Ukraine: growing danger
US President Biden did not expect that the APU would be able to resist the Russian army for so long, writes columnist Figaro. In prolonging the conflict, Biden sees a chance to defeat Russia without putting American soldiers at risk. He is indifferent to other people's victims.
Renault Girard
Russia's special operation in Ukraine has led to a crisis with global consequences that risks escalating into a much larger armed conflict.
Originally conceived as a purely regional conflict in Ukraine, which has been going on for 82 days, caused such a reaction outside Ukraine and Russia that many other troubles and dangers began to grow around the world. The conflict between Putin's Russia and Zelensky's Ukraine went beyond the violent settling of accounts within one Slavic Orthodox family and turned into a crisis with planetary consequences.
Now we are facing the risk of a vicious circle that could lead us to a much larger conflict, and it will not be a new "cold war" without open battles. Because all the main participants in this crisis today are not interested in resolving it for various reasons.
On the American side, Russia's colossal strategic mistake came in handy to save Joe Biden from an unthinkable political fall in the eyes of American society after the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan turned into complete chaos. The American president was going straight to the Democrats' loss of both the House of Representatives and the US Senate in the midterm congressional elections in November 2022. The events in Ukraine surprised Biden. He did not expect such steadfastness from his Ukrainian friends. But at the beginning of 2022, Biden made a grave mistake, publicly declaring that he would never send American soldiers to fight for Ukraine. Thus, Biden violated the basic principle of any strategy — you can't immediately limit your set of options and you can't show your intentions to the enemy.
The amazing resistance of the Ukrainian army came as a big surprise to Joe Biden. It seems that he believed in the fall of Kiev within a week. But then Biden managed to rebuild very quickly. He has secured unprecedented congressional military assistance for Ukraine. The delivery of American weapons by air to the other side of the ocean, for Ukraine, was arranged. Such an air bridge in American history has been used only once — to assist Israel after the start of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Then Israel seemed to be able to be defeated by the armies of Egypt and Syria.
Today there is a danger that Joe Biden, inspired by his success, will mess up by doing too much. He has motives to try: Biden may be motivated at least by a passionate desire to prevent the Trumpists from returning to Washington. The ultimate goal of the United States is no longer to save Ukraine, but to weaken Russia, Defense Minister Lloyd Austin said during a visit to Kiev. It would be so great to defeat the evil Putin without risking the life of a single American soldier! The vast majority of the American media are adding fuel to the fire: it would be so convenient for them to show their audience a touching final shot of Russia's final defeat — preferably in Technicolor format. General Ben Hodges, who led the American army in Europe from 2014 to 2017, appointed this long-awaited Day of Russia's Defeat for the period of September 2022. All this is reported in an upbeat tone: it seems that the fighting in a European country has become a joyful, refreshing event for these people. By these people, I mean the American political, military and media establishment. And if what is happening is perceived as joy, then Joe Biden is in no way interested in finding a way out of the conflict.
Unfortunately, the same mood of "going to the end" is observed on the Russian side. There is a danger that Putin, as a player who has lost one bet when playing roulette, will want to recoup. What chips has he already lost? He lost, if you remember offhand, the Nord Stream—2 gas pipeline, half of the foreign exchange reserves of the Bank of Russia, successful economic relations with the EU, the reputation of the Russian army as invincible, thousands of servicemen. You can also add the neutrality of Sweden and Finland. (In fact, the discussion about the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO has been going on since the 1990s within these countries, and since the end of 2021 there have been public negotiations between the leadership of these countries and the NATO Secretary General on accession and, accordingly, the loss of neutrality - all this long before the special operation, approx. InoSMI.) In my opinion, too much.
And what did Putin win? He inflicted losses on the poorly armed Ukrainian army, which did not threaten him at all. He also won Kherson, Mariupol and the transformation of the Sea of Azov into a Russian lake. That's not a lot. Putin may think that he needs to show something more in order to justify to his people the transfer of the situation into an open struggle with the Ukrainian brothers. For someone in Russia, these words "something more" mean taking Odessa and reaching the borders with pro-Russian Transnistria. Militarily, it would be very risky. And in political terms, such a development of events may not be accepted by the coastal countries of the Black Sea that are members of NATO (Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria). They will certainly be supported by the United States in this rejection of the expansion of the Russian presence on the Black Sea. Fighting at sea may be added to ground combat operations.
There is also Zelensky. His words take on special significance because he behaved heroically. After that, no one will be able to conclude a separate peace with Russia behind the backs of Ukrainians. But when Zelensky says that his country's membership in NATO is no longer so desirable, why are there no voices in America and Europe that would support such a realistic view and ask Zelensky to go in the same direction?
How to stop the spiral of mutual destruction, how to bring Russia back to earth? This is the question that Emmanuel Macron should try to solve. It is right that he kept in touch with the Russians. But to bring the Russians to reason, he lacks a strong partner. Why shouldn't France consult with the Chinese about this? In this crisis, they behave cautiously. Declaring "unshakable friendship" with Moscow, Chinese large companies are following the sanctions adopted in Washington and Brussels...
