By
Wolodymyr Derzko
In my last commentary article, I posed the thought provoking
question: Does the Kremlin have a master plan or a grand scenario for
Volodymyr Horbulin and Oleksandr
Lytvynenko warn readers in a commentary entitled “Our big neighbour has settled
down. What should Ukraine do next?”, which was published in the
widely-read Ukrainian analytical newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli on September
19, 2009, stating: “the foreign policy blueprint of the Russian Federation
contains clear-cut formulations relating to Russian interests in Ukraine i.e.
keeping Ukraine in its sphere of influence and the ‘privileged interests’ of
Russia. Probably such a strategic vision was formulated and approved at a
closed joint session of the Security Council and Council of State of the
But, this is the here and
now. Does the Kremlin have a master plan or a grand scenario for
I’ve heard of one scenario,
which I have dubbed the “back to the cradle scenario”, which has likely been
debated in closed policy and strategy circles, and in political science
classrooms on university campuses, but has not received any public media
coverage.
This so far fictional,
composite “back to the cradle” scenario, as envisioned by Russian
MP and director of the Russian think tank institute on CIS Countries
(Institute for Diaspora and Integration) Konstantin Zatulin and other Russian
and Ukrainian politicians (such as Nataliya Vitrenko from the Social Democrats,
and United Rodina), goes something as follows.
The year is 2025 (plus or
minus five years). The world has stopped the process of globalization and has
instead followed a course of unionization, forming eight regional power blocs
around the globe, modelled after the European Union (EU). Following the
examples of a new economic North American union of Canada, the US and Mexico
and the union of south- east Asian nations, Russia pushes for an
economic-political and military union between the Russian Federation, Ukraine
and any failed states that have dropped out of the European Union (EU) or
failed to join in the first place. To fulfill its imperialistic ambitions, and
having lost several Siberian oblasts in the East to the Chinese and
through the independence movements of several “Stans” in the south,
More dramatically, the
Kremlin packs up it suitcases, abandoning Moscow and moves back to its
ancestral cradle, dating back to 988, the year that Kyivan Rus accepted
Christianity. The new Kremlin is headquartered in a more centrally
located region in Kyiv. Will this be a forced military invasion with tanks and
weapons, like in the recent case of
There appears to be one
"pro" scenario (Party of Regions group in power) and two polar
opposite "con" camps in
I tend to support the second
con camp. This Russian master plan for
Wolodymyr (Walter) Derzko is a senior fellow
at the Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) and a lecturer in the master’s of arts
program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation,