Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is running out of options once morest his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, whose offensive might cause his country territorial losses for the second time since 2014.
• Read also: The specter of a Russian offensive in Ukraine grows
• Read also: Biden announces sanctions that cut Russia off from Western funding
• Read also: The world reacts to Putin’s announcement on Ukraine
• Read also: There are diplomatic solutions for Ukraine
Defying Western warnings, the Russian president on Monday ordered the dispatch of troops to eastern Ukraine to support the independence claims of two pro-Russian separatist territories.
Western capitals are still trying to decide whether this expected deployment of so-called “blue helmets” constitutes the dreaded invasion, and the starting signal to trigger major sanctions once morest Moscow.
Hitting too hard and too quickly would leave Ukraine’s allies little room for subsequent sanctions, especially in the event of coordinated action by the 150,000 Russian soldiers positioned on the Ukrainian border.
But the Ukrainian president, backed by the European Union and Washington, faces an even greater dilemma.
AFP
In the eyes of public opinion, he cannot allow himself a posture of resignation in the face of Vladimir Putin’s decision to take control of part of his country. But neither can he afford to challenge the Russian armed forces, which are far superior to the Ukrainians, or risk an even bigger war breaking out in his country.
“Zelensky’s options have seriously narrowed,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta center for political studies in Kiev. “The main objective now is to avoid a big war. The main objective is to prevent the war from spreading beyond the current front” to eastern Ukraine or even to the rest of the country.
Ukrainians are still traumatized by the annexation of their Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Vladimir Putin then sent his soldiers there, nicknamed “little green men” because they wore no insignia, to take control of key structures.
Ukraine had by then lost almost its entire Black Sea Fleet and the entire region without firing a shot.
Independent political analyst Mykola Davydiouk believes that Zelensky’s political career, barely begun, would be quickly ended if Ukraine capitulated to Russian forces in the same way.
“If he now begins to make concessions to Russia, he will not be able to retain the presidency,” predicts Mr. Davydiouk.
Mr. Zelensky announced on Tuesday that he was actually considering severing diplomatic relations with Moscow.
He also urged Westerners to strongly sanction Russia today.
“Legally, I think the assault has already started,” he told reporters.
From an operational perspective, Ukraine’s ability to resist Russia is unclear.
Ukrainian forces are positioned along the frontline that runs through the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, known as Donbass, regarding a third of which are in separatist hands.
AFP
Putin announced on Tuesday that he recognized all of these regions as independent, including the areas controlled by Kiev.
For some analysts, this might mean that Moscow is preparing to take the rest of Donbass by force.
If an offensive by Kiev once morest Russian troops in the Donbass seems unrealistic, the Ukrainian army, which was in ruins at the start of the war with the pro-Russian separatists in 2014, is today a much more experienced and trained adversary, thanks in particular to Western support.
“There will be no repeat of what happened in Crimea. There will be no withdrawal or concession of land,” warns analysis Volodymyr Fesenko. “Yes, it would be a real war.”
Column by Normand Lester, blogger at the Journal de Montréal Journal de Québec and host of the podcast “Normand Lester tells” on QUB radio:
Before recognizing the independence of the separatist “republics”, the Russian president went so far as to assert that Ukraine was an artificial creation resulting from an error of the young Soviet Union.
For Anatoliï Oktyssiouk, an analyst at the Democracy House centre, it is a question of the Kremlin drawing its red line, categorically refusing a pro-Western alignment of Kiev.
“Putin will not let go of Ukraine”, analyzes Mr. Oktyssiouk. “He ups the ante.”
“Putin’s speech was a declaration of war, not a declaration in support of the independence of the separatists,” added analyst Mykola Davydiouk.
