I have already happened to write that unfortunately after the collapse of Saakashvili's anti-Russian political adventure, we need to expect a following similar strike (in the sense of a provocation, although the plot will be different); moreover, in the near future from the current Ukrainian government. All of President Yushchenko's actions, both in the course of the Georgian campaign as well as after it, indicate that any other development of events would simply be a miracle, since it does not fit at all into the logic of the functioning of the Ukrainian state in the form in which it was created and particularly under the power of those who today form Ukraine's real policy and implement it.

The creators of the Ukrainian state made a fundamental error in 1991, which, judging by all, will sooner or later turn into a catastrophe for their design and which meanwhile complicates life for others. They rejected the real characteristics of what is the territory united under the name Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and tried to take the path of creating a purely Ukrainian nation-state, for which there was no objective evidence. The real characteristics are obvious, but the Ukrainian elite, especially in the nationalist part of it, are trying to convince themselves and others that these real characteristics simply do not exist.Therefore, we should enumerate them.

1. Ukraine is a bi-national country, the state-forming nations in which are both ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. The ethnic Russians, who are mentally Russians and historically Russians, are no less than half the population in Ukraine. And no official census "recording" a reduction in the their number to 8 million (and they are promising 4 million in the next census) can change this fact -- what comes to mind more is falsification or, if the number of Russians is so catastrophically and rapidly declining, genocide.

2. In addition, the Russians are not suspended in Ukraine in some airless space. They are settled in lands in which they have lived for centuries and which they settled before the Ukrainians came, and especially the Ukrainian government. That is, the formula for Ukraine as a state consists simultaneously of two equations: "Ukrainians plus Russians" and "Ukrainian lands plus Russian lands".

3. Particular "official hatred toward Russia" driven by the current Ukrainian authorities is directed against the Soviet Union. One could argue the fruitfulness of this anti-Russian/anti-Soviet hatred for accomplishing the plan of constructing a Ukrainian nation-state, if the Russian territories which were mentioned above had not been given over to Ukraine during that Soviet period.

4. Moderate Ukrainian nationalists, who headed the Ukraine'sd eparture from the USSR, apparently intended to build a Ukrainian nation-state within the framework of their own moderate nationalism. However, they did not consider that many more active anti-Russian-inclined and ideologically-motivated, immoderate nationalists live in western Ukraine. And naturally, counting on a nationalist design opened the road to power for precisely the immoderate nationalists and not for the moderates, which is ultimately what took place after the "Orange Revolution" of 2004, the personal embodiment of which was President Yushchenko.

5. Finally, the ethnic and territorial bi-composition of Ukraine has precise geographic borders that divide this country into a predominantly Ukrainian west and a predominantly Russian east and south. That is, even the well-thought-out realization of the plan to build a purely Ukrainian nation-state (without aggressive Ukrainiazation and the forced exclusion of the Russian language and Russian culture) would automatically lead to splitting the country into two and not at all to its unification. Where, for example, Russians were simply forced to flee from "democratic Georgia" since they did not have their own territory, Russians will not flee from Ukraine should its de-Russification continue. They will simply separate themselves from it along with their lands. Of course, if in 1991 the Ukrainian elite had decided to create a Ukrainian state as a state of
Ukrainians and Russians as two equal and state-forming peoples of the given country, the issue of Ukraine's territorial integrity would not be so acute as it has become in recent years (beginning with Kuchma's presidency) and is today.

What exactly does Russia need from Ukraine since its separation? In principle, the issues are about the simplest things, although they are fundamental things. They include: equal rights for 15-20 million Russians who live in Ukraine's
territory and for Ukrainians themselves; the preservation of the historical loyalty of any official Ukrainian government toward Russia; and the observation of Russia's obvious interests in Europe's East and especially in the Black Sea basin. And nothing more.

But moderate Ukrainian nationalists (presidents Kravchuk and Kuchma) were not even able to raise these small things, especially since immoderate nationalists (Yushchenko's presidency) replaced them at the highest levels of power. What Russia received from Ukraine was constant and purposeful de-Russification and the flouting of the rights of Russians in Ukraine; constant anti-Russian propaganda conducted both within Ukraine and in the international arena; and the gradual implementation of a plan to turn the Black Sea into an internal lake of NATO and the United States with Russia's maximum exclusion from it.

In addition, this can be added to it: constant activity to ignite a conflict between Russia and its partners in Western Europe and the European Union as a whole and direct support of all anti-Russian regimes in the post-Soviet space -- the Baltic countries and Georgia as well as Poland --right up to arming Saakashvili's regime, which was obviously preparing for a war against Russia, and even, judging by all, a certain amount of participation in the military actions themselves.

All of what has been said cannot be treated in any other way than that a course hostile to Russia as a state and to Russians as a people has become the general line of both the foreign and domestic policies of the official Ukrainian government, which was not completely clear under preceding presidents, but which has become completely obvious under President Yushchenko. Ukraine's government chose this course itself, since Russia demonstrated maximum loyalty to the young state with its recognition of the integrity of Ukraine's territory within the borders of 1991 and with its signing of the so-called Great Agreement of 1997 -- even despite all the two-sidedness of Kiev's policy before August 2008.

Of course, in addition, particularly after the military action in the Caucasus, Moscow should not and cannot ignore the real and in recent times actually officially-declared course of the Ukrainian government as the anti-Russian course of those who equally support both Saakashvili and Yushchenko.

Contemporary Ukraine's domestic and foreign policies are not independent, for they are not determined by Ukraine's population or even by politicians who are worried about the integrity, viability, and historical survivability of the Ukrainian state -- they are determined by the needs of outside entities. These policies have but two motivations: make things maximally bad for Russia in exchange for receiving maximum profit for the nationalistic part of the Ukrainian elite during the transfer of Ukraine's sovereignty to the jurisdiction of Washington and Brussels.

The gas-transit business has helped the Ukrainian state survive economically up until now. But politically, Ukraine's elite have lived and are living on anti-Russian revenue. But whereas an ideologically-neutral, pragmatic approach can still be carried out by Moscow regarding the first issue, the second issue must be resolved; moreover, decisively by changing Russia's entire course in the Ukrainian direction.