Ukraine: six months of blood and fire

Darya Duguina has been mourned as a martyr in Russia. At the age of 29, she was killed by a limpet bomb in her father's car, a Toyota Land Cruiser. The mystery is whether it was for her or for Aleksandr Duguin, ideologue and philosopher of the new nationalist Russia and founder of the ultra-nationalist Eurasia Party, and to some extent an influence on Vladimir Putin in his early days at the head of the Kremlin.

It is Saturday 20 August and the news of the attack perpetrated 20 kilometres from Moscow has spread like wildfire: the question is who is or are behind the crime just four days before the six-month anniversary of the war invasion campaign in Ukraine.

Ukrainian intelligence? CIA? Mossad? MI6? Putin? According to Ilya Ponomarev, an opponent of the Russian dictator's regime and former deputy for the Green Alliance, the National Republican Army (NRA) is responsible.

The dissident refugee in Kiev, on his Twitter account @iponomarev shared an interview, in which he claimed Aleksandr Duguin as the main target and ventured new actions against Putin in order to "stop the destruction of Russia and neighbouring states".

As a lawmaker in the Duma, Ponomarev was the only one (out of 445 deputies) to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which cost him exile from Russia.

For its part, the Kremlin's official version is that of an attack carried out by Ukrainian intelligence: in an act of unusual responsiveness (as happened with the Sputnik V anti-Covid vaccine developed in 5 months), the Federal Security Service (FSB) broadcast in the state media the image of an alleged Ukrainian spy named Natalia Vovk, guilty of the detonation and on the run to Estonia. Both Kiev and Estonia have denied any involvement.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu denied all charges and said the Kremlin has stepped up aggressive rhetoric, pressure and cyberattacks against his country. Estonia is in Moscow's crosshairs because it does not grant visas to Russian tourists.

What is certain is that Duguina's murder has allowed Putin to revitalise his narrative of the invasion of Ukraine under his special operation and has once again singled out the West as the Russians' number one enemy.

In a telegram of condolences sent by the Kremlin to Darya's parents and broadcast by local media, Putin stressed that a "vile and cruel crime has cut short the life" of a "bright and talented person with a true Russian heart" whom he held up as an example of what it means to be a patriot.

All of Russia is boiling like a cauldron around the issue, openly discussing on TV analysts' desks how young Russians are called upon to demonstrate their patriotism and love for the new Russia in the face of Ukraine and the enemies of the West who want to destroy them.

In the face of internal criticism of Putin in recent weeks, Duguina's assassination gives new impetus to the Kremlin's official discourse, which is eager to welcome hundreds of volunteers into its ranks to be transferred to Ukraine.

A journalist by trade, Darya was very close to her father because of her great-Russian thinking and her ultra-nationalist ideas to the point of bordering on a kind of Russian-style fascism; in fact, she has been treated by some ultra-nationalist sectors as a "martyr". Her father demands revenge, one that will show no mercy and lead Russia to victory.

What real influence does Aleksandr Duguin have on Putin? The 60-year-old Moscow-born philosopher has developed a career around his anti-communist and ultra-nationalist ideas that call for a return to the greatness of the Russian Motherland by placing it concentrically within a hegemonic context that unifies Asia and Europe, with Turkey as an indispensable ally. The enemies to defeat are the United States and its European allies.

The recovery of the territories lost after the dismantling of the Soviet Union are fundamental to achieving three goals: territorial greatness; economic greatness; and global influence. Duguin fuels hatred of American economic liberalism and is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump.

The philosopher first met Putin when he came to the Kremlin in 2000. There are no photos of them together at cultural, social or political events and Putin, parsimonious as he is, has never mentioned him as a friend, or as someone close to him, but they share an obsession with Russian greatness at all costs. There are no pictures of them fishing or hunting together.

Putin vs. Putin by Duguin, a prolific writer and unstoppable activist, constantly travelling to meet mainly the Italian far-right, was released in May 2020. In this book he narrates Putin's political evolution: "A patriot who stands with the people and finds it his duty to maintain Russia's identity and sovereignty, not only against the new globalist order imposed by liberalism, but also against the Russian liberals themselves".

With the murder of his daughter and the Kremlin blaming Ukraine, Russia's ultra-nationalists are clamouring for Putin to surrender Kiev, but for the dictator his big problem is mobilising the Russians to send them on a larger military campaign without it ceasing to look like an operation. There are also the thousands of Russian soldiers who have fallen on the front lines in Ukraine, with figures that nobody really knows: from Kiev they speak of 45,700 Russian soldiers killed from the start of the war - 24 February - until 24 August. The Kremlin does not issue figures, but some tabloids speculate that 10,000 soldiers have died, and British and American intelligence warn of 15,000 dead Russian army personnel. As for Ukrainian army casualties, Kiev acknowledges an average of 100 killed per day and 500 wounded on average per day.

Putin now has the opportunity he has been looking for to get his younger citizens on board with the narrative of the threat to Russia after selling what happened as an attack on Russian soil perpetrated by the Ukrainian enemy. Recruitment problems constantly force Moscow to look for reserves in other countries. Kiev fears a return to more fierce fighting in various parts of Ukraine's territory and even in the capital itself.

On 24 August, Ukraine celebrated its 31st anniversary as an independent country, and ironically, just six months after the invasion turned into a war between democracy and freedom versus oppression and authoritarianism. Nothing and no one has changed Putin's mind, not even a huge cascade of historic sanctions in all economic, trade, investment, monetary, diplomatic, financial, banking, cultural, tourism and even personalised sanctions against Putin, his family, his cabinet, his legislators and his oligarchs.

In the last couple of months, the most bloody battles have been fought in Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporiyia, Kherson, Crimea, Mykolaiv, Dnipro and Kharkov. There are international complaints about the situation in Zaporiyia: the UN has called for an inspection of the Zaporiyia nuclear power plant taken over by Russian troops, around which there is fighting, endangering the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the third largest in the world in terms of capacity.

Recently, the Ukrainian military strategy has begun to bombard Russian positions in Crimea, a relevant part of its territory with an exit to the Black Sea, which since 2014 declared its independence, together with Sevastopol, with Russia's help. 

The Kremlin's interference has been so extreme that Putin inaugurated a bridge he ordered to be built in 2018, a 19-kilometre-long infrastructure connected to Krasnodar in Russia. Putin himself got on a truck and drove across it from one side to the other. 

It is now a target of Ukrainian military forces who, advised by Washington and London, are seeking to bring it down and shift part of the war to the beautiful Crimean port in an attempt to weaken Russian troops.

No peace for the wicked. That is the slogan of Kiev's refusal to resume peace talks with the Russians under the auspices of Turkey, which the UN has joined.

Advised by the White House, President Volodymir Zelenski is showing a muscle that no one thought possible: he is a patriot and the Wagner Group has him in its sights. He has been the main target since 24 February, when the invasion began.

He has been saved by the suspicion of the US intelligence services. If there is one thing this war has shown, it is American power: the White House warned of Russia's intention to invade Ukraine as early as 4 December 2021, that is, almost three months before it did so.

This is an indisputable sign of the effectiveness of the US intelligence services, so effective with their powerful satellites and surveillance methods, which to date have helped to prevent the Ukrainian state from succumbing to a nuclear power. Zelenski is still alive thanks to them.

If Putin manages to solve the recruitment problem, he could again focus on attacking Kiev by deploying two columns, one to the east and one to the west along the course of the Dnieper River to strangle the Ukrainian capital. Zelensky is their target; if they assassinate him, the invasion could take a different course, surrendering the Ukrainian army and installing Kremlin-friendly politicians. In the autumn, pro-Russian independence referendums are also expected to be held in the occupied cities.

Six months into the military invasion, the estimated number of Ukrainian civilians killed by Russian troops exceeds 6,000. The UNHCR puts the number of refugees in various parts of Europe at almost 6 million, with another 6 million internally displaced. The economy is in tatters.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Ukraine's GDP to fall by 35% this year and Russia's by 8.5%; but the rest of the world will also feel the consequences of the invasion because of the knock-on effect created by the lack of exports of Ukrainian cereals, grains and other goods and the shock to the energy market.

The EU is suffering the ravages of dependence on Russian gas turned into a weapon of war; the IMF itself cut its growth outlook for 2022 by 0.4 percentage points (compared to April), placing it in its July revision at 3.2%; the most affected parties with expectations of lower economic growth are: US at 2.3 per cent and the euro area at 2.6 per cent.

The scenario could be bleaker for the second half of the year, towards the end of the year, if the prolongation of the war continues. So far, peace talks between Ukraine and Russia under the auspices of Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdogan have been on hold since last March. His most recent mediation has served to reactivate the departure of Ukrainian ships loaded with grain and other goods from the Black Sea and the Azov.

On 24 August, President Zelensky used the Independence Day commemoration to send a message of encouragement to his citizens, pointing out that the war will only end with Ukraine's victory.

A new, additional package for Ukraine has been granted from Washington, just on its National Day, of 3 billion dollars to train and equip Ukrainian forces. The UK also announced more money with a new aid line of 64 million euros and the donation of two thousand drones and tracking missiles.

Half a year into the invasion, no strategist dares to predict its duration and almost everyone expects it to end at the negotiating table. Everything depends on the future of Zelensky, Ukraine's strong leader, the Achilles that the US and its NATO allies have turned into the defender of democracy and freedom against a strategist capable of everything: blood, fire and destruction.