Military Escalation or Peace Negotiations? Putin Remains Mysterious About What Will Happen After the Donbas’ Battle.
No one really knows how far Putin will go in the coming months.
More than three weeks after the parade, red stars, St. George ribbons, and other symbols of May 9 celebrating the “Great Patriotic War” and the Soviet victory in 1945 are still omnipresent in Moscow. These reminders of history in the present symbolize, for the Russian government, the continuity of the fight against those whom Vladimir Putin constantly calls “Nazis”.
Since the beginning of its “special military operation” in Ukraine, the Kremlin has been unrolling its shortcut between past “heroism” and present “victory”. After the Russian army took Mariupol, which must be considered above all as a Pyrrhic victory for Putin, the Kremlin propaganda hastened to show the swastika tattoos among the fallen Ukrainian fighters.
Paradoxically, the head of the Kremlin surprised a lot of observers on May 9. On that day, a sacred date in Russia, the “immortal regiment” certainly gathered tens of thousands of ordinary citizens marching, portraits of their ancestors in their hands, towards Red Square under cheers with both military and patriotic overtones. But, a few hours before, Vladimir Putin held a rather moderate speech. Without victory to announce, without nuclear threat to brandish. He did not use the word “war” and did not name Ukraine, far from the warlike statements feared by the West and hoped for by some Russians.
Vladimir Putin deliberately maintains uncertainty and doubt
Vladimir Putin is not necessarily where we expect him to be, and sometimes unwillingly. In February 2022, to “denazify and demilitarize” Ukraine, his army marching towards Kyiv was supposed to give a quick politico-military lesson to Ukraine and the West. However, it was necessary to wait three months and Mariupol for a first result which, dearly paid, does not remove the doubts on the efficiency of a Russian army that we had seen more impressive on the Syrian front.
The capture of the Ukrainian port city offered a victory to Vladimir Putin, who is used to announcing only good news. Next objective: Sievierodonetsk. The Russian army is pounding the Donbas with possible views along the Black Sea and separatist Transnistria, in Moldova. If Western support for Ukraine wanes, Vladimir Putin may not stop.
A “centrist”, according to the Russian understatement, caught between the intelligence hawks who have promised him a glorious and rapid victory in Ukraine and the army which is bringing him back to the reality of the Ukrainian partisans, Vladimir Putin would voluntarily play the card of vagueness and in-between. The most optimistic European diplomats in Moscow hope that this is a hand extended to the West. With the ambition to get out of the impasse in which the president has put himself.
By launching his “special operation”, the Russian president wanted more security, less NATO, more respect for Russia, and less Western influence. The victory in Mariupol cannot make us forget that today it is quite the opposite.
A vital rapprochement with China
Vladimir Putin may well declare that Finland's and Sweden's applications for NATO membership are not “a threat”, but he seems to have been caught off guard. His worst nightmare is coming true with the accession of neighboring countries to NATO. Very early on, among diplomats and experts, voices must have warned him of this risk. But did he listen to them? He was worried about NATO's advance on his eastern border. Now the Alliance is strengthening its northern border. In retaliation, against a background of paranoia and military overkill, Vladimir Putin could intensify his armed response. And strengthen his rapprochement with China by arguing that NATO is also against it.
For the time being, the astonishing resilience of the Russian economy does not argue for de-escalation with the West. The continuation of oil exports, the diktat on gas sales now in rubles, the rise of the national currency, and the repayment of loans give the Kremlin the illusion of a healthy national economy. Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, but it is holding out.
Some are even beginning to say that these sanctions will be a good thing in the long run by allowing Russia to finally diversify its economy. Something that Putin has never been able to do until now.
Public television, on the other hand, tells of the recession that threatens the West. The economic crisis is not yet tangible, but it is happening in Russia. Sales of new cars collapsed by 80% in April and inflation is soaring to 18% year-on-year, the highest since 2002. GDP is expected to fall by 8% - 12% over the whole of 2022, the sharpest slowdown since the 1990s.
Vladimir Putin, who is resistant to any form of openness, considers that he must win in Ukraine whatever the cost, including human losses and economic sanctions. Russia has already avoided the scenario of a financial panic and escaped default. Its balance of payments has reached record levels thanks to the manna of hydrocarbons, boosted by very high prices. These sales to Europe, which represent 400 million dollars of gas and 700 million dollars of petroleum products every day, feed the war machine.
On the strength of these results, Vladimir Putin could therefore choose military intensification and withdrawal. Unless, with economic difficulties worsening for Russian households, he is looking for an honorable way out of the conflict. For the moment, no one knows in which direction the unfathomable Vladimir Putin will go in the weeks and months to come. This is where all the unknowns about the future of this war in Ukraine lie.
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All you have to do is filter your Google searches prior to January 2022 and you will find extensive MSM evidence of the neo-Nazis who operate like a drug cartel. They hold the country in terror and Zelenskyy knows he will suffer a terrible death if he does not cooperate and the fact he is ethnically Jewish is a false backdrop and ruse. Remember, that Trump was impeached for the crimes committed by the Obiden Junta in Ukraine. Moreover,you have written brilliantly on the treasures that abound in Ukraine. Why would Russia withdraw and abandon these treasures in food, people, industry, raw materials? Most importantly, this is not a war as we normally understand. It's a civil war between two Rus tribes more like the US Civil war and the ongoing millenia old wars between Sunni and Shite