...And its consequences

A month and three days ago, I wrote and published in this very forum an analysis of the situation in Ukraine, which I entitled "The Challenge"; back then, I announced that, no matter how much the drumbeat of international war was artificially beating, we were not going to enter World War III.

I also added that this was a simulated conflict created and managed by Putin to complete the unfinished mess that Russia set up in 2014 to mask the simple accession of the Crimean peninsula to Russia and that, moreover, it could constitute the preamble to something more apparent in its second step of quasi-bloodless accessions, which consists of consolidating the thinly disguised political and social interventions and influences in the Donbas region, constantly managed by Russia since that date. 

Internationally, it is well known that the two provinces that make up the Donbas region, and several other provinces in the much-maligned Ukraine, are largely pro-Russian in nature or descent in language, sentiment, history and degree of affectivity.

Putin has been playing cat and mouse for a little over a month now. He has promised that there would be no war, that he had no intention of anything and that he was only on "military manoeuvres" with his bosom friend, the Belarusian president.

He even laughed in the faces of Biden, NATO, the UN and the EU by announcing feigned, rose-tinted withdrawals, when what was really happening was that he was concentrating and preparing his best troops - for years away from real combat - for the invasion, which he initially intends to be bloodless or low-intensity, of a region he has always considered his own and which he resents being occupied by NATO forces, right on his own border.   

Since, despite his many shows of force and economic and energy threats, his claims went unheeded in the world, he pulled an ace out of his sleeve by declaring them, unanimously in the Duma, independent regions that he was willing to help so that the Ukrainians would stop bothering them, withdraw their forces and, without any discussion, accept the pro-Russian sentiment of their population, as demonstrated throughout history and, more recently, after this masterful move.

A move that, once again, the misnamed International Community (IC) allowed to become a sad reality, without lifting a finger to prevent it from being consolidated. Now, as a next step, Putin is coming to the aid of his friends to undo the Gordian knot that bogs down and suffocates citizens who want nothing more than their own "freedom" with Russia.

To understand his clear intentions and desires, one need only look with some critical thinking at his own words a few hours ago on the matter; "in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, with the approval of the Federation Council - which is the Russian Upper House - I have decided to carry out a special military intervention". "We will fight for the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine. Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukraine. We do not force anything on anyone".

In other words, he wants to imply, as I announced more than a month ago in my work, that he is a man of peace, that he fights against the oppression of peoples and calls the Ukrainian regime a Nazi oppressor; that he is protected by the UN Charter and that no one can reproach him for this.

He knows that Ukraine's military capabilities are tiny compared to its own; the UN will not lift a finger because it maintains its right of veto in the UNSC; NATO has already declared that Ukraine is not its territory and therefore cannot intervene; the EU is totally incapable of acting militarily and, most importantly, the US is not prepared to put a boot on that territory.

Material aid, scarce or almost useless weaponry and military training to Ukraine are futile, costly and have no short-term consequence or application; therefore they are of no concern to it whatsoever. 

As for trade or economic sanctions against him, his people or Russia itself, they do not affect him in the slightest. He is an immensely wealthy man, so are his close associates, and the Russian people are a pasty and totally dumbed-down people who are very easily convinced by selling them Russia's greatness and prestige, even if they know that they do not eat with both. 

Russians are used to suffering and are staunchly loyal to their leader, the one who uses the big wooden tables to patently distance himself from the commoners. Tables, which, instead of dwarfing him, make him bigger and appear to be a semi-god in the eyes of the Russians and the world that watches him and which he humiliates with such gestures.

Europe and the world in general will have to weigh up these economic measures, lest our mouths get too hot and we end up much worse off than the Russians. A people who, as I say, are used to suffering, something that we in the West have forgotten decades ago and which is becoming increasingly difficult for us to leave our sphere of control and comfort zone.

Putin is entering the Donbas area "as peacekeepers"; for the moment, he has no intention of starting a war as such, unless the Ukrainians, spurred on or emboldened by the IC, force him to do so and, if the case arises, he has the necessary forces at hand to do so.

Now, in addition to seeing how sanctions and restrictions are calibrated so as not to affect those of us on the other side of the conflict too much, it remains to be seen whether Putin, this time, will be truly sincere and stop his forces at the border of the regions in question or continue his advance to the gates of Kiev in order to have a much stronger position when it comes to the final negotiation.

In short, the IC and all its organisations, bodies and certain countries in particular have made or have made a dreadful fool of themselves; Putin has played a dastardly game with all of us; he has invested himself as a man of peace and, as he announced a month ago, to achieve his objectives in the least bloody way possible, he has employed methods of dirty, hybrid warfare and, fundamentally, he has made extensive use of propaganda and cyber warfare. Thanks to all this, it has achieved what it announced a month ago and we shall see if it does not go further. 

On the other hand, the world has been struck dumb; the much-vaunted deployments of allied or US forces exclusively on the borders with Ukraine or Russia do not scare Putin at all, because he knows that NATO and the US have their hands tied as their populations are not like Russia's and, at the same time, he has managed to bring China closer to Russia because everything it does not sell to the West will be bought by the Chinese because their inexhaustible needs for all kinds of raw materials are capable of absorbing all the surplus that is produced.

We will have to be very cautious in the economic measures to be adopted, we will once again be left in the lurch, and, as I announced, the biggest loser in all this will be Ukraine and its people, once again humiliated and seeing that the deceitful foreign aid is pure philistinism and worthless.

I believe that, in view of the major geostrategic change in the world and what is expected to come soon, the IC should sit down, without much delay, to consider a radical change in the question of international arbitration at the global level. 

We cannot and should not maintain a structure that is obsolete and from the last century, when the balances, the tools to be used, the threats and the emerging powers are totally different. Otherwise, the world is heading headlong towards its own self-destruction or towards an oligarchy without salvation.