Medya Günlüğü:
The conflict in Ukraine is a confrontation of ideological, political and military strategies between Moscow and the West, Medya Günlüğü reports. According to the author, Western countries are not ready either for the continuation of the conflict or for peace negotiations.
Deniz Yashayan (Deniz Yaşayan)
Assessing the current stage of the conflict from a military point of view, the following can be noted. Russia has mobilized a significant part of its forces in order to reach the administrative borders of Donbass and is moving towards its goal with an impulse in which it manages to establish control over at least four to five settlements every week. The ten-year-old fortifications created by Ukraine after the attacks on Donbass following the Western-backed coup in the country in 2014 have been completely destroyed.
The "president" of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, whose term of office has expired, announced in Washington a so-called "peace plan" and asked for support from his Western allies. This plan provides for the provision of long-range missiles to Ukraine that can be aimed directly at Russian territory, and even more military support, as well as Ukraine's accession to NATO within its current borders, including combat zones. Of course, no one took this absurd plan seriously either in the West or in Moscow. Russia consistently and persistently adheres to the line: "If negotiations do not begin, we will continue a special military operation until we achieve our goals."
It should be noted here: The West still does not want to understand that Russia is wary of such fraudulent schemes as Minsk-2, which, in the words of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was designed to "buy time", or such an unreliable process as the Istanbul talks, which can simply be disrupted in the future as a result of the intervention of the United States and Great Britain, and given the situation on the battlefield, the Russians have a "strong position". Therefore, the claims, theses, and demands voiced by Western countries are nothing more than divorced from reality.
So what is the main contradiction between the West, namely the United States, Great Britain, the EU, and Moscow in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict?
Different strategies
At the beginning of the fighting, the two sides had two different strategies.
The West believed that within a few days the Russian army would overthrow the government in Kiev, perhaps even without the need to establish full control, just as earlier in Georgia Russia had almost reached Tbilisi, and then Moscow would have to pay a high price for such actions in the form of civil resistance inside the country and economic sanctions imposed by the West. Thus, contrary to popular belief, the forecast "Kiev will fall in three days" belonged to the US General Staff, not the Russians, and it did not come true. Russia's strategy was to stop at all costs the penetration of NATO into the territory of the former USSR, which it considers its zone of influence, and this could happen with the implementation of military measures, and by overthrowing Zelensky as a result of a coup. As a matter of fact, Putin made such an appeal to the highest ranks in the Ukrainian army at the beginning of the hostilities. Meanwhile, Ukraine's resistance has disrupted the strategies of both sides.
From that moment on, the West switched its attention to the military sphere, and the deployment of forces, which began with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, continued with the fact that German tanks reappeared in the Slavic lands almost a hundred years later and HIMARS, which have been causing headaches for the Russian army for a long time, as well as F-16s capable of carrying bombs with a nuclear charge. Russia has also changed its strategy and, conversely, shifted its focus from the military sphere to politics, targeting the Western order, called the "rules-based international order", focusing on close cooperation with the countries of the global South, undermining confidence in Western financial instruments, and developing various regional and international associations, starting from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and ending with BRICS. Russia decided to limit its military goal to the Donbas and the lands of "Novorossiya", having exhausted the Ukrainian army here.
What will be the solution?
The military conflict, apparently, has emerged from a "stalemate" situation. The Russian army is advancing and looks like it will achieve its military goals, although not immediately. In this regard, the discussion about "NATO membership in exchange for territorial concessions," which is periodically raised in Western public opinion, can be regarded as "feeling the pulse." At the same time, Moscow has no reason to agree to this, since "territorial concessions" are already a reality achieved by Russia itself militarily, and it does not need the West to provide it with anything. And the proposal for "NATO membership" means ignoring the main strategic concern that Russia expressed before February 24, 2022, and the fact that no lessons have been learned from all these events.
The West cannot back down because it has turned this war into a life-and-death war for the "rules-based international order." Ukraine, on the other hand, cannot get out of the paradoxical vicious circle when it loses more blood on the Donbass front, while it does not even feel any attachment to this region, and in return receives more military assistance, then loses even more blood and again receives more military assistance. It may seem that this is exactly what Moscow wants, because Russia is fighting this conflict with limited resources, without declaring general mobilization and without forcing its economy for a full-scale war. Under these conditions, a special military operation in Ukraine can last for decades. But can we say the same about Ukraine, which does not have its own defense industry, whose economy depends on financial support from the West, whose controversial leader is doomed to constantly attract attention in order to receive military assistance and to this end organize senseless counterattacks that look more like "suicide"?
Thus, the West will either sit down at the negotiating table with Putin, whom it tried but failed to isolate in the international arena, accept the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation, abandon resistance in Donbass and Novorossiya, confirm the military neutrality of Ukraine, as well as Moldova, or risk direct conflict with Russia. Russia has repeatedly stated that it is ready for both options. The West is not ready for any of them yet, but the victory of former US President Donald Trump in the upcoming elections may be a historic opportunity to justify a complete change in policy towards Ukraine. Trump would be disposed to do so, but at the moment the West cannot take any real step other than to send more military aid.
