In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll talk about what happens if Russia succeeds in their invasion and permanently holds the regions they now control. If this happens, there will be much more pain and suffering — without peace — for the Ukrainians in the future.

There is now a lot of talk, especially in the US, that the West should stop sending money and military aid to Ukraine and that this only “prolongs the war and the suffering in the country, ” parroting Putin’s words from his recent interview with Tucker Carlson.

This is of course just political rhetoric and part of Donald Trump’s campaign ahead of the presidential election, especially for power-hungry MAGA Republicans like @JDVance1, who criticized Trump harshly before he was politically cuckolded by him.

First, these pundits often call for “peace agreement”, but they never discuss what that agreement would look like. First of all, Russia annexed regions that it doesn’t even fully control, including Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Kherson Oblasts.

Second, even if such an agreement is made, it simply can’t be trusted. For example, @carlbildt told he had discussion with Russian security intel, who were “hell bent” that Russia would attempt to take Kharkiv and Odesa, and set up a Kremlin-controlled puppet regime in Kyiv.

Third, if Russia gets what they want in Ukraine, they will move on to other targets. They will most probably challenge NATO’s Article 5, invading small regions in Latvia or Northern Finland. This way they try to challenge the credibility of NATO and dissolve it.

But let’s examine what Russia has done in the temporarily controlled areas in Ukraine just to see what “having peace” actually means to Ukrainians. There are a lot of reports & evidence on this, for example a research published by The European Broadcasting Union in November 2023.

Eyewitnesses and experts have revealed incidences of torture, coercion, deportation, cultural erasure, and military indoctrination in the Russian-controlled regions. For example, a former police officer was beaten with an iron club and waterboarded.

One of the interviewees stated that “if you don’t want to be Russian, you will die.If you support the Ukrainian identity, you will have serious problems: imprisonment, death, torture.” Russia also forcefully mobilizes men from the captured regions to fight against their own.

Ukrainians have stated that if you don’t accept Russian passport in the captured regions, you don’t get pension, food or medical services. Thus, many elderly people require medication and obtain Russian passport just to stay alive.

Leonid Remyga, a medical doctor who worked in Kherson told that they were forced to give out Russian birth certificates. Everyone in the captured regions were also forced to memorize the Russian anthem and if they couldn’t, they were beaten and tortured.

In addition, all children have to attend Russian schools and follow the Russian curriculum. Ukrainian children are being denied access to their own culture and their own history, and are being forced to learn the revised history of Russkiy Mir instead.

So, if you think that the “peace agreement” will bring any kind of peace for the Ukrainians, you are simply delusional. It only means that Russia will continue their forced indoctrination, regroup, and continue their genocidal war some time later.

It also means that the abduction and forced adoption of Ukrainian children to Russia will continue. Russia is desperately trying to fix their failing demographics, and according to Article 2 Section E of the 1948 genocide convention, this constitutes genocide.

We can see this just by looking at what’s happening in Mariupol: once a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, Russia has turned it into a Potemkin village and the Kremlin is planning to move around 300,000 Russians to reside in the city by 2035:

And it’s not like they haven’t done this before. Both Donbas and Crimea regions were turned predominantly Russian by Stalin’s forced settlements. He then restricted the use of Ukrainian language and forced most schools to use Russian.

In addition, if Russia advances in Ukraine, more events like Bucha and Izium massacres will emerge, many more Ukrainians will flee their country, and other authoritarian regimes will be emboldened by Russia’s example and the West’s weak response to it.

Now, the US of course has the right to their own foreign policy and their democratically elected politicians can make whatever choices they want, but they should also remember that at the same time they’re abandoning their closest allies in the West.

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Pekka Kallioniemi (@vatniksou…

Vatnik Soup