In a war that has lasted as long as the Russian-Ukrainian one, with the ferocity with which both sides are hitting each other, it is beyond misguided and risky for anyone, especially if they hold one of the most important positions of power and responsibility on the planet, to believe that a phone call and a friendly – or not so friendly – pat on the back is enough to end it.
The Ukrainian strike on Russian air bases and the revelations from Kiev about the strategy behind it prove in practice that we are talking about a conflict that, unless something changes dramatically, will be very difficult to end even within 2025.
The Ukrainian strike may show things regarding Kiev’s strategy and the way in which it can plan, infiltrate and ultimately implement such a complex and dangerous operation, but what should mainly concern us is the fact that the Russian insistence on not ending the fighting will have a cost for Moscow as well, and in fact much greater than what it itself wants to let hang in the balance.
The war in Ukraine is extremely complex and, beyond the results produced in the fields, it also produces elements that are difficult to see today with the “naked eye” but data that will concern us for decades even if the current “chapter” closes in the coming months…
For starters, Russia’s choice to invade Ukraine and, with the force of weapons, battles and war, impose its will and beliefs has given birth to a pure-blooded enemy on its borders… When the losses today for Ukrainians are such that, especially in the East of the country, it will be very difficult to find a family that has not lost someone of its own and at the same time its home, security and whatever – much or little – it had until February 2022, it is a given that the image of its neighbor is absolutely hostile.
With the invasion of Ukrainian territory and the mass of miscalculations by Moscow, Ukraine gained something else, the belief that it can win… Today, the results do not justify it, but there are not many countries on the planet that would have managed to resist even with losses equal to those of the Ukrainians against an army as numerically superior as the Russian one. After 2014 and the humiliating loss of Crimea for which Russia did not fire a single bullet, Kiev managed in 8 years and several million dollars, Western weapons and a lot of time of military training to build one of the most combat-worthy armies in Europe. The numbers are not – were not and will not be on Ukraine’s side, but in no case more than three years later the country has not been defeated.
The wounds are enormous and the pain great, but it is this pain that will bring the biggest and most substantial problems – and probably the next chapters of the war – in the years to come.
The third pillar that Russia itself seems to have set up with its invasion of Ukrainian territory has to do with counterintelligence and secret services. The Ukrainians have proven with the sinking of the flagship “Moscow” and the recapture of Kherson – two tangible victories in the field and prestige for Kiev – that they have the way and the means to “read” the opposing camp. The “Spider’s Web”, if what Kiev is leaking is true, is an operation that if it had been planned and implemented by Israel, the world would have called it a military “masterpiece”. The Ukrainian invasion of the Russian province of Kursk was also built on the same basis, a move that completely surprised Moscow and Ukraine’s allies.
Russia, apart from the internal and external narrative regarding the war, should realize that regardless of what it will ultimately conquer and when, it will have created a situation that is currently extremely difficult to control “in the way the Kremlin wants.”
Even if Ukraine does not become a member of NATO, this will be a decision that will be in effect for as long as Trump is President, and Moscow, which has rightly been shouting for years about the expansion of the Alliance to the East, is the one that knows this to be a fact. What it will have created and is currently experiencing its effects on its territory must be, without exaggeration, shocking for Moscow. If Ukraine has the ability to create with such dedication, organization and technological means what the whole world saw yesterday at different Russian military bases, then no one can “sleep” with confidence and it is clear that whatever “laurels” and profits Vladimir Putin attempts to present in the immediate or more likely future will be only for internal consumption.
It is also not at all negligible that, in addition to its army, Ukraine – without seeking it – is hardening its people in the hardships of war. Being without water – electricity and the basics is the norm for a large part of the population, which wakes up and sleeps knowing that it can be hit at any moment by a Russian missile or drone. Through the extreme darkness of war and the death it brings, Ukrainians today, regardless of age, have gained the shyness of fear, if not fear itself. An adversary tomorrow who does not fear you is a dangerous adversary, and that is something that no President – whoever he is, whoever he is influenced by – can prevent or reverse.
