What If Ukraine Doesn’t Join the West, But Replaces Russia?

A thought experiment on power, identity, and the future of the East Slavic world June 23, 2026 By David Henson | Citizen Octopus Most discussions about the war in Ukraine assume roughly the same ending. Ukraine survives, joins Western institutions, enters the European Union, deepens its relationship with NATO, and gradually becomes another European nation-state integrated into the Western order. But what if that assumption is wrong? What if Ukraine’s ultimate ambition is not to join the West, but to become something larger than a Western client state? What if a decisive Ukrainian victory leads not to Ukraine becoming part of the West, but to Ukraine becoming the dominant political center of the East Slavic world? At first glance, the idea sounds wild. Yet history is full of political transformations that seemed impossible right up until the moment they happened. The question is not whether Ukraine could conquer Russia, it cannot. The question is whether a victorious Ukraine could…