The war in Ukraine caught me sleeping
24 February marked one year since the start of the war in Ukraine. This conflict has been described as the first to occur in Europe since the Second World War, forgetting that 22 years ago the wars that dismembered the former Yugoslavia ended, a conflict that, like the one in Ukraine, was widely covered by the media.
The same thing happened to us with the former Yugoslavia as is happening today with Ukraine: names of complex towns and cities such as Srebrenica, Medgugorje became as well known as Bucha and Severodonetsk are today. We tried to understand (and often simplified) why a war had broken out in Europe - since for many it is unthinkable for a war to happen in Europe - and we also used the word butcher to dub heinous politicians and military men like Ratko Mladic "the butcher of Bosnia" and today the Russian generals Alexander Dvornik and Sergei Surovikin in Ukraine. Finally, we watched in horror as the conflict did not end immediately - dragging on for almost a decade in the Yugoslav case - and the war in Ukraine will certainly not end this year.
The war took the West by surprise. In this field I refer to all intelligence analysts, Russia experts and senior military commanders in the National Armed Forces, NATO and the EU as well as those in the private sector, consultancies and freelancers. The wording of this article is a case in point. It was not written as a bad joke: it was the author's way of learning about the start of the war, which began in the early hours of 24 February. I admit I was surprised, as the day before I had watched Putin's speech and commented to a co-worker that Putin might be crazy, but he would not invade Ukraine.
So far in the conflict, Spanish society has tried to understand the reasons for the war, to get to know both sides and to understand what we mean when we talk about International Relations and Political Science. The good guys and bad guys (Ukraine being the good guys and Russia the bad guys) have been used, forgetting that neither Russia nor Ukraine are clean wheat. We have discovered that, in Spain - until recently irrelevant in the presence of International Relations analysts - there are good experts in the field, clarifying why the war broke out, its possible evolution and what could happen in Ukraine. We have also seen how, overnight, everyone is an expert on Slavic affairs, on Ukraine, on Russia and on International Relations without having a degree in International Relations or Political Science. People have also discovered that International Relations is a complex and multifaceted discipline, where not everyone is an expert on the Ukrainian war.
Beyond the comparison with the Yugoslav conflict of the 1990s, the war's surprise for everyone and Spain's discovery of geopolitics, it is useful to understand Putin's narrative to justify the war and the role of the EU and Spain in sending arms to Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the conflict, Russia has been identified as the bad guy, arguing that the war is due to Putin's senile madness. Meanwhile, Ukraine is the good guy, with Zelensky, with his youth, leadership and heroism as a young, handsome and brave David, against the old, ugly and tyrannical Goliath that is Putin. While this duality helps us to separate the two sides in the conflict - in every war there is an aggressor and an oppressed - it also makes it difficult to study the narrative employed by Russia to justify the war.
Putin, in his speeches, has accused the Ukrainian government of being made up of Nazis, appealed to the notion of the Russian people (Russky mir) and appealed to Russia's right to become a great world power again. Putin does not appeal to these facts because he has the beginnings of dementia, but because they are anchored in the Russian psyche as key events in the construction of its identity. In the case of Nazism, Russia inherits the USSR's resentment that the 20 million dead and the "liberation" of Central and Eastern Europe from Nazism was overshadowed by the Normandy Landings. Already in the 1970s - before Sputnik and Russia Today existed as broadcasters of Russian ideas - the Soviet Union tried to correct this "injustice" through the documentary series "The Unknown War" in which actor Burt Lancaster explained the Soviet Union's role in the Second World War1. Today, the trauma of the Second World War is still very much present in Russia, where a triumphalist narrative of fighting fascism prevails, without any self-criticism for the sexual violence and plunder of Soviet troops in Central and Western Europe. Putin is therefore right to use this war to justify the Ukrainian war, as it is a sure-fire asset in convincing Russians of the necessity of the conflict.
Putin appeals in his speeches to the notion of the Russian people as a collective identity within the so-called Russky Mir. According to the website of the Russky Mir Foundation, Russian identity is linguistic rather than ethnic, i.e. Russians are those who speak Russian, regardless of whether they were born in Russia or not, as well as those who study Russian language and culture and care about Russia's welfare2. This notion is quite appealing not only in terms of creating a sense of brotherhood among Russians - many of whom have not yet recovered from the loss of identity brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union - but also in terms of understanding why Putin annexed Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Lugansk in September 2022. Putin will use the notion of Russky Mir to justify an extension of the conflict to the Baltic states if he so wishes, since in Moscow's eyes all three countries discriminate against Russian minorities. As in the case of Nazism, the Russky Mir concept has a social and historical basis. In "The Empire", a chronicle of his travels in the USSR between 1989 and 1991, Ryszard Kapuscinski describes a ceremony in Ufa, near the Urals, where a Russian nationalist group invokes Russia's past greatness, accusing Jews and Bolsheviks of causing Russian decline and advocating Russia's return as a world superpower3. More recently, the graphic novel "Accidental Tsar: Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin" also provides a historical explanation of Russian identity sentiment around the notion that Russia has a special role in the world, with territorial expansion and unique language and culture as the linchpins of Russian identity4.
Finally, in his idea of Russia's greatness, Putin appeals to perhaps the most dismal decade for Russian citizens: the 1990s. If Boris Yeltsin is seen in the West as the man who opened Russia to the West, for Russians the 1990s is an ill-fated decade. The 1990s were the decade of poverty, insecurity, loss of dignity and identity, and the start of the Chechen War, which Russia lost in the first place. In his first years in power (early 2000s), Putin purged the oligarchs who became rich in the 1990s, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whom he arrested in his private plane and imprisoned. This was welcomed by Russian citizens, who also appreciated his tough hand against Chechen separatists and that he improved Russians' standard of living, restoring their dignity and pride. Even today the trauma of the 1990s and the good old days of the 2000s under Putin remain safe values for the Kremlin to justify the war in Ukraine.
In this war, in the Western camp, there is one actor that has surprised by its apparent strength and unity in supporting Ukraine: the European Union. We are talking about a bloc that is economically a world power, but - and beyond the narrative deployed - irrelevant in foreign, security and defence policy. Ukraine is not the first time that the EU has faced the dilemma of how to manage conflict in Europe. When the Yugoslav war broke out, Jaques Poos, President of the Council of Ministers of the then European Economic Community (the Josep Borrell of the time) said that the war was "Europe's hour" and that "if there is a problem that Europeans can solve, it is the Yugoslav problem. It is a European country and it is not the job of the Americans or anyone else to solve it"5. As we have seen, Poos' words did not come true: NATO and the United States eventually intervened when they realised Europe's inability to stop the war. The Dayton Accords - which ended the Bosnian war - were signed in a US city, not a European one, demonstrating Europe's irrelevance in resolving and managing a conflict on its borders.
Thirty years later, Europe seems to have learned from Yugoslavia. The EU has condemned the Russian invasion, sanctioning Russia and committing to arming Ukraine, giving it both defensive weapons (missiles) and battle tanks (Leopard) with Josep Borrell being the most visible face of Europe's commitment to Ukraine through the strength of his speeches in support of Ukraine. However, the commitment to arm Ukraine is subject to the EU's will and this may change depending on the EU's ability to supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs and requests.
In this respect we are at a disadvantage with Russia. Moscow can spend a lot of ammunition and lose a lot of tanks without this posing a problem for its production chains, as Russia not only has a large and powerful arms industry, but also puts quantity before quality. By contrast, in Europe, Leopards are quality battle tanks, and their loss in combat will be a blow to Ukraine. Moreover, quality requires commensurate training, so they are unlikely to turn the tide of the war in Ukraine's favour this year. Nor can we consider ourselves Ukraine's arms bazaar. Everything we give Ukraine comes from the arms depots of EU countries. And here Spain - a country that does not meet NATO's commitment to invest 2% of its GDP in defence - is not up to the task6. It is also relevant that, a year ago, it was acknowledged that our Leopards were not in good condition. The fact that we are now sending tanks that until recently were in poor condition should make us reflect on the quality of the Army's equipment and the material we are sending and will send to Ukraine. If we recognised that our tanks were in poor condition, the same applies to the ammunition and anti-missile batteries we have sent to Ukraine. Ukraine might think that we have a poorly equipped Armed Forces, thereby damaging the reputation of our Army. Nor should we forget that the equipment we are sending to Ukraine is the same equipment we have deployed in Latvia as part of NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP). This equipment will be used against Russia if Putin decides to invade the Baltic states to "take them back" from Mother Russia. If the Leopards we sent to Ukraine are not up to the task, we might think that those in Latvia are not up to it either, implying that we would not be able to withstand a full-scale Russian attack in Latvia.
In Spain, the war in Ukraine has discovered and highlighted the value of Political Science and International Relations. Television has been the main driving force behind this phenomenon, turning the programme "Al Rojo Vivo" on La Sexta into a guide for many to find out what was going on in Ukraine. The experts appearing on the programme, such as Jesús A. Núñez, Yago Rodríguez, Guillermo Pulido and Jesús Manuel Pérez Triana, are well-known names, as well as accredited professionals in their sector. Unfortunately, we have also seen how many people have believed overnight that they have the capacity to set the standard on the conflict, fiercely defending one of the parties and even attacking experts who try to explain to people that this conflict has many shades of grey. Like all degrees, this is a science that requires between 3 and 5 years of training (bachelor's and master's degrees) and with many specialisations. Not all Political Science and International Relations graduates are experts on Russian affairs, nor are we experts on the Sahel or hybrid conflicts. What we can do is analyse and clarify what is happening. However, our analysis should not be seen as the definitive diagnosis of the course of the war, just as it should be respected if we say that the war may drag on or that we understand Putin's narrative to justify the invasion of Ukraine. Both may sound like pessimistic and pro-Russian discourse, but our training allows us to identify these tendencies just as a medical specialist can accurately diagnose a disease. If we are able to respect a doctor's diagnosis, we will also be able to respect the diagnosis of a graduate in International Relations or Political Science.
In conclusion, the war in Ukraine, which was one year old on 24 February, is the first conflict to occur in Europe since the collapse of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The war caught many experts off guard, but it also served to highlight the value of Political Science and International Relations in Spain, disciplines that until recently were ignored in Spain. Putin appeals to the trauma of Nazism, the notion of identity based on a language and love of Russian culture - Russky Mir - and the dismal legacy of the 1990s in Russian society to justify the invasion of Ukraine. While the EU, of which Spain is a member, has decided to arm Ukraine, we have to understand that there will come a time when we will not be able to arm Ukraine with everything it asks for and needs. Spain, which until recently acknowledged that its Leopards were not well maintained, may give the impression that its equipment is of poor quality. This may not only hamper the Ukrainian war effort, but also complicate our ability to deal with a Russian attack in Latvia, where Spain has troops deployed as part of NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence.
The war is unlikely to end this year. We have to brace ourselves for a long and hard war. In the meantime, I hope the next conflict does not find me asleep.
References:
1 - The documentary series is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhs30iGhgICncex8qB-_Fmej-0HSwy4fH
2 - Ideología, Russkiy Mir Foundation, https://www.russkiymir.ru/es/ideologia/
3 - In the edition of El Imperio published by Editorial Anagrama, Colección Compactos, the aforementioned occurs in the chapter El Misterio Ruso.
4 - Zar Accidental: Vida y Mentiras de Vladímir Putin, disponible en Norma Editorial: https://www.normaeditorial.com/ficha/comic-americano/zar-accidental-vida-y-mentiras-de-vladimir-putin
5 - Yost, S.D. NATO`s Balancing Act, United States Institute for Peace, 2014, page 126. The quote has been translated from English.
6 - As of 20 June 2022 we were spending 1.01% of our GDP on defence. See Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014-2022), NATO Press Release, 27 June 2022, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2022/6/pdf/220627-def-exp-2022-en.pdf.