Ukraine shattered Russia’s plans to restore the USSR, Portnikov says

by Vitaly Portnikov, a well-known Ukrainian journalist, political commentator, and analyst, as well as a laureate of the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine

Source: Portnikov on Facebook

I warned clearly: if the Russian Federation declared independence, it would inevitably lead to wars — both within its own borders and across the former Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, all the predictions I made back in 1990–1991 have come true. Because I understood one thing: this internal political civil war between two centres of power in Russia could not end well.

At the time, no one listened. Under Boris Yeltsin’s leadership, Russia was fixated on defeating Mikhail Gorbachev’s central authority. I remember this very clearly. Most importantly, Russia believed it could eventually bring the former Soviet republics back under Yeltsin’s rule.

Russia’s vision was simple: “Let’s get rid of these republics as dead weight, carry out our economic reforms, and later force them to return. They have nowhere else to go.”

This is why the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was never designed by Russia as a union of sovereign nations. It was built as a pseudo-state structure — shared bank, joint armed forces, unified strategic command, single currency. Everything was to be “shared.”

When that illusion collapsed, it triggered a deep civilizational shock for both the Russian government and its people.

One of the first victims of that shock was Belarus — its statehood and its people. Through a carefully orchestrated operation that brought Alexander Lukashenko to power, Belarus was the first to return to those pseudo-integration structures conceived during the Yeltsin era.

But those structures were never meant for Belarus alone. They were designed to pull in all former Soviet republics.

To rebuild the Soviet Union, however, Russia needs Ukraine above all. And we see that clearly today — in the war being waged on Ukrainian soil. Without Ukraine, the Russian Federation does not see itself as a legitimate player in Europe.

Restoring the empire is not just some nostalgic fantasy. It is a strategic tool to regain geopolitical power on the continent.

And let’s be honest: Belarus alone is not enough. It can serve as a launchpad for attacks on Ukraine, yes. But Ukraine — if conquered — could then be used as a platform to threaten Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and, looking to the Black Sea region, even Bulgaria and Georgia.

That reach would far surpass what Russia can achieve through controlling Belarus alone. And it’s those very possibilities Moscow is now pursuing.