A war in Ukraine that began with Russia’s defeat as its forces tried and failed to capture Kyiv seems to have begun to turn, with Russia now eliminating targets in the region. , Ukraine lacks the weapons it needs and Western support for the war effort is strained in the face of rising gas prices and galloping inflation.
On the 108th day of President Vladimir V. Putin’s gratuitous war, motivated by the belief that Ukraine is territory unjustly taken from the Russian Empire, Russia does not seem closer to victory. But their forces appear to be making slow, methodical and bloody progress in controlling eastern Ukraine.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s nimble president, Volodymyr Zelensky, once again promised victory. “We will definitely prevail in this war that Russia has started,” he said during a conference in Singapore in a video that appeared. “It is on the battlefields of Ukraine that the future rules of this world are being decided.”
However, the fierce early days of the war – when troops under Ukraine held back a ignorant and incompetent aggressor and Mr Putin’s indiscriminate bombardment angered the West – had begun to fade. Instead it is a war that is evolving into what analysts increasingly say will be a long-winded slogan, putting increasing pressure on the governments and economies of Western and foreign countries. other worldwide.
Nowhere is that slogan clearer than in the Donbas region, in eastern Ukraine. Despite urgent Western pleas for more heavy weapons, Ukrainian forces appear to lack what is needed to confront Russia’s use of artillery to shell towns and villages. desert. While Ukraine is holding Russia back in the large regional city of Sievierodonetsk, the country is suffering heavy losses – at least 100 people are killed every day, although their full extent is unknown – and is in dire need. More weapons and ammunition.
Russia also appears to be making progress in establishing control over the towns it has captured, including the leveled Black Sea port of Mariupol. It has set its sights on convincing and coercing the rest of the population that its future lies in what Putin sees as his restored empire. Citizens there and in cities like Kherson and Melitopol face a bleak choice: If they want to work, they must first obtain a Russian passport, a blandness offered to ensure satisfaction loyal to Moscow.
Propaganda compares Mr Putin to Peter the Great, Russia’s first emperor, launching from a car in Mariupol in what Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city’s mayor, calls a “supposed” attack.
The comparison that Mr. Putin made himself, made the heart of the Russian President close. He has repeatedly asserted that Ukraine is not a real country and its true identity is Russian. However, his invasion strengthened and embellished Ukraine’s national identity in ways previously unimaginable.
Russia has its own problems, especially in southern Ukraine, where the capital of Kherson province, captured earlier during the war, is still disputed. Attacks by former Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have occurred in recent weeks. Russian losses in the war have yet to be determined, but are certainly in the tens of thousands, a potential source of anger for Mr. Putin, whose autocracy over Russia has tightened.
If the Russian economy has shows amazing resilience, it has been hit hard by Western sanctions; Brain drain will depress growth for many years. Putin’s important position in the West does not appear to have changed.
Elsewhere, however, in Africa and Asia, support for the West – and for Ukraine – is more nuanced. Many countries see little difference between Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003; they can’t seem to be convinced otherwise.
More generally, much of the developing world resented what was seen as American domination, seen as a 20th-century hangover. In that context, the partnership The tension between China and Russia is not seen as because of the hostility and anxiety it causes in the West, but as a major challenge to a Western-dominated global system.
US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, during a visit to Asia to warn of China’s potential aggression towards Taiwantried on Saturday to support enthusiastic Western support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.
“That’s what happens when the great powers decide that their imperial needs are more important than the interests of their peaceful neighbours,” he said. “And it’s a preview of a possible world of chaos and chaos that none of us want to live in.”
Speaking at a security summit in Singapore, Mr. Austin said the Russian invasion was “what happens when the oppressors trample on the rules that protect us all.” He spoke after Mr. Zelensky expressed concern in his nightly address that the world’s attention could move away from Ukraine.
Russo-Ukrainian War: Main developments
With inflation hitting levels not seen in four decades in the US and UK, financial markets plunging, interest rates rising and food shortages looming, it’s time to focus on a protracted battle over worries. More pressing domestic concerns may be inevitable. War was not the cause of all these developments, but it exacerbated most of them – and there was no end to it.
The combination of high inflation and recession, considered plausible by many economists, would be reminiscent of the 1970s, when the first oil shock devastated the global economy. With the US midterm elections just a few months away, President Biden and the Democrats can’t afford to have a campaign season dominated by chatter about… Gasoline 5 dollars a gallon and inflation near double digits.
However, the components of a long war are clear enough. There is no indication that Russia is willing to compromise territory. At the same time, Ukrainian resistance remained strong enough to make any formal territorial concessions almost impossible. The result is a deadlock, a far cry from Mr. Putin’s apparent initial belief that Russian forces would enter the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to give a warm welcome.
Some of the roots of the war lie in Ukraine’s strategic decision to move closer to the 27-nation European Union and turn its back on Moscow. Mr. Putin cannot abide by this change, now fortified in Ukraine by a brutal confrontation with Russian military methods.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, met Mr Zelensky on Saturday in Kyiv to express support. The European Union is considering granting Ukraine its official candidate for EU membership at its summit meeting on June 23 and 24. In Paris, there were discussions about a possible visit. of President Emmanuel Macron to Ukraine after that meeting.
In Ukraine and beyond, Mr Macron, who has spoken to Mr Putin regularly since the war began in February, has been fiercely criticized for stressing that Russia’s “humiliation” must be avoided in order to keep diplomatic channels open. An official of the French President went against that on Saturday, saying: “We want a Ukrainian victory. We want Ukraine’s territorial integrity to be restored.”
After Russian butcher in Bucha, near Kyiv and Mariupol, the chances of successful diplomacy are more remote than ever. It’s not even clear what the term “victory” means to either side.
