A subjugated republic: Ukraine under Russian occupation

In the darkest conceivable outcome of Russia’s war of aggression, the Ukrainian state falls. The West, divided and fatigued, withdraws support. NATO never intervenes directly. Kyiv falls. The government flees or is captured. Russia instals a puppet regime. The Ukrainian Armed Forces, bled of supplies and leadership, fragment into guerrilla resistance or are forcibly disbanded. The nation, once a proud and defiant republic at the heart of Europe, is occupied — absorbed into the imperial vision of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

What would follow is not peace. It would be a slow, brutal unravelling of the Ukrainian national fabric, an erasure of sovereignty, identity, and democracy under an authoritarian regime bent on domination and historical revenge.

Systemic Repression and Mass Deportations

In the immediate aftermath of occupation, the Kremlin would likely initiate a sweeping campaign of retribution. Drawing on tactics seen in occupied territories like Mariupol and Melitopol, the Russian state would implement:

• Mass arrests of former Ukrainian officials, military personnel, journalists, and civil society leaders. Thousands would be detained in filtration camps or deported to penal colonies in Siberia and the Far East.

  
  

• Targeted assassinations of partisan leaders and vocal critics of Russian rule, as seen in Kherson under occupation (until November 2022) and Berdiansk.

  
  

• Forced Russification: Ukrainian language and history would be scrubbed from the education system. Russian would become the sole language of instruction and administration.

  
  

• Family separations and child deportations, a practice already documented and condemned by international courts. The goal would be to assimilate future generations into a “loyal” Russian identity.

Tens of thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — would flee across borders into Europe, seeking refuge from repression. Others would disappear into the forests and urban ruins, forming an armed resistance reminiscent of the post-World War II Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Political Reengineering and Puppet Governance

With the constitutional order dismantled, Ukraine would be divided into “federal districts” aligned with Russian political architecture. Occupation authorities — likely drawn from Russia’s FSB, Rosgvardiya (the National Guard of Russia, an autonomous law enforcement and security body numbering some 400,000 troops responsible directly to the Russian President and not accountable to the courts or the security services) and the Russian Ministry of Defence — would oversee a system of loyalist governors. Elections would be staged but meaningless, offering the illusion of legitimacy.

A Moscow-installed “President of Ukraine”, perhaps a former Ukrainian politician turned collaborator, would rule from a heavily militarised Kyiv or an alternative capital like Kharkiv. Russian-style “United Russia” political movements would supplant existing parties, and opposition would be outlawed.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church would be subordinated to the Russian Patriarchate. Independent religious or cultural institutions would be shuttered or brought under state control.

Economic Plunder and Environmental Destruction

Ukraine’s economy would be gutted and reoriented to serve Russian interests. Occupation authorities would seize:

• Agricultural assets: Ukraine’s rich black soil (“chernozem”) would be exploited for food exports to Russia and its allies. Farmers refusing to cooperate would be displaced or imprisoned.

  
  

• Industrial capacity: Steel plants in Zaporizhzhia, ports in Odesa and infrastructure in Dnipro would be requisitioned or dismantled.

  
  

• Energy assets: Nuclear power stations, gas pipelines and coal fields would be taken under Russian state ownership, completing the energy stranglehold over Eastern Europe.

Environmental damage — already immense due to scorched-earth warfare engaged in by the Russian Armed Forces — would worsen. Polluted rivers, deforested regions and radioactive risk zones like Zaporizhzhia would become permanent scars on the Ukrainian landscape.

Geopolitical Consequences and the Collapse of the Rules-Based Order

A successful Russian conquest of Ukraine would not end with Ukraine. The message would be clear: the West’s security guarantees are hollow, and might trumps law.

• Moldova and Georgia would be under immediate threat of annexation or regime change.

  
  

• The Baltics would face intensified hybrid attacks, and NATO’s eastern flank would be forced into permanent crisis mode.

  
  

• China, emboldened by Western paralysis, might accelerate plans for occupation of Taiwan, reshaping Asia’s security order.

  
  

• Global autocracies, from Iran to North Korea, would feel empowered to act without fear of meaningful retaliation.

The post-1945 world order — based on sovereignty, human rights, and territorial integrity — would suffer a potentially irreparable blow.

The Spirit Underground: Resistance and the Seeds of Revival

Yet even in occupation, Ukraine would not disappear.

Guerrilla warfare would erupt across the Carpathians, central forests and eastern industrial zones. The Ukrainian diaspora, energised by moral clarity and memory of betrayal, would fund resistance networks and amplify the truth abroad.

Secret schools would teach Ukrainian language and history. Smuggled literature and samizdat (self-publishing to evade Soviet censorship) would circulate. The blue-and-yellow flag, banned and criminalised, would become a sacred symbol — painted on walls at night, worn under clothing, buried in coffins and exhumed with freedom.

History offers countless examples — from Poland, the Baltic states, and the Balkans — of nations surviving occupation. A free Ukraine, though submerged, would endure.

The Cost of Abandonment

This dark vision is not inevitable — but it is plausible if Ukraine loses her war alone.

It is a warning of what happens when democracies are left undefended, when imperial violence is appeased, and when a proud, sovereign nation is sacrificed to Realpolitik.

The survival of Ukraine is not only a moral imperative but a strategic necessity for the survival of liberty in the 21st century.

If Ukraine falls, the world will not awaken to peace. It will awaken to fear — and a future shaped by tyrants.