO and the EU, the entry into which should magically change us for the better. This is also the mythologizing of the Armed Forces, which are currently only a slice of our society — with all its heroes and scum, exploits and baseness, brilliant innovations and absurd bureaucracy. This is also the inability to distinguish the enemy from the opponent. And lack of strategic thinking. And too much emotionality. And hypertrophied self-centeredness and inability to see and analyze events in a wider historical and geopolitical context…
In order to win in Russia, which has many times greater mobilization potential than ours and an order of magnitude more resources, we must become radically different from the enemy. In a symmetrical war – wall to wall – we will not defeat him. This has become evident over the past year.
And this applies not only and not so much to the military technologies that Zaluzhny spoke about. This applies primarily to the state, because it is the effectiveness of the organization of state power and society that determines the effectiveness of the army of this state. And never vice versa.
We can talk for a long time about why Ukraine is not Russia. And about the gene of freedom in our veins. And about our tendency to freedom. And about our (relative) integration into European culture. And about the tradition of electing (and dismissing) their political leaders. All this is true.
But in order to become not just different, but radically different from the Russians, we must cultivate a culture of true republicanism. In which the state is perceived as Res Publica — a common cause. For which everyone is responsible. In which every citizen is a co-owner of the state, and not just a subject or an employee. In which the mechanisms of cooperation are developed. And in which the status of a citizen does not fall from the sky – it should be earned by serving the common cause.
When a mortal threat hung over the future of Ukraine, we repeatedly demonstrated the ability to take the country’s fate into our own hands. Without unnecessary formalities and formal powers. And it never worked out for us! And this means that Ukrainians have a huge republican potential.
However, this potential was never fully realized. We flashed brightly like a brush and quickly faded. And again, instead of a republic, an elected monarchy was revived in Ukraine. In which the subjects placed a priori unrealistic expectations on the next candidate for hetman, gladly handed him the mace — and believed that their civic duty was fulfilled. Instead of a common cause, we ran to our houses to build our small farms instead of (and often at the expense of) a common state. And so from election to election.
Our governments – mostly under pressure from the West – implemented thousands of reforms, and we wondered why life was not getting better. Why is the government still behaving like a “licensed racketeer” instead of becoming a server of our “common cause”. Why have neither the deputies nor the president ever once asked us, the citizens, whether we are satisfied with the “elected monarchy” under which, for the fourth decade in a row, we are often creating Ukraine not thanks to the government, but in spite of it. They did not ask what kind of parliament we need and what powers the president and prime minister should have. Do we need a constitutional court that, even in wartime, costs taxpayers like the US Supreme Court. Should the President be Commander-in-Chief? And why do we still not have the right to elect sheriffs? Why are men required to serve in the army, but women are not? It never even occurred to the government to ask our opinion on such fundamental things…
And that is why we are still too similar to our enemies. Victory will only cement this internal similarity under an emphasized external difference. Therefore, there will be no victory until we change. Until a leading class crystallizes in us – a real nobility, aristocracy, nobility that will take responsibility for this country. Who will serve her, and not collect. Who will dream big and act pragmatically, and who will always align his path with the leading Ukrainian star – the vision of our place in the global world and mission in human history. And keeping this strategic framework is the main vocation of the national aristocracy.
When we nurture a new leading class in the fire of war and the silence of the universities, when it takes over the power in this country from the elected tsar and his post, when Ukraine turns into a real Res Publica (a common cause of its aristocracy and the common people), then we will have a chance to defeat Russia . In the meantime, a difficult and tragic year 2024 awaits us…
In which our real realistic goal is not to go to the borders of 1991, but to preserve the chance and space for radical transformations in the country. Transformations as a guarantee of future victory…” – wrote a volunteer in Facebook.
The materials posted in the “Blogs” section reflect the author’s own opinion and may not coincide with the editorial position.
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