The war in Ukraine appears as a war of good against evil, as a conflict of right and wrong. A Manichaean conception attempts to interpret the facts. But is that so or are things much more complex? We will briefly record just a few facts to explain why this war broke out and what the goals of those involved are.
With the invasion, Russia pursues two geopolitical goals:
1. To prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and the subsequent deployment of the Alliance’s offensive-missile weapons, which will have within its range the administrative, military and industrial centers of the Russian hinterland. Of course, it faces the same problem with the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), which have already joined NATO and the EU.
2. To integrate the Russian population, which after the dissolution of the USSR and the creation of 15 independent states, found themselves outside the borders of their motherland. For Russia, the defeat and injustice suffered in 1991 must, at least in part, be reversed.
Based on the above, the Russian invasion of Ukraine can be characterized as a precautionary and at the same time a national liberation war.
Moscow considers the Ukrainians brotherly Slavic people (not a different nation). After all, Ukraine has always been part of the Tsarist Empire and later of the Soviet Union. Some parts of it, in the northwest, belonged in ancient times to the Poles, the Lithuanians and Austria-Hungary. It first became an independent state in 1991 and then attempted to create a unified Ukrainian national consciousness (eg by banning the use of the Russian language).
What does the country- “booty” with the name Ukraine mean?
Ukraine is the largest country in Europe, after Russia, (603,000 sq. Km.) With about 44 million inhabitants. A large part of this population, in the east and south, is Russian and not just Russian-speaking. Ukraine is a significant geo-economic size. It has the largest arable land in Europe.
Ukraine holds:
-the 1st place in the world in the export of sunflower oil,
-the 4th place in corn and barley exports,
-the 8th place in wheat exports,
-the 4th largest potato producer in the world, and
-the 5th largest rye producer in the world.
Ukraine also has significant industry and rich ores. Own
-the 3rd place in the world in iron exports,
-4th place in exports of clay and titanium,
-the 8th place in the exports of ores and concentrates, -the 10th place in the world in the production of steel, and
-the 1st place in Europe in the production of ammonia.
It also has shale deposits capable of producing shale gas and oil, such as those currently exported by the United States to Europe.
Finally, it has an industry for the production of nuclear turbines (4th largest exporter), diesel engines and a significant defense industry that cooperates with the corresponding Turkish in various sectors.
Former US National Security Adviser Z. Brzezinski had said: “Russia with Ukraine is an empire, without Ukraine it is a normal state.”
The US and NATO seek:
Do not integrate Ukraine into Russia or fall into the Russian sphere of influence. To this end, they encouraged its accession to NATO (a provision is provided for in the Ukrainian Constitution) and then to the EU, as was the case with all other Eastern European and Baltic countries. The current war began in 2014 when the then pro-Russian government was overthrown in a coup in Kyiv, and in response Russia annexed Crimea and encouraged the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk to declare themselves independent democracies.
Russia, eight years behind, is doing today what it should have done in 2014, when conditions were much more favorable for it. The Ukrainian army was much weaker and the pro-Russian sentiments of a large part of the population more intense.
Putin believed that by controlling Crimea and the two breakaway democracies, he would exercise full geopolitical control over all of Ukraine. He made a mistake.
After the Russian invasion and the rational decision not to involve NATO forces in military operations, because that would cause a conflict between the two largest nuclear powers on the planet, the goal of the West was adjusted. Ukraine was left alone to fight Russia with as much military aid as it could and as much as it could use. Aim to wear out Russia for a long time and inflict the greatest possible losses.
At the same time, unprecedented political and economic sanctions were imposed on Russia by all Westerners (USA, EU, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc.) in order to bring its economy to its knees and cause internal social unrest. A war is being waged at all levels. Russia is a military superpower but its economy is weak. Russia’s GDP is about equal to that of Italy, a country that has about 45% of Russia’s population. The Russian economy is based on the “monoculture” of the extraction of hydrocarbons, some raw materials and the defense industry. It is noteworthy that the high technology developed by the Russian defense industry does not spread to other productive sectors. A problem from the Soviet era.
The sanctions will create significant problems for Russia in the medium term, but they will not stop the current military operations in Ukraine until the objectives are achieved. The Russians can no longer back down because any retreat will be perceived by all international players as a weakness. They can not even divide Ukraine, because if the western part is left out of their control, it will be a permanent “wound”.
Westerners seek to make Moscow an international outcast and exclude it from global political, economic and cultural development. Something quite difficult for a country so big and rich in raw materials. The further rise in the prices of hydrocarbons, cereals and raw materials shows that the sanctions will also affect the economic development of the West, after the great recession that occurred due to the pandemic.
The war in Ukraine today is being waged to determine which bloc of forces the country will belong to. It will be that of globalization, represented by the EU and NATO, or that of ethnocentric Russia.
The hot conflict transcends the country, which suffers only tragic consequences and brings into conflict two different ideological-cultural views: Globalization or nation-state. That is why the conflict is so fierce at the political, diplomatic, economic, military and communication levels.
