Lhe fate of Ukraine is now being decided and with it the future of Europe. After a thousand days of war, with the prospect of a possible end to the fighting, the moment is critical for the Ukrainians as for the Europeans, suspended on American decisions that are less and less readable.
By authorizing the use of long-range missiles against Russia, the Biden administration is delivering a last stand supposed to absolve its responsibility for the future. Donald Trump is just in a hurry to get it over with. For the Russians, the cause is clear: they have already won. Whatever the exorbitant price of victory and all the blood shed, they have indeed won the test of will that all war boils down to. They win when we, Westerners, come out weakened.
It was risky to cover this conflict with a scope beyond reach, to make it a “crusade of democracies”while we measured our support for Ukraine on a daily basis in order to avoid being caught in the spiral of belligerence. It is indecent and ridiculous to console ourselves today by noting that Russia has had to swallow its ambitions and that its territorial gains, with regard to the regions already contested in 2014, are not considerable.
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It is still the definitive annexation of Crimea and the conquest of approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory. Furthermore, the fighting is not over. The Russians, despite the winter, are trying to push their advantage to gain a position of strength at the negotiating table.
Donald Trump wants to hasten the resolution of the conflict as soon as it is installed. Its teams are already preparing proposals for an agreement with Moscow. A peace treaty recognizing territorial annexations is excluded. This would be admitting the law of fait accompli; this would trample on Ukraine’s sovereignty. Only a ceasefire, or even an armistice open to other parties, is possible.
Stop tacking
The ordered cessation of hostilities results, in this scheme, in a simple freezing of the conflict. It involves the gradual cessation of fighting, the establishment of a demarcation line, the demilitarization of areas on both sides, the deployment of an observation force, the exchange of prisoners and the return of deported people. or held against their will in Russian territory.
Vladimir Putin has a plan that goes well beyond that. He wants to achieve the secession of the occupied oblasts (regions), the “Finlandization” of Ukraine and the fall of the Zelensky government. Building on this example, he intends to consolidate Russia’s hold on Georgia, Belarus and Moldova. He will continue his undermining work in Europe. The freezing of the Ukrainian conflict does not in any way mean the end of Russian intimidation and interference against our democracies. Reversibility of the method, we will just go back from open war to covered war before 2022.
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