Conflict and Peace

In unleashing this war on Thursday morning, President Putin assured Russians it was going to be a short war, even though he knows very well this is not going to be the case, and that the cost for Russia is going to be enormous. Whether the Russian people have the same single minded view of things as Putin does is another matter. Most Russians usually fall in line once the men in the Kremlin – or in this case the man in the Kremlin – have made up their mind. Putin’s Russia is no democracy, but Russians are aware of what is going on around them. One can sense a disquiet at the turn of events which augurs badly for Mr Putin. A long protracted conflict will severely test the resilience of the current Russian leadership. Already last night, thousands took to the streets in Russian cities, to protest against the war. Many shouted, this is Putin's war, not ours.

Continuing in the cynical mode that he has been using throughout the crisis Putin claimed his plans “don’t include occupation of Ukrainian territory, we are not going to impose anything on anyone by force.” “To anyone who would consider interfering from outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All the relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me,” he said.

The current events in Ukraine "are part of the shifts in global security architecture amidst the transformation of the world order from a unipolar moment to a multipolar system. It is not about Ukraine, in the same way that the cold war was not about the fate of West Berlin", says Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed.

A meeting between the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday, 24 February) has been cancelled by the American side. It has also been reported that a proposed meeting between President Biden and President Putin is no longer envisaged in the immediate future. Blinken said a meeting now was futile since the US believes that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has already began.

Russia has  started deploying troops to the Ukrainian regions of Lugansk and Donetsk shortly after president Putin signed decrees recognising the two breakaway regions as independent states. There is still uncertainty as to what the Russian endgame is. Parts of Lugansk and Donetsk have been under separatist control since 2014. But if the Russian forces try to move beyond these enclaves to territory controlled by the Ukrainian army some very heavy fighting is to be expected. There has been widespread international condemnation of Russia's action. The UN Security Council met in emergency session early on Tuesday morning. France, US and UK strongly condemned the Russian action. Several countries are expected to impose sanctions.

The  sight of refugees on their own continent amid the rumblings of war unsettles Europeans, many of who thought these were things of the past. Within the EU, a younger generation brought up in an era of peace and relative prosperity is struggling to understand the news coming out of Ukraine, and the human tragedy that is about to unfold unless there is some last minute diplomatic breakthrough. Indeed, for Europeans, Ukraine is the wake-up call they had hoped they would never get again.