By Wolfgang Mayr

US President Trump and Russian war president Putin negotiated for less than 24 hours to resolve the ‘Ukraine conflict’. And the two autocrats found the recipe. The invaded Ukraine capitulates, renounces the regions already illegally annexed and NATO membership, and reduces its army.

Recently, Putin let Ukraine know that he is claiming 35 per cent of its territory. Putin is not satisfied with what he has negotiated with real estate developer Trump regarding Ukraine. Right-wing and left-wing radicals in Western Europe are euphorically welcoming this ‘peace deal,’ and the Global South also sees this plan as the key to peace.

Meanwhile, Putin is activating a new programme for the occupied, devastated and annexed eastern Ukraine. By 2036, Ukrainian identity in annexed eastern Ukraine is to be eradicated, with 95 per cent of the population becoming ‘Russian’. This used to be called fascism.

With this ten-year plan – as once in the Russian-dominated Soviet Union – the Putin regime wants to assert its dominance in eastern Ukraine.

The decree ‘National Policy Strategy of Russia until 2036’ instructs the authorities to increase the number of people who identify as Russian and use the Russian language – especially in the four occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya.

Radical Russification

According to this decree, the annexation of the eastern Ukrainian regions has created ‘conditions’ for ‘restoring the unity of the historical territories of the Russian state.’ Eastern Ukraine, ‘New Russia,’ is being brought back into the empire. According to war president Putin, Ukraine, which he invaded, has no historical identity of its own and is not an independent nation.

Putin calls his invasion in February 2022 a necessity to ‘demilitarise and denazify’ Ukraine and protect the Russian-speaking population from alleged discrimination by the ruling ‘neo-Nazis’ around Jewish-born President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The decree authorises the state to ban the Ukrainian language. In addition, the history of the annexed Ukrainian regions is being rewritten to claim that they have always been Russian.

Since independence in 1991, Ukrainian has been the only official language, arguably a serious mistake, understandable given the violent Russification of the country under Tsarist and Bolshevik Russia. Nevertheless, many Russian-speaking citizens see themselves as Ukrainians and not as Russians.

Mass child abduction

The renewed Russification of eastern Ukraine is closely linked to the abduction of Ukrainian children. The Russian occupation authorities had more than 20,000 Ukrainian children abducted. They were placed in ‘re-education camps’ where they are forced to participate in military training.

The Ukrainian government accuses Russia of sending Ukrainian children to North Korea. According to Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets, there are 165 camps in occupied Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and North Korea.

Recently, the UN also addressed the abduction of children from Ukraine. Ninety-one countries voted in favour of a resolution calling on Russia to return the children. Fifty-seven countries – from the ‘global South’ – abstained, while twelve expressed solidarity with Russia, including North Korea, Sudan and Iran.

Russia denies the accusation of mass abduction of Ukrainian children. Instead, it claims that children have been ‘relocated’ for their own protection since the start of the offensive. Russia is endeavouring to reunite them with their families.

Putin does not want peace

This is a blatant lie by the Putin regime. It is also a lie that Putin wants peace. On the contrary, the central goal of his policy is the subjugation of Ukraine, says Russian dissident and Nobel Prize winner Irina Scherbakowa in a podcast by the Viennese magazine ‘Falter’. The Russian army is deliberately subjugating captured Ukrainians, sending the message that there will be no mercy for them. Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper recently published the story of Olena Yahupova, who was abducted from her home in southern Ukraine, tortured and sold to a Russian officer. To be abused.

The Russian state does not want peace with Ukraine and its people. No matter how often the AfD, the Left Party, the BSW, pop philosopher Precht and many others – Orban, Fico, Babis, Herbert Kickl, Salvini, etc. – repeat it.