Crimea or Bust, and Czar Alexander II

President Joe Biden could not make it clearer that the United States fully backs a quick and unambiguous resolution to the Russo-Ukrainian war, even to the extent of backing a near-term Ukrainian counteroffensive to push forces out of the Crimean Peninsula annexed (illegally under international and Russian law) by Vladimir Putin in 2014.

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The Ukrainian government believes it can only have lasting peace when it forces all Russian forces and the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol from Crimea, a defeat that would surpass the historic loss of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese war under Czar Nicolas II and de facto trigger the immediate resignation/dismissal of Putin from the presidency.

After his presidential visit to Kiev to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden held a summit in Warsaw with the frontline NATO members of the Bucharest Nine to leave no doubt about the United States’ total support for a Ukrainian victory over Russia.

The B9 summit – with the conspicuous absence of old Europe NATO members and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (who was sent to the fourth annual US-Greece Strategic Dialogue in Athens) – put paid to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s efforts to establish an uneasy stalemate between Russia and Ukraine or those with financial interests in a drawn-out war of attrition.

The US-EU military industrial defense complex has been arguing in Washington and Brussels that it needs at least two years of massive arms expenditures to fix supply-chain and manufacturing deficiencies to supply Ukraine war needs properly, an argument finding little sympathy or patience in Kiev.

Blinken remains almost universally despised in Ukraine for ordering the total evacuation of US diplomats prior to the Russian invasion and causing President Zelensky to utter the line: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

The “Crimea or Bust” strategy, where the bulk of Ukraine’s upcoming spring offensive is aimed at taking back Crimea rather than enlarging the World War I–like trench warfare on its eastern front, is currently being cheerled by the former commander for US Army Europe, Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges, and DC-based think-tank the Hudson Institute.

It is also discreetly backed by Ukraine’s closest allies in the Biden administration: Central Intelligence Agency director and former US ambassador to Moscow Bill Burns and the current US ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski.

Many in Washington and Europe grossly underestimate Ukraine’s determination to end the senseless fratricidal war and its willingness to do whatever it takes to defeat Russia – from participating in armed combat at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia (ZNPP), to launching a surprise ground invasion of Russia proper.

Speaking to Capitol Intelligence, US Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner said he was unnerved that some elements in Ukraine said they were willing to launch a ground offensive on Russia.

Such an offensive would be an action similar to Estonia nearly capturing the former Russian imperial capital of Petrograd in Operation White Sword during the War of Independence against the Bolsheviks of 1918 to 1920.

“Let me make it clear. It is not Zelensky or any of his ministers proposing this [invasion of Russia] but some elements close to the government,” Warner said.

A visit to Crimea in 2015 was like stepping back to the 1980s Soviet Union as the lion’s share of the near 2 million residents were directly to connected to the Soviet political and military nomenklatura, where dachas and vacations to Crimea were part of the Communist Party reward and status system.

Even a few months after Russia’s annexation, there was loud grumbling among Crimeans when they realized Moscow’s tough visa laws would make a significant dent in earnings from spendthrift Western tourists. This reporter personally witnessed a lengthy and lively debate between Russian FSB (Federal Security Service) border guards and local officials why they could not just lift or even bend Moscow-mandated rules.

“Most people did not care about exchanging Ukrainian passports for Russian ones until they realized that Moscow’s bureaucracy is much, much worse than Kiev’s,” one Simferopol official said.

For Leon Kogut, a Ukrainian-American figure in Brooklyn, New York, legendary for his Hollywood appearances, political connections (US Senate leader Chuck Schumer, future US House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and Michael Bloomberg), and father to National Basketball Association referee Marat Kogut, the best outcome possible for all would be the resignation of Putin.

“The best outcome would be [Russian Prime Minister Mikhail] Mishustin taking over the presidency,” Kogut said at his Brighton Beach home overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. “Mishustin, who is known in Russia as a technocrat, has done everything possible to distance himself from the war and could start peace talks with President Biden.”

After leaving Ukraine in 1979 as a Jewish refusenik, Kogut even returned to the Soviet Union in the early 1990s when he raised very powerful eyebrows by holding private business meetings with Soviet first lady Raisa Gorbacheva.

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President Biden, working with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, could immediately signal to the new Russian government that it did not wage a proxy war to bring the country to its knees by appointing outgoing World Bank president David Malpass as the global head of the planned $500 billion Marshall Fund to rebuild Ukraine.

Malpass – a fluent Russian speaker from his time as a US Treasury official rebuilding Russia from the ashes after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 – has already proved effective in coordinating billions of dollars in Group of Seven and Group of Twenty economic aid to Ukraine.

Malpass could also expand the Marshall plan for Ukraine to include a new agricultural trade framework for Africa, the continent that has suffered the most from the Russo-Ukrainian war as the lack of basic food supplies, fertilizer and inflation are destined to plague the poorest of the poor for the years if not decades to come.

Crimea itself could also serve as a model for postwar co-existence by aiming to restore the peninsula to its former glory as a cultural and intellectual mecca by returning all lands back to their pre-1918 revolutionary owners.

A return of private property unlawfully seized by Bolsheviks would herald the return of foreign descendants such as the UK-US Tolstoy family, successful Tatar businessmen and others from the around the world and transform Crimea into a demilitarized free-trade zone – a sort of Hamptons/Monte Carlo with culture, port operations and offshore banking.

More important, the United States could openly seek to reforge Russian-American relations back to their  pinnacle under Czar Alexander II and Abraham Lincoln, two men who battled to emancipate slaves/serfs and both assassinated by homegrown traitors.

The untimely demise of reformist Czar Alexander by a criminal band later to become the Bolshevik party of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin tragically stunted a series of fundamental reforms such as the institution of a sovereign and democratically representative Duma (parliament).

The emergence of a post-Putin, post-Soviet and truly democratic Russia is the best long-term defense not only for Ukraine and the West, but also for China, as a prosperous and stable neighbor lifts all boats. 

Peter K Semler is the chief executive editor and founder of Capitol Intelligence. Previously, he was the Washington, DC, bureau chief for Mergermarket (Dealreporter/Debtwire) of the Financial Times and headed political and economic coverage of the US House of Representatives and Senate.