Berlin.
Our author believes that there is no rational explanation for Putin’s war in Ukraine. The country will also need help beyond 2022.
On a freezing cold morning at the end of February this year, thousands of vehicles are backed up at the border crossing with Slovakia. It is also these images that particularly shaped the year 2022. People warm their hands at campfires, volunteers distribute warm drinks and soup. Heartbreaking scenes unfold. Men say goodbye to their families, they must stay to defend their country.
Everyone suits them bewilderment written on the face. It’s a feeling that prevails across Europe. Three days earlier, Russia invaded Ukraine. Despite all the warnings from US and British intelligence circles, hardly any analysts, hardly any commentators, hardly any politicians expected that the Russian President Wladimir Putin would cross the red line; despite Russian interventions in eastern Ukraine, despite the annexation of Crimea eight years earlier. It is a Warfor which there is no rational explanation.
Vladimir Putin’s reasons for the war are irrational
Russia’s fears of NATO’s eastward expansion were often outlined in advance, but Vladimir Putin justifies the war with reasons that go beyond geopolitics. He speaks of one Nazi regime in Kyivwhich must be eliminated, from a defense of Russian spirituality.
The war he starts affects the whole world. the Food and energy prices explode. European governments are launching aid programs worth billions so that their economies do not collapse and whole sections of the population do not become impoverished. Nevertheless, the willingness to help is great. Refugees from Ukraine are being warmly welcomed in Europe, even in the Eastern European countries that previously refused to adopt a common migration policy in the EU. The big winners are the Gulf States and the USA, which are far away from the war and can now sell oil and gas on the world market at completely overpriced prices.
Reporter Jan Jessen reports from Ukraine:
Russia planned the Ukraine war completely differently
So far, however, the Ukraine war has gone differently than the strategists in the Kremlin planned. The Ukrainians do not want to be liberated by force and have to live under the Russian yoke. They fight back and get massive gun help from the NATO countries. In the months that followed, the blatant weakness in the command structures of the Russian armed forces became apparent. Operationally, tactically and strategically, the campaign turned into a disaster. In the spring the Russians had to withdraw from the area around the Ukrainian capital, in the autumn they were pushed back from the Kharkiv area in the north-east and the Cherson area in the south. By the end of 2022, countless cities in eastern and southern Ukraine lie in ruins, especially in regions that Putin illegally annexed in September.
Millions of people are without electricity at the turn of the year. Almost eight million Ukrainians are considered refugees registered in other European countries, a good six million are considered internally displaced persons. Thousands of civilians and tens of thousands of soldiers are dead. That senseless killing continues.
Also in 2023 Ukraine will need international help
There doesn’t seem to be a path for diplomatic solutions at the moment. Help and support for Ukraine will also be needed in 2023, not only military ones. The people suffering from the war still need medicine, food and everything that serves to supply energy. Hundreds of thousands have severe trauma suffered. Their reality of life has been shattered, their houses are in ruins, they have lost loved ones and themselves horrible witnessed rape, torture, bombings. Working through the mental wounds of this war after its end will be a task for generations.
Ukraine Crisis – The most important news about the war
More articles from this category can be found here: Politics
