At this stage of the conflict, two moments must be distinguished: before and after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
The first is marked by the responsibility of different actors to avoid a military confrontation. The current one is based on the direct condemnation of the violation of international law that Moscow’s aggression implies.
The responsibility for promoting military aggression in Ukraine rests with the Putin government. But there are many other countries responsible for failing to establish conditions to avoid war.
The European Union (EU) is responsible for dissolving the clear distinction that existed in the 1990s between the interests of the EU itself and those of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) with regard to security on the continent.
Meeting after meeting, this distinction became blurred, until at the February 19 meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Munich, it became clear that the EU’s identification with NATO is almost total.
This determines a second factor: the resurgence of ideological Atlanticism in Europe and the United States.
The speeches of Western representatives reflect an excessive reliance on the deterrent that the expansion of the Atlantic Alliance has represented over the last two decades.
This explains the arrogance displayed by its leaders in rejecting any Russian objections that this expansion affected their security and that the Ukraine case was a point of no return.
Indeed, it appears that NATO and the EU would have acted deliberately to increase Russian unease and thus strengthen the Russian autocrat’s arguments.
Mexican analyst Carlos Taibo has written that Putin is largely a product of NATO. It should be added that the revitalization of NATO is largely a product of Putin’s arrogance and that this hellish vicious circle is what would have to be broken to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
This led to the February 24 Russian intervention, which opened a new phase of the conflict.
Putin’s decision was accompanied by institutional support in the Duma (the Russian Parliament) and the majority of public opinion in his country.
This relative domestic strength has led Putin to ignore an oft-repeated maxim: in advocating one’s own causes in a geopolitical confrontation, there are red lines that cannot be crossed.
By perpetrating an armed aggression, Moscow’s argument about the Western threat to its own security disappears under the condemnation of the international community.
With military aggression, Putin provided the desired political scenario heralded by European hawks and the Atlantic Alliance.
He managed to get NATO and the United States to claim to be the true oracles of Putin’s final intentions, for EU countries to significantly reduce their differences (at least in public) and for the UN (United Nations) – whose secretary-general , Antonio Guterres, stated, not so long ago, that he was confident that open war would never happen – unequivocally condemning the Moscow government.
In short, with his aggression, Putin loses much of his legitimacy inside and outside the borders.
What were the reasons for Putin’s choice to take the geopolitical dispute to armed confrontation?
There are military reasons, which certainly incorporated some miscalculations.
In fact, the myth has been created, largely thanks to the Western media, that everything that is happening is exactly according to the plans devised by a sinister strategist: Putin.
This assumption is far from reality.
As a former head of the KGB, Putin is aware of the importance of having a plan, but also of the need to readapt, depending on the context.
It is not certain that he shrewdly used French President Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic choice to camouflage his true intention to invade Ukraine.
Putin was willing to go to any lengths to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and force it to maintain close relations with Russia.
But the West’s response to these demands was a high-profile rejection.
On the other hand, the military option is not turning out to be as straightforward as might have been predicted. The Kremlin’s calculation to quickly assert itself throughout the territory of the two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, failed.
The Ukrainian government has been able to build up a considerable concentration of forces in that region, which has forced Russia to try to stop it, pushing for deterrent attacks on other parts of Ukrainian territory. This happened on the night of February 24th.
It should be noted that Russia does not have the capacity to face a generalized territorial invasion, as it is estimated that an occupation of a territory the size of Ukraine would require a manpower of 1.5 million.
Therefore, with a few exceptions, the attacks are concentrated in some border towns and in Kiev, which is just 60 kilometers from the Belarus border.
Proving that there were no obstacles on the way to Kiev, Moscow made another miscalculation: thinking that the city would fall immediately and that it could make Volodymyr Zelensky’s government a direct military target.
But the seizure of Kiev and its government district, which was supposed to take place on the night of Saturday, February 26, did not happen because the mobilization of the Armed Forces and militias guaranteed the city’s self-defense.
Kiev could fall in the next few days, but each passing day is another step towards unleashing a guerrilla war in the rest of the country, something Russia wants to avoid.
A scenario steeped in protracted irregular warfare is what Moscow does not want. Among other reasons, although Putin currently has the majority support of political actors and the Russian population, this situation could change quickly.
The continuation of an open war for too long and without the slightest political support across borders, coupled with Western economic sanctions, can remind the Russian population of the specter of the failure of the war in Afghanistan.
Putin may also be wrong about the consequences of this military ordeal for his country’s domestic politics. That is why he has just opened the door to possible ceasefire negotiations with Kiev authorities.
And while he initially encouraged Ukrainian military commanders to seize power to negotiate with them, this seems to be unclear, among other reasons because much depends on how quickly he manages to capture Zelensky and his government.
It is possible that the armed conflict in Ukraine, far from being over, is just beginning.
This is something that Ukraine, which is ultimately the real victim of this war and the unwelcome vicious circle that preceded it, will suffer in any case.
Translation of Giulia Gaspar
