2023-07-08 04:00:03
Blood spilled, lives lost and destruction of entire cities. This is the balance of the war between Russia and Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022 and completes 500 days this Saturday (8).
At this point in the conflict, there is still no provision for a ceasefire or the possibility of a peace agreement. Amidst the lack of definition, the offensives have different reflexes for each side.
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“From the point of view of the war, Russia is strengthened, which has hundreds of thousands of soldiers who are not going to give up their positions”, says professor of international relations James Onnig, from Facamp (Faculdades de Campinas). “However, from the point of view of the international community, there is support for Ukraine, which gives the impression that the country has support.”
Since the day that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukrainian territory, there has been a mobilization by the United States and European Union countries to weaken Moscow and give the necessary support to Kiev. Russia’s military, political and economic power is far superior to that of Ukraine, and it is this support from the West that allows President Volodymyr Zelensky to continue with his men’s resistance at the front.
Data from the annual report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), released in May 2023, reveal that, despite Ukraine having increased its military spending by 640%, the country is not even among the ten nations that invest more in their Armed Forces. In the year the war started, Ukraine had an investment of 44 billion dollars (R$ 220 billion) and rose from 36th to 11th position on the list.
Russia, in turn, increased its spending by 9%, jumping to 86 billion dollars (R$ 437 billion). The country is among those that invest the most in the military area, with other powers such as the United States and China.
Zelensky’s Popularity Vs Putin’s Image Crisis
The Ukrainian leader and the Russian leader try to use the conflict to spread their own image and version of the war to the world.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymir Zelensky, not only has the support of the international community, but over the course of the 500 days of war, he has become something of a “popstar” in Europe.
The former comedian who was elected president of Ukraine has already addressed authorities in several European countries and also to the United States Congress. With good oratory and speeches that took advantage of the context of each audience to discuss the horrors of war, Zelensky gained enormous visibility.
Time magazine named Zelensky the Person of the Year in 2022. In March last year, he and the first lady, Olena Zelenska, graced the cover of Caras de Portugal and the Portuguese magazine Nova Gente.
Putin, in turn, has his image negatively affected by the war. Episodes such as the massacre of civilians in Bucha, the attacks against hospitals and residential buildings and tension over the risk of a nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia plant all contribute to the Russian leader having a negative image in the West.
The recent mutiny of the Wagner paramilitary group has also damaged Putin’s image and caused an internal crisis in the Russian government. Moscow-funded soldiers, who were responsible for many of the conquests on Ukrainian territory, rebelled against the authority of Russian Defense Minister Serguei Shoigu and made explicit the lack of unity and the Russian government’s difficulty in continuing its offensives. .
For historian Rodrigo Ianhez, the Putin government tried to circumvent the narrative and attributed the mutiny’s failure to “the union of the Russian people”. Despite this, it is “inevitable” that the situation created, “of great uncertainty and the possibility of mercenaries attacking the country”, has generated a new image crisis for Putin.
Professor Onnig asserts that the Wagner group’s attempted rebellion did not weaken the Putin government, but it certainly damaged the image of the Russian president. The incident exposed the disagreements between the strategy of the Army and that of mercenary groups, as well as questions regarding the high command of the Armed Forces.
When it ends?
Experts are emphatic that the war in Ukraine is far from over. While Facamp professor James Onnig believes the conflict will last another 500 days, Ianhez says that, as a historian, he doesn’t like to make predictions. “But the fact is that neither has shown concrete interest in doing any negotiation”, he laments.
For both, a ceasefire in which all Ukrainian territories would be returned seems absolutely unlikely, since “Russia must not return even a millimeter of land”, according to Onnig. This is especially true for territories like Crimea (taken from Ukraine by Russia in 2014) and Donbass, where there is great resistance from the population itself.
Those who live in Crimea and Donbass are culturally much closer to Russia, consider themselves Russians and do not want to reintegrate into Ukraine. Zelensky has no base of support in these regions and would have to resort to violence to keep these populations under his country’s control.
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