Claudia Luna Palencia
Journalist
Putin’s war has been bleeding a nation that is fighting for its sovereignty and territorial integrity for more than a month, although the consequences are already affecting the pockets of millions of global consumers.
The extraordinary NATO meeting received a well-considered message from Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky, with an in-stream participation in which he again warned that “Russia will not stop in Ukraine”. The Alliance took the decision to send more battalions – four more – to reinforce Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. There are already 100,000 US troops in Eastern Europe and 40,000 NATO troops.
Everything has changed with the invasion there is a shake-up in the most traditional foundations since the end of World War II: Sweden, Denmark and Finland have abandoned their neutrality by sending arms to Ukraine and another neutral country, Switzerland, has stepped out of its comfort zone by joining the sanctions against Russia.
If at the end of 2019, Emmanuel Macron declared to The Economist that NATO was experiencing “brain death”, with the French president and the other allies vilified by the verbal aggressiveness and the war of reproaches of the then US president, Donald Trump; the Russian outrage in Ukraine has injected pure adrenaline into a NATO that at the last extraordinary summit announced more military spending and a greater commitment by all its members to increase their defence as a percentage of GDP.
In six months, Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg was due to step down as head of the Transatlantic Alliance but allied partners have decided to leave him until September 2023.
“As we face the greatest security crisis in a generation, we stand together to keep our Alliance strong and our citizens safe. We will be safe as long as we stand together,” Stoltenberg said.
NATO endorsed its open-door policy and called on China to join Western pressure on Russia to lay down its arms, while advising Beijing to help bring the conflict to a peaceful end and asking Xi Jinping’s government not to fund Putin’s war, either financially or militarily.
The Alliance agreed to step up aid to Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are in the same situation as Ukraine, are not NATO members and have become vulnerable in recent weeks.
More than a month after the invasion, NATO continues to say that it will not participate directly because “it would bring more suffering”. And it has again reiterated to Zelenski that it will only receive more equipment, military weaponry and also cyber logistical support as well as material and equipment against the possibility of Russian chemical, biological or nuclear attacks. Zelenski denounced to NATO that Russia is using phosphorus bombs against the population.
For several days now, President Joe Biden himself has insisted on the possibility of Russia using chemical or biological weapons against the Ukrainian population under the Kremlin’s pretext of finding American laboratories on Ukrainian soil.
On his arrival at NATO, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Russia has already crossed the red line into barbarism and announced that it will send 6,000 more missiles to Ukraine and imminent sanctions against 65 targets – individuals, individuals and oligarchs – in the UK, including the stepdaughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
At the same time, Biden arrived in Europe with the State Department’s formal accusation that Russian troops under dictator Putin have committed war crimes in Ukraine.
The US joins more than 40 other countries that have indicted Putin before the International Criminal Court (ICC), given the fact that neither Russia, Ukraine nor the US are part of the ICC.
“Today I can announce that, based on currently available information, the United States government understands that members of Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” according to a US State Department statement.
In September 2020, then-president Trump announced a series of sanctions against senior International Criminal Court officials in an attempt to halt investigations against the US military for its actions in Afghanistan.
A fierce siege
Diplomacy is flowing in Brussels as never before. 2,851.2 kilometres away, there is a systematic and deliberate destruction of Mariupol, the Ukrainian city known as the steel capital – because of its powerful metallurgical industry – which resists the intense bombardment by Russian artillery in ruins.
Last Sunday, 20 March, dictator Vladimir Putin set a deadline for the city’s surrender: the following morning before midday. A request rejected in the heat of the moment by Zelenski.
The geopolitical climate has been tense since the Russian invasion was consummated more than a month ago (in the early hours of 23-24 February) on Ukrainian territory. The chessboard has turned red with several players moving their pieces.
Putin is no longer able to reckon with days of fighting: the Ukrainian resistance has broken his initial plans, a quick takeover of Kiev and the surrender of the rest of the nation. Zelenski is defiant in his face, demanding time and again that NATO allies establish a no-fly zone on his territory.
As the pressure gets on the nerves, the Kremlin’s rhetoric keeps reiterating the nuclear possibility “if there is an existential threat”. Putin himself ordered Defence to put its nuclear arsenal on deterrent alert; his minister Lavrov has been playing a game of bluff as to whether or not they would actually use it. And Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s press secretary, told the US broadcaster CNN that his country is considering the possibility.
Even the CIA itself does not know what Putin’s critical point is in the occupation he is carrying out, his red lines between the number of casualties and the number of days of siege, plus the cascade of sanctions against him imposed by the West to exert pressure to force a military eviction. No one knows what the deadline is and what Putin’s real intentions towards Ukraine are as he plays a game of bewilderment.
A few days ago, in the siege of Mariupol, the fifth Russian general fell in combat: Andry Mordvichev, shot by a sniper. This is a disturbing series of strategic casualties for a Putin determined to go all the way in his ‘operation’ in Ukraine. In the port of Berdiansk, Orsk, a Russian military transport ship destroyed by Ukrainian forces near the Sea of Azov, burned days ago.
Putin has nervously decided to carry out a purge among his closest aides and redouble personal security. There is movement among his closest staff with the resignation of Anatoly Chubais, Putin’s adviser and the Kremlin’s special envoy for relations with international organisations for sustainable development. He is in exile with his family in Turkey.
Pressure is mounting. Protests continue on the streets of several Russian cities demanding an end to the bombings, the masses turn out in defiance of their own laws, fines and threats of imprisonment for protesting.
Putin, the great orchestrator, is rarely seen. Zelenski, on the other hand, resists the fight against Goliath, having become a 21st century hero capable of mastering all areas of communication and the viral language so consumed by social networks. Putin is seen as surly and entrenched, while Zelensky is seen visiting wounded in hospitals, awarding medals of honour to his military and showing the muscle of resistance.
The Ukrainian leader continues with his streaming appearances asking parliamentarians from various countries for more help and solidarity, and above all, to stop Russia.
Of Jewish origin, the 44-year-old lawyer and successful communications entrepreneur, who became president with a 73% vote in favour, decided to speak by videoconference with members of the Knesset, whom he urged to impose sanctions on Russia and grant arms to Ukraine. He went so far as to ask them to borrow the mobile air defence system known as Iron Dome.
Israel has not wanted to take a position on either side, it maintains good relations with both Russia and Ukraine and its prime minister, Naftali Bennett, is trying to mediate between Putin and Zelenski.
Recently, however, the British media The Guardian reported that Israel refused to sell Ukraine the Pegasus system, a high-capacity spying software.
The war could be a long one, Biden has repeatedly said. Already a race against time and against Russian bombs and missiles (the Russian military acknowledges it is using hypersonic missiles), President Zelenski is trying to garner as much international support as possible to extend sanctions on Russia, obtain more weapons and exert more international pressure by creating a vacuum against the Kremlin.
The US president is also wasting no time and is taking advantage of the new context of the war in the European backyard to do more lobbying and take his message to many businessmen from powerful industries eager to hear from Biden about the possible scenarios of a Russian invasion.
In a meeting with business leaders from the Business Roundtable, the White House occupant asserted that NATO is stronger than ever.
“I’m pleased to see American companies doing their part by donating to Ukraine and at the same time shutting down their operations in Russia, without being asked to do so,” he said.
Biden recalled the world of previous world wars and told senior business executives that Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine will not go unpunished.
“I know we are in difficult times but better times will come filled with meaningful opportunities to make change… we are at a turning point I believe in the world of economics. We have to defend our liberal order and I am sure that a new world order will come and we will lead it and we will be united together with the rest of the free world,” he said with conviction.
Nuclear fear
A little over a month ago, Mariupol was preparing its summer festivals in a port city that reaches 30 degrees Celsius in August. Today, the wind blows its ashes away.
Russian troops have systematically destroyed it, leaving not even the Drama Theatre, which was about to open a play about Frida Kahlo, and the mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, standing. One of the main points of interest for tourists.
This coastal city on the Sea of Azov has resisted the carnage unleashed by Russian missiles for more than a month: of its census of just over 443,103 people, 100,000 inhabitants remain without water, food, electricity, gas or heating in a siege reminiscent of the Nazi siege of Leningrad during World War II.
Its mayor, Vadym Boychenko, denounces a series of atrocities against the citizens: the bombings are destroying everything without respecting hospitals and clinics: a missile blew up the maternity hospital, the image of the rescue of a dying pregnant woman went around the world. In the end she died.
“More than 2,100 people have died in the city but there are hundreds of people in the rubble. The invaders are cynically and deliberately targeting residential buildings, densely populated areas, destroying children’s hospitals and urban infrastructure. In 24 hours, we have seen 22 bombings in a peaceful city; about 100 bombs have already been dropped on Mariupol,” he says.
Putin wants it to surrender. Irina Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, reiterated that they will not hand over the city to the Russians. Putin wants to return the international order and borders to the Soviet era in the 21st century and Biden believes in the imminent opportunity for a new international order… power games while innocent people die under bombs and fears of nuclear attack increase. Homo homini lupus.
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