His gesture, of incredible courage, went around the world. On March 14, 2022, three weeks after the start of the Russian invasion, Marina Osviannikova burst onto the set of Russia’s most-watched newscast, brandishing a “No war” sign. She is quickly arrested. “At the time, I was absolutely sure that the war would end a few days later, that unrest would break out in Russia and that Putin would be removed from power, confides the Russian journalist, who managed to flee to Europe. Unfortunately, nothing of all this has happened. A year has passed and absolute evil continues to reign in Russia…”
On February 24, 2022 at dawn, the Russian president launched his “special military operation”. No one has forgotten these staggering images that have tilted our century towards the past. As his tanks swoop down on kyiv, Putin thinks Ukrainian power will be swept away within days. Twelve months later, the war continues to make the headlines, with its terrifying lot of deaths, destruction, displacements, misfortunes. And there is no hope that this will stop in the near future, as the two protagonists – the aggressor and the attacked – each think they can win. Putin to satisfy his imperialist aims, Zelensky, because he is fighting an existential battle.
Repeatedly pushed back, the Russians are still chasing a first real success. Nearly 200,000 of their soldiers are said to be dead or wounded, according to the Institute for the Study of War, but for Putin, what does the loss of life matter? Didn’t the Russians sacrifice themselves by the millions at Stalingrad?
Rumors of a large-scale Russian offensive and a new mobilization swell. Opposite, the Ukrainians are worried. Missiles crush innocent lives, destroy power stations, the front lines are engulfed in fire. “The Russians have massed a lot of men, the number of attacks and bombardments is increasing, describes Serhiy Haidaï, governor of Lugansk, reached by telephone. The month and a half that comes will be the hardest.”
Unable to achieve his goals, Putin prepares his people for a long conflict. “He is moving towards a” people’s war “, which would involve the whole nation. A total war”, deciphers the historian Françoise Thom. Evgueni Prigojine, leader of the sinister group of Wagner mercenaries, has he not warned in recent days? Controlling the Donetsk and Lugansk regions could take “a year and a half to two years”.
To repel the incessant waves of attackers, the Ukrainians urgently need sophisticated weapons. The United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Poland have promised heavy tanks. It’s a first step, but the Ukrainians are pushing for us to go further. During his tour of London, Paris and Brussels, President Zelensky insistently requested combat aircraft. Several countries, including France and the Netherlands, do not exclude it.
Does Zelensky do too much? Strange question, when the survival of his country is at stake, and when we are linked to his destiny. Without its heroic resistance, Ukraine would have already lost. “He is right to ask for planes, considers the diplomat Michel Duclos, special adviser at the Institut Montaigne, because we are facing a double risk: that Ukraine gives way under the battering of Russia and that the war prolongs for a very long time. In both cases, it is a very dangerous situation for Ukraine and very unfavorable for Western interests.”
How long will the Ukrainians hold out if we don’t deliver weapons capable of making a difference? “If we had been faster, the war might already be over. In the fall, the Ukrainians, with a superior strike force, could have brought down the Russian army, when it was really destabilized. These dropper deliveries of arms have everything of a Chinese torture”, regrets the writer Jonathan Littell.
Worried about a gear, certain figures, on the left as on the right, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Pierre Lellouche, alert on the risk of nuclear response or Third World War. And call for negotiations. But how could Ukraine, whose territorial integrity has been violated, discuss with an interlocutor who has no word? And who, even in the event of a ceasefire, will never give up taking over Ukraine?
The appeasement strategy in which certain Western countries, including Germany and France, have long persisted, has only reinforced the head of the Kremlin in his judgment. Putin, who remained the “lawless” thug of his youth, thinks that “the West is made up of tender-hearted citizens” whom he can “rob and humiliate, again and again”, underlines the ex-oligarch and Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, exiled to London. Since 2008 and despite the military aggressions in Georgia, Syria, Crimea, in the Donbass, some “have repeated that we should not provoke or humiliate Russia, opines Jonathan Littell. But today, we are witnessing a war major in Europe because we were cowards”.
Do we consider ourselves lucky that the Ukrainians, driven by extraordinary courage and supported by the West, stood in the way. If they had cracked, “Russian troops would now be at the gates of Poland,” recalls American journalist Anne Applebaum. “Today, the victim is Ukraine, tomorrow Moldova, the Baltic countries, Poland, the Balkans, abounds Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Many small and large tsars will be ready to follow his example if it becomes clear that flouting rules is rewarded.”
Conversely, Ukrainian efforts should be encouraged. After beginning his speech to the European Parliament on 10 February with “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine), Volodymyr Zelensky had difficulty in holding back his tears when the assembly replied “Heroyam slava” (Glory to hero). But more than words, we need commitments and a timetable for joining the European Union that is neither unrealistic nor hopeless for Kyiv. The Ukrainians, who waved European flags during the Maidan revolution in 2014, are eager to join us.
For Sviatoslav “Slava” Vakartchouk, former deputy and leader of his country’s most popular rock band, who gave more than 175 concerts on the front line in support of the soldiers, the cultural closeness is obvious. “We don’t want to live in a big prison, like the Russians or the Belarusians, he insists. For us, freedom, democracy, are natural values, which we feel in our veins…” That’s why they will never give up. “Whether the West helps us or not, the Ukrainians will fight like crazy, promises the singer. But with the help of the West, this nightmare will end much faster.” For peace to return, the Russian tyrant must fail. And Ukraine win this absurd war.
