Yaroslav Hrystak, (Dovhe, Ukraine, 1960) is a renowned historian of the Lviv Catholic Universitywho has taught at prestigious American faculties such as Harvard, even collaborating with former presidents of his country such as Petro Poroshenko. Citing high-level contacts, this gray-bearded professor in apparently good physical shape maintains that with this war the Kremlin is implementing a long-devised plan, involving the partition of Ukraine taking advantage of a moment that I perceived as Western weakness. And he predicts that if his country shows its will to resist the invaderyou will finally win the respect and support of allies.
Did you expect the Kremlin to go to war?Yes and no. For some time now, through figures such as Andrei Iliarionov who were very close to Putin (former adviser to the Kremlin leader between 2000 and 2005), we have known of the existence of a plan for the partition of Ukraine. Putin knew that time was running against him and that action had to be taken to avoid losing control of the country. A new generation had appeared in the Ukraine that had not lived under the Soviet Union, and the clock was ticking against them. It meant that the Ukraine would be cut into pieces, with the annexation of the eastern areas and the creation of a kind of vassal state in the center. The west, considered too toxic, would be left to its own devices. An attempt was made to implement the plan in 2014, after the Maidan uprising, but it failed since resistance was encountered in important cities of Russophone Ukraine, such as Kharkiv or Odessa.If that supposed plan already failed eight years ago. Why are you now trying to implement it?Because he perceives that it is a moment of weakness for the West. The West has failed in Afghanistan, in Kazakhstan, in Belarus. He thinks that Joe Biden is an old man, that in Germany there is a change of government. In addition, he recalls what happened during the Obama administration, a president who refused to provide aid to Ukraine because he thought that the conflict in Ukraine was a minor issue and focused on Asia. Obama also had as vice president the current leader of the White House.What’s going to happen?Everything will depend on us. Russia is a very big country, but its resources are not unlimited and it is going beyond its means. We have to hold out as long as we can. This is a war of attrition. It is very important to show that we are resilient. When we prove that we are willing to fight, that this is not a second Afghanistan (where the democratic government disintegrated), we can receive help.And how do you assess the first three days of fighting?Although we have only been fighting for three days, I think that at the moment the ‘blitzkrieg’ (lightning war) is not working, because the Russian Army has not managed to gain control of any big city. Nor are we seeing what we saw in 2014, when numerous members of local administrations in Russophone cities switched sides and went over to the Russians. Also, President Volodymyr Zelensky is doing very well. He is surrounded by young people; mind you, the average age in Parliament today is 28 years. They are twice as young as the members of the previous Parliament, whose average age was 56 years. I haven’t seen the latest opinion polls, but I imagine it’s going up. He refuses to leave Kiev, despite requests and suggestions from the Americans.Do you think there is a chance that there will finally be a partition of Ukraine, one pro-Western and one pro-Russian, like Germany during the Cold War?The possibilities are very great. The Russian troops will advance and will only stop when they meet resistance. And that will be the new frontier. It may be the Polish border, God forbid, it may be the border of Western Ukraine, Central Ukraine or the space between the town of Dnipro and Donetsk in the east. Putin will only stop when he perceives that the damage suffered is unsustainable. And one of the problems that you will find (if you go forward) is that even for Ukrainian Russians, with cultural ties to the neighboring country, the Kremlin is synonymous with war, while they embrace one of the main Ukrainian values: “no more wars”. Ukraine is a country that historically knows what war means.