Russia does not trigger a world war for fear of its own internal dissent
"Please believe, Europeans and Americans, in our military capabilities and give us the means to defeat the Russian invaders, and don't play into Putin's hands by discouraging Ukraine's goal of definitive EU membership". These were the words of Hennadiy Maksak, executive director of the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, one of the four think tanks visiting Madrid and Barcelona with the aim of presenting the Spanish authorities and public opinion with their analysis of the war ravaging his country and its present and future consequences.
They spent more than two hours of intense dialogue at the Association of European Journalists (APE), where they addressed all the perspectives of the current situation, with special emphasis on both the uncertain end of a conflict at the negotiating table and the necessary reconstruction of a country that has been completely devastated.
An important part of the exchange was taken up by Russian President Vladimir Putin, of whom they went so far as to say that "if he does not unleash a world war, it is because he fears his own internal dissidence, as evidenced by the fact that he has not decreed a massive mobilisation". They pointed out that it is as wrong to overestimate the Kremlin leader as it is to underestimate him, noting that the West tends to judge what Putin does by its own parameters, which are essentially different from those of Russia. "You seem to treat Putin and Russia as a democracy," they say, "and we certainly don't see either as being on the path of democracy as you live and advocate it".
As for the famous counteroffensive, which Moscow claims has already begun while Kiev remains studiously silent, Hennadiy Masak, Iryna Kosse, Mariia Koval-Honchar, Julia Kazdobina and Oleksandra Bulana estimated that it will be launched when the weapons, ammunition and supplies necessary to successfully complete the operation have been procured. There was an obvious reproach in the call for the West not to deny the requested tools to counter the undoubted might of the Russian army.
They acknowledged that Europeans and Americans are concerned about the nuclear threat, which Putin wields every time he suffers a major setback on the battlefield, but lamented that the United States has denied them the long-range missiles to respond to the daily deluge that Russia launches over the entire Ukrainian territory. For this systematic destruction of the country, in addition to the repeated indiscriminate attacks on facilities and civilians, they unanimously expressed their objective of bringing Vladimir Putin and even Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko to international justice if it is proven that he has been complicit in ceding his territory as a launching pad for many of these attacks, which have resulted in indiscriminate killings.
Obtaining the official opening of EU accession negotiations is the other major obsession of Ukrainians. "We believe that the Spanish EU presidency will be crucial to achieve this," they say, confident that such a gesture will anchor Ukraine definitively to Europe and Western values. In this regard, after distributing the graphs showing the level of pre-accreditation compliance required by Brussels, they stated that the country has not only undertaken a determined fight against corruption, but also encouraged European journalists and investors to report any hint of corruption in their dealings with the Ukrainian administration.
They acknowledged that the reconstruction of the devastated country, especially its energy and communications infrastructure, will be a tempting and tempting morsel, and that transparency, on which President Volodimir Zelensky is being relentless, is extremely necessary.