23 maggio 2022 09:57
A high-intensity war between two states, such as the one that has been going on for three months between Russia and Ukraine, is not only fought at the front, but goes beyond the military. The balance of forces is the product of a set of constantly changing factors.
Since the beginning of the conflict, Ukraine has not limited itself to resisting, but has sabotaged Russian plans in the Kiev region and pushed Putin’s army back from the big city area of Kharkiv in the north.
But now the narrative of a Ukrainian “victory” has been turned upside down. The last defenders of the city of Mariupol, on the Azov sea, surrendered on the orders of their command. According to Russia, these are more than 2,700 prisoners, who will surely be useful for Moscow’s propaganda. For the Kremlin it is the biggest victory since the war. But it is not the only one.
Some confusion
In the northeast of the Donbass some Ukrainian defensive positions are about to be defeated. The Russian army, after intensive bombardment, is achieving significant results. Evidently, Russian power continues to be formidable, despite initial disappointments.
This war, destined to last, could go through several turns. Everything will depend on the calculations of the two sides, on their assessment of the balance of power and on the possible evolution according to the arms deliveries to Ukraine or the ability to send fresh troops from Russia.
There is another front of the war, that of public diplomacy and the signals exchanged by the sides
On May 21, a sentence by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskij dampened the extremely aggressive position of Kiev, certainly also due to bad news from the front. “The end of the conflict will be diplomatic. […] There are things that can only be resolved at the negotiating table, ”Zelenskii told Ukrainian TV.
This realism shown by the Ukrainian president belies the idea of a purely military victory that someone had been hinting at in recent weeks.
At this moment, a serious negotiation still seems impossible, because the logic of weapons has not yet reached its conclusion, but the fact remains that there is another front of the war, that of public diplomacy and the signals exchanged by the sides, sometimes in a different way. contradictory. Zelenskii’s declaration is part of this process.
In all of this it is undeniable that there is some confusion, especially when the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, declares that he wants to weaken Russia but the next day he calls his Russian colleague to ask for a ceasefire, or when France stresses that Ukraine’s accession to the European Union will not arrive before “fifteen or twenty years” (as stated yesterday by the French minister for Europe Clément Beaune) risking to generate confusion in the eastern part of the continent just as the Polish president Andrzej Duda announces in front of the parliament in Kiev, amid applause, that “Ukraine must join the European Union”.
This war in Ukraine is now at the center of the future, of the stability and economy of Europe, but also of the great world balance. Nobody can afford to be wrong. It is true for the Ukrainians but it is also true for us.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)