War of Constitutions
Literally on the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of the Ukrainian Constitution, a report arrived from the United States regarding a statement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio concerning the absence of any agreements between Putin and Trump in Anchorage.
Officially, the content of these agreements has never been made public.
The Russian version of the "spirit of Anchorage" was interpreted as Trump's agreement (allegedly in exchange for trillion-dollar dividends from Russia) to take on the burden of coercing Ukraine into abandoning the territories of the Donetsk region not seized by the occupiers.
Non-Russian versions did not exist in the information space at all, and up to now, the American side had only produced some meaningless mumbling on this topic.
Unread "drafts" containing a dozen or so points flashed by.
And only from European activities did it become clear that statements about the inviolability of Ukraine's internationally recognized borders were not just a rhetorical repetition of the UN Charter, but a means of countering the shaky US position in its "mediating" relations with Russia.
Washington's specific refutation of any "Anchorage agreements" merely coincided with the anniversary of the Ukrainian Constitution. Just as it coincided with the upcoming 250th anniversary of the US itself, and Trump's recently celebrated milestone birthday.
Such is this festive chord of legal consciousness.
However, the appearance of these refutations directly during the Ukrainian Defense Forces' intensive augmentation of their successes in forcing Russia to peace is not a coincidence, but an obvious logical pattern.
That is, to its, Russia's, capitulation.
Here, a direct connection between the events can already be seen: the successes of the Ukrainian defenders (given the gigantic preparation they had to undergo and the massive long-term perspective they must be designed for) are directly dedicated to the anniversary of the Constitution. And the Americans stepped up...
Be that as it may, we have the US President's refusal to take responsibility for coercing the Ukrainian authorities into high treason and the violation of their own Constitution.
One can state the real influence of international law even on a global hegemon—no matter how periodically this hegemon succumbs to the temptation to destroy all global rules of coexistence between states and peoples.
Ultimately, after many "strange" pauses in supporting Ukraine directly at the UN, Trump signed off on the G7 "Evian Declaration" with its explicit emphasis on the inviolability of Ukrainian borders.
In the literal sense, Washington, represented by Trump, chose not merely abstract international law, but the Constitution of Ukraine over the so-called, repeatedly falsified constitution of Russia.
That is the good news.
The bad news is that the war of constitutions is not over as long as the constitution of the aggressor country exists and contains a provision on the "belonging" of the seized Ukrainian territories.
And this war did not begin in 2022, or even in 2014.
Not when, after pseudo-referendums held in the newly seized territories at gunpoint, fake "interstate" agreements were signed, and Ukrainian territories were written into Russia’s constitution.
It began in 1993, with the adoption by referendum in Russia of the post-Soviet Constitution of the Russian Federation (instead of the RSFSR), in which an article immediately appeared allowing foreign states, or even parts of such states, to join the Russian Federation.
The Constitution of Ukraine, adopted in 1996, already contained safeguards against Russia’s encroachments.
This was a full list of Ukrainian regions and cities with special status, as well as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, whose constitution had no authority to conclude any international agreements.
There was also the provision that Ukraine’s territorial issues could be resolved exclusively by an all-Ukrainian referendum.
Under these articles of the Constitution of Ukraine, which have remained inviolable for 30 years — whatever changes may have taken place in it and around it as a result of the domestic political struggle between branches of power — all violent referendums inspired by the Kremlin have no legitimacy and cannot have any.
Nor can there be any international recognition of Russia’s "new borders" with the occupied Ukrainian territories.
Which, in fact, Donald Trump appears to have finally acknowledged — almost the last among global players, and even, it seems, contrary to his own "grand" notions of the international order.
And yes, Crimea is not a sandwich. Whatever Navalny meant by that, and whatever he took with him.
A sandwich can be eaten and cannot be returned afterward.
But Crimea cannot be swallowed.
On the contrary, it can and must be returned to Ukraine, to compliance with the Constitution, and to life.
As, of course, must the four regions hastily stuffed into Russia’s pseudo-constitution after the failure of "Kyiv in three days" and the Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives.
Stuffed in as a "blocking" line that supposedly prevents the occupation from being rolled back.
It can be rolled back — absolutely.
All these manipulations with Ukrainian lands were carried out in violation of the ruscists’ own "constitution." The procedure was not followed.
The inclusion of foreign territories into the Russian Federation was supposed, under the written rule, to take place not only by decision of the State Duma and the Federation Council, but also with confirmation by two-thirds of the listed constituent entities of the federation.
The very same entities from which cannon fodder is being scraped up for the war and which, back in the 1990s, were denied the right to self-determination (they had supposedly "made their choice" in that constitutional referendum after the shelling of the White House).
Nothing resembling the consent of the constituent entities of the federation to the "return to the native harbour" of Ukrainian Crimea ever took place, nor could it have taken place.
Still less could this apply to four Ukrainian regions, for whose destruction the resources of those same constituent entities of the federation are regularly spent.
Instead, it is not hard to imagine how the entire so-called federation will begin to crumble once Ukrainian lands start being crossed out of the falsified text of that "constitution."
And how, after them, the gates will open for the "autonomies," "republics," and "territories" occupied by Russia throughout all the centuries of the empire...
But that is still a distant prospect — though a clear one, and absolutely complete in legal terms.
Instead, an important stage in setting it in motion has now taken place: the complete disregard of Putin’s attempts to secure international recognition of the legitimacy of his annexation of Ukrainian lands through fake "peacekeeping."
It turned out that law cannot be replaced by a deal. Still less can international law be replaced by a bilateral deal. Because after such a deal, long-term contracts will no longer work, and a one-time gain will escalate (as it is now fashionable to say) the price of the matter sky-high.
It also turned out that the force of law exists, while the law of force does not.
Because force is temporary, highly relative, and, most importantly, dependent on a multitude of circumstances and actors. Above all, on the existence of law itself, on the basis of which resources are formed, and whose concentration and interaction are called force.
Law, however, has universal force and lacks only retroactive force.
That is why empires do not return or restore themselves.
That is why the offensive police-style punitive operation invented by ruscist delusions of grandeur under the name of the so-called Special Military Operation cannot be turned into a defensive "people’s war," even when there is a great need to do so.
That is why the scenarios of "settlement" and "reconciliation" once applied to countries deprived of legal regulation are in no way suitable for Ukraine — a state with full-fledged constitutional law and the primacy of international law.
There is, of course, a certain irony in the fact that the Kremlin maniac tried to seek his own advantages in Ukraine’s Constitution itself.
At one point in Minsk, he dictated amendments not only on federalization, but also on removing the list of Ukrainian regions.
At another, he demanded the exclusion of the course toward NATO and the EU under the pretext of "non-alignment," which had not entered the Constitution from the Declaration of Sovereignty after the collapse of the USSR.
Then he nodded to the illegitimacy of our government, demanding elections during martial law...
Speaking of elections. Of "elections" to the Russian State Duma in the occupied territories.
Can they even physically take place in September of this year under the fire control of Ukraine’s Defense Forces?
It seems that this will be the urgent issue in the context of the current war between our Constitution and the enemy’s constitution in the coming months.
Iryna Pohorielova
