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The Russian invasion of Ukraine reaches its 60th day with no sign of an imminent end and with the prospect of Moscow advancing to an area larger than declared. In those two months, the conflict left, according to United Nations bodies:
- at least 2,435 civilians killedincluding 184 children, and 2,946 people injured, figures that the UN admits are much higher due to the difficulty of the investigation;
- 5.19 million refugeesthe fastest exodus since World War II;
- at least 102 locations of cultural, historical or religious importance destroyed.
The continuity of the attacks, the difficulty of access to the destroyed sites and the version war between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky prevent at this moment any more accurate assessment of the damage and, as a consequence, a comparison of the conflict with others in recent European history.
But, in the opinion of Reginaldo Mattar Nasser, professor of international relations at PUC-SP specializing in international conflicts, the Ukrainian war can be considered the most challenging on the continent, as it affects the perception of countries and brings back the fear that new disputes might knock on your door.
We spoke with Nasser to try to scale the current conflict:
What is your assessment of the current moment of the war? We are in the phase that we call a war of attrition, when the conflict is prolonged and neither party is in a position to impose a defeat on the other. It is very unlikely in today’s world to have, as in the first wars, the complete exhaustion of one side by military means. And nothing indicates that Ukraine will accept all of Russia’s terms. So, as NATO [aliança militar ocidental] and the United States continues to supply weapons, the war will continue.
Two months later, how do you assess the scale of this conflict compared to other wars? You have to look at it from different angles. On the humanitarian side, in terms of the number of refugees, there has not been another one similar to this one since the Second World War. In terms of death toll, at this point it is difficult to estimate. About the war in Kosovo, which took place in 1999 and has many similarities with that conflict, to date there is no precise data – it is estimated between 9,000 and 12,000 dead.
There is talk of the Bosnian War [que matou cerca de 100 mil pessoas entre 1992 e 1995], but it had a different profile: it was closer to a civil war, with very autonomous military units. They were dispersed and fragmented actions, there was no centralized command or the type of negotiation that, even in a precarious way, happens in the case of Russia.
Kosovo is perhaps the most important war to understand today. Mainly because it was a moment when NATO acted. This action greatly marked Russia’s perception, and Putin often cites Kosovo as a yardstick. The argument that it is necessary to protect a population, as the US and NATO did in relation to the Kosovars, Russia used in Georgia [em 2008]in Crimea [em 2014] and now wants to do in Donbass.
Do you agree with the assessment that this is the most challenging conflict for Europe since World War II? Yes. The conflict took away the image that Europe would not have more wars of this proportion. There is a very clear perception in all European countries that, from now on, there may be new conflicts. Bosnia and Kosovo were different: at no point during the Kosovo war was it thought that it could spread to other countries, for example.
Today there is this fear. Germany has increased its defense budget and is, for the first time, selling weapons to a country in conflict. Finland is taking action [sobre ingressar na Otan]. All European countries are reacting based on a perception, real or imagined, that other conflicts like this may arise. The issue is no longer in the Middle East, it is not just terrorism [como pensavam].
NATO, as soon as the Cold War ended, tried to justify its existence by looking elsewhere: Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq. Now he has returned to Europe.
Do not get lost
Other conflicts that help to understand today’s war:
Missile Crisis (1962)
The discovery that the Soviet Union had secretly positioned nuclear missiles in Cuba, about 145 kilometers off the US coast, has put Washington and Moscow face to face in 13 days of maximum tension and threats from both sides. Since then, says Nasser, there has been nothing closer to a direct confrontation between these two military powers — a reason that explains the caution of the US and NATO not to act militarily in the Ukraine conflict.
Kosovo (1999)
The attempt at independence of Kosovo, with an Albanian majority, from Serbia provoked a violent reaction from the troops of Slobodan Milosevic. NATO intervened in the conflict without UN authorization and carried out 11 weeks of bombings against Serb targets, on the grounds of protecting the separatist population – according to Nasser, this justification became a parameter for Putin’s future forays into pro-Russian separatist territories. Serbia lost control of the province in 1999, and independence was officially declared in 2008.
Georgia (2008)
The five-day invasion of the former Soviet republic by Russian troops was aimed at guaranteeing the autonomy of two ethnically Russian-majority areas, Abkhazia and South Ossetia – just as Putin claims to seek today with the invasion of Ukraine. In addition, they sought to contain the country’s approach to NATO — due to the promise, never formalized, that Georgia and Ukraine would be incorporated into the military alliance — another argument declared by Moscow in the current conflict. But there is a third component that makes the episode relevant for today: the transformation of the Russian leader into something of a “villain in the West”.
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