https://sputniknews.in/20260217/ukraine-of-today-and-cambodia-in-1991-striking-similarity-10492976.html

Ukraine of Today and Cambodia in 1991: Striking Similarity

Ukraine of Today and Cambodia in 1991: Striking Similarity

Sputnik India

Point one: nobody is seriously thinking that this Russian idea may be implemented today, tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Point two: here we have one of these... 17.02.2026, Sputnik India

2026-02-17T19:59+0530

2026-02-17T19:59+0530

2026-02-18T10:59+0530

vladimir putin

volodymyr zelensky

ukraine

cambodia

russia

the united nations (un)

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We are talking about an absolutely official statement by Mikhail Galuzin, Russia’s Deputy Foreign minister. He was the one chosen to represent Russia in peace talks in Geneva. He said that Moscow is open for discussion about establishing external rule over Ukraine after the end of Russia’s special military operation. Galuzin has also reminded us that Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, was mentioning that idea in March 2025, specifically naming the United Nations as the potential top manager in such case.The idea met rather a lukewarm reaction of the Russian expert community. So far only Stanislav Tkachenko, a professor from St.Petersburg, gave a clear comment on what’s this all about. His idea is, we are talking about establishing a legitimate government in Ukraine. The Zelensky administration is anything but legitimate, breaking all norms of Ukraine’s current constitution. While a UN administration’s task should be organizing fair election and creating a new government. And then, adds Mr. Tkachenko, once a legitimate power is there, one may sign with it any kind of international agreements about war, peace or anything. While any peace agreements with the current power in Kiev will only be a sheet of paper.Here we have rather an explanation of Galuzin’s words than anything else. Needless to say, today there is no chance of such initiative being realized through the United Nations machinery. In several previous cases a resolution of the Security Council had to be passed. And one can even imagine the US agreeing to such resolution. But, as the recent peace talks have shown, Europe is intent on blocking any peace agreement, dragging the war for as long as possible. So Britain and France are the two members of the Security Council that may veto any SC resolution on the matter.In fact, though, there is no definite procedure embedded in the UN charter, only various precedents, so one may think about a new model of UN sponsorship of a rescue mission in Ukraine. After all, external management has more or less worked in several cases, and Cambodia is, geographically, the nearest of such cases.I never liked Wikipedia for its obvious ideological bias. But let’s refer to that source for the most basic and obvious facts. We are talking about the years 1992-1993, the time of a collective effort of 46 nations, Russia and India included. It cost 1.62 billion of US dollars, and the military and civilian personnel participating numbered around 22 thousand. Mind you, Cambodia was and is a small nation, while Ukraine is bigger. But it’s not the scale, it’s the principle that matters: there was such case of external management, and it worked, more or less.Everybody and his/hers uncle were criticizing the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) at the time. But the end result is positive. Cambodia exists as a nation today, and the people there feel way better than many other folks in Asia or Africa or in other places.Similarities between Ukraine of today and Cambodia in the past are absolutely striking. The main similarity is in complete devastation of the two societies. There is simply no way that Ukraine, a failed nation and a failed state, may exist on its own. Like Cambodia in 1991, it is immersed in a bloody domestic conflict lasting for at least 12 years. That conflict and the war with Russia that Ukraine had provoked and led against all odds, left the remains of the state with no money of its own, no infrastructure and no coherent ideas about its future.Still, when comparing Cambodia in 1991 (the year when the UN discussed the relevant resolution) and Ukraine of today, the difference is, the Cambodian government of 1991 gave its agreement for creating of UNTAC, while it’s absolutely clear that the current government in Kiev will not do it.But, still, speaking about similarities, what remains of Ukraine today is a result of a failed project of creating a society, based on hatred to everything that is Russian. Since the South-Eastern parts of Ukraine of that times were Russian in all senses, that kind of a nation-building experiment resulted in a total split and huge mutual hatred. And then it led to a bloody civil war, started in 2014, that led to a war with Russia.It’s absolutely impossible to imagine Ukraine reverting back to the pre-2014 territory and status, just like Bangladesh had zero chances of realigning with Pakistan in the 1970-s. Thing is, the regime in Kiev has perpetrated horrible crimes against civilians, similar to the ones of the bloody Pol Pot regime, systematically destroying parts of Cambodia’s population.Ideological and religious terror, unpunished killings of political adversaries, torture chambers and the rest have smoothly glided into an amazing way of fighting a war. Russian commanders in the field talk about Ukraine’s “meat-grinder” or “zombie” attacks in hopeless situations, when the attackers have no chance of success. The attackers cannot turn back either, since the loyal backup troops will then shoot them down. So, losses of the Ukrainian army have been estimated between unimaginable 1 and 2 million, including the wounded and the deserters.And it goes without saying that Ukraine military are intentionally targeting civilian population in their formerly own South-East, not to mention civilians in deep areas of Russia.Speaking, again, about Cambodia, some people say that the biggest failure of UNTAC was its inability to press the local government into conducting a trial on the leaders of the previous murderous regime. The process dragged on for years, and worse perpetrators died their natural deaths. Other folks presume that the Cambodian society preferred just to forget its terrible past. It would be interesting to see what happens to the current Ukrainian personalities guilty of mass murders and other atrocities.And then there is an absolutely separate problem of Ukrainian economy, barely existing on huge foreign donations, mainly from Europe.Now for the question of precedents for the future. What exactly is a failed state, and what is a failed nation, a bloody style of nation-building leading it to complete ruination? We all may name a couple of such cases in the world around us, and have a good argument about it. But it’s hard to determine the cases when outsiders have a definite right to intervene.On the contrary, today it looks like there can be no such cases, unless something like a local government decides to ask the world for help. Which means that the people living in a certain territory are still responsible for their current state of things. Only they are the ones who may really proclaim themselves a failure and ask the rest of the world to set things straight.Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com

https://sputniknews.in/20260217/why-zelenskys-war-of-words-with-orban-wont-boost-ukraines-eu-ambitions-10490165.html

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vladimir putin, volodymyr zelensky, ukraine, cambodia, russia, the united nations (un)