For a month now, Europe seems to be on the verge of exploding, and in recent days it has already become a heavy shelling. All this comes after quite a few preparations, ones that have not been seen in Europe since World War II. Putin has been holding more than 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine for months, tanks, cannons, battleships, insane missiles. The Russians are so prepared for war that they have even transferred medical personnel and blood transfusions to the area.
The United States has transferred military equipment to Ukraine and even sent several thousand troops to Eastern European countries, but in Tekel’s, it seems that it is trying to do everything possible to prevent war. So what’s really going on here? How did we get to a point where a huge military force was just waiting for an order to storm and set Europe on fire?
At the center of the crisis in Ukraine is a mysterious man you all know: Russian President Vladimir Putin. He sees in Ukraine a space of influence that belongs to Mother Russia. He once even said that “the Russians and the Ukrainians are one people.”
Most Ukrainians do not flow with Putin. The last thing you can say to them is “you are Russian”. It will drive them crazy. They are very proud of their nationality. They want to leave the Soviet past of poverty and dictatorship behind, and move closer to the West, the European Union and the NATO alliance.
In the Kremlin these voices are heard and freaked out. They hate NATO, and the truth is that it is not difficult to understand why. This military alliance was originally established to protect Western countries from the Soviet Union. But for more than three decades there is no Soviet Union. And instead of NATO disappearing, it is only expanding to more and more countries Who were formerly part of it. So when Putin hears that the Ukrainians are flirting with NATO, Hamamuh comes up to him.
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Ukraine has a border of more than 2,000 km with Russia. As far as the Kremlin is concerned, NATO is on their doorstep – with Western troops and missiles aimed at Moscow. It is an existential threat, no less. It is now quite clear how suddenly we are in the biggest crisis we have seen in Europe since World War II.
So what does Putin want? In a big way “to bring Russia back to its greatness”. How do you do that? First of all, we are promised that Ukraine will never join NATO. Such an achievement will position Russia as a major international player and show the world that with a little muscle, it is getting what it demands.
In the West, that is, in the United States, do not fly on Putin’s old-new dreams. For them, each country must determine its own future. Yes, Ukraine too. The problem is that the last time Kiev tried to get closer to the West, it did not end well. Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, a revolt broke out in parts of eastern Ukraine and in practice there is a war that continues to this day.
Besides, the EU is trapped by the Kremlin – a third of the gas that heats Europe comes from Russia. A sharp reaction against Putin and Hope – the Russian gas tap may shut down, and millions on the continent will be left without heating in the late winter frosts. Thus remain in the arena against Putin mainly Biden and the British Boris Johnson.
The point is that this is not just a battle for Ukraine, it is a battle for the world order that has been established since the fall of the Soviet Union, in which the United States is the only superpower and according to which it will rule anything. This is exactly what Putin wants to change, and prove to the world that he can bring the West to its knees.
If you thought Putin would become an isolated leader without friends? Think again. China is not crazy about the United States either. After all, it is America’s main competitor to global hegemony, and the Americans drive the Chinese crazy with all kinds of human rights talk and also with the back they give to Taiwan, which China sees as part of it.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and virtually every undemocratic leader in the world are watching what is happening in Ukraine and waiting to see where it goes. After Biden’s collapse in Afghanistan, the American withdrawal from Iraq and the United States’ fatigue from wars in general – its weak response will signal to those leaders that with a little poison in their eyes it is possible to defeat America by chicken.
A checkpoint controlled by pro-Russian separatists in Novotroitsk, eastern Ukraine (Photo: AP)
So will there be a war between Russia and Ukraine or not? The truth is that there is a situation that she has already started. At this point, fighting is concentrated in the east, in the area of the separatist districts of Donetsk and Lugansk, which were cut off from Ukraine, declaring independence in the middle of the previous decade. Now they want international recognition. In recent days, the two sides, the Ukrainians and the pro-Russians, have been blaming each other for heavy shelling. See that the tension there has reached its peak.
In the West, it is estimated that Putin is now looking for a “cause without” – a pretext for war, something that will be presented as aggression by Ukraine and will “force” him to order his troops to cross the border. On the other hand, in the West they try to present everything that is happening on the front and thus prevent an attempted Russian deception.
This week Putin took the first step on the path perhaps to burn Ukraine. So even if the Russian forces rush into Ukraine, and even if nothing more happens there than what we have seen so far – this story will eventually tell us what is going to happen in the coming decades not only there, but all over the world.