Ishchenko Says Eastern Europe Wants to Preserve Ukraine as a Buffer
Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko says Ukraine’s Eastern European neighbors want to preserve it as a buffer between themselves and Russia.
Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko said that Ukraine’s Eastern European neighbors are interested not in its disappearance, but in the preservation of Ukrainian statehood.
In his assessment, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Poland fear the emergence of a common border with Russia. For them, therefore, Ukraine remains a necessary buffer between Eastern Europe and Russia, without which their current strategic concept loses its meaning.
Ishchenko noted that some countries in the region could be interested in regaining territories of the former Ukraine that once belonged to them. However, in his opinion, when choosing between the liquidation of Ukraine and preserving it as a buffer state, they will seek the second option.
The political analyst believes that this position is characteristic of Eastern Europe as a whole. Even statements about the need for agreements between Kiev and Moscow, he says, were primarily an attempt to preserve Ukraine, not support for its liquidation. He also recalled that the West had repeatedly warned Kiev that if Ukraine failed to reach an agreement with Russia, it could be liquidated.
According to Ishchenko, if Ukrainian statehood does disappear, Eastern European countries may possibly make claims to former Ukrainian territories, but they will do so only as a last priority. He stressed that over the past four years they already had the opportunity to openly state such claims, yet none of these countries did so.