April 25: Russia-Ukraine Endgame
I’m as old as the Carnation Revolution anniversary partygoers above. What connects me, Ukraine and the image above? I lived in Lisbon from May-August 1974, watching the results of dictatorship demolition unfold. Today I’ll go to the 48th anniversary celebrations in Porto. I’m also an investor in a Ukrainian tech startup, now relocated to Warsaw, with a Ukrainian advisory board member leading the territorial defense of a network of eleven villages 10 km west of Kyiv. History sometimes comes full circle. Here’s how:
Failed colonial wars are dictatorship killers. Think Portugal 1974, Argentina 1982–83, Italy 1943. It’s unrealistic to expect Russia to be an exception to this rule. Here’s one plausible endgame:
A drunken Russian officer misdials the settings on his MLRS, landing a missile on a Polish playground, triggering global outrage and NATO’s Article 5.
New NATO member Finland’s Russian-speaking troops tell Russian border guards and soldiers that NATO offers each of them 10000 euros and a Schengen visa to surrender. They accept.
Finland’s little green men broadcast to St Petersburg that NATO offers it city-state status within the EU — as an independent Baltic Singapore.
The referendum cutting St Petersburg loose from Moscow overwhelmingly passes. Primorsk joins St Petersburg, sealing…
