On November 3, 2022, the flag of the Russian Federation was lowered in front of the city’s city hall Kherson. A week later, Russian troops would begin retreating across the Dnipro and the Ukrainians would arrive and retake the city.
This pre-lowered flag may one day be remembered as a sign of a historical turning point that marks a change of era Russia. Moscow – one can already say that – lost this war. It could have huge repercussions. It can barricade itself in certain Ukrainian spaces. But the goal of the “special military operation” launched by Putin It filed for bankruptcy on February 24, 2022. The long column of trucks drove ominously towards them Kyiv she dissolved. The Ukrainian capital was not taken. president Zelensky he didn’t get caught. Ukraine did not collapse. Kharkiv and Odessa were not taken. On the contrary, Ukrainian troops went on the offensive and managed to liberate areas that the Russians had conquered with great difficulty.
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A first devastating fact for the status of Putin’s Russia is that (with exceptions represented by individual Russian units, by Chechen militias, by mercenaries from the Wagner group) the Ukrainian soldiers are proving their worth on the ground Superior the Russians as a combat force. It can be said that without the steady flow of Western weapons, funding and assistance of all kinds, without the training of Western instructors, without the systematic support of Western intelligence agencies, and without a number of sophisticated equipment provided by the West (not to mention the sanctions affecting the Russian economic fabric) could not. Very right. But in this case the conclusions are even clearer: it means that Russia is able inferiority.
If you look at the ongoing war, not just the news, that seems to be the case geopolitical budget of staying power. History knows these caesuras. For two centuries, between the 18th and 19th centuries, the Russian Empire was an integral part of the European “concert of powers” and continuously expanded. Then, in the early 20th century, the Russian Empire collided with Japan in the Far East. Moscow is convinced of victory and instead faces defeat. Lost the Battle of Port Arthur in 1904. Lost in the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. A heartbreaking song, “On the Hills of Manchuria,” still bears witness to the dismay of an unexpected debacle. It is the beginning of the end of what Russia has been in terms of power since the arrival of Peter the Great. 15 years of upheaval follow. there Revolution of 1905World War I with the disappointing performance of the tsarist armies, the revolution bolshevik October 1917, civil war between “Reds” and “Whites”.
From there the path of reconstruction to superpower status slowly begins, which begins with the conquest of Berlin in 1945 and the establishment of theweapon atomic: Moscow is becoming a nuclear superpower. (And as for the H-bomb, it still is). Overall, this aura of great power outlasted and marked the collapse of the USSRwas post soviet despite the eclipse of the Yeltsin season. Indeed, the social pact of the Putin era was precisely this: in exchange for autocratic centralization, the leader of society guaranteed the regaining of Russian status and influence in the world.
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But it is precisely this “prestige” that is being severely shaken by the ongoing war. More than that, the conflict has brought a species to light dissolve of the fabric of Russian post-Soviet society. A phenomenon of crumbles in which strong powers but also sections of civil society are involved. The secret services, which are wrong in every forecast about the social mood in Ukraine and about the government’s defenses in Kyiv and the occupied territories, are unable to save pro-Russian officials from deadly attacks.
Brave the heirs of the feared KGB, the Ukrainian hand even manages to hit the daughter of the Russian ultra-nationalist ideologue Dughin near Moscow. Moscow suffers from Kiev’s devastating audacity. Cracked Bridges. Sabotaged pipelines. Ukrainian drones are penetrating hundreds and hundreds of kilometers into Russian territory, reaching as far as Engels, the base of the nuclear bombers.
The list is not complete. The tactical poverty of military commanders. And the barbarity of those soldiers who indulge in crime and violence. And the human misery of those departments that, in the first phase, plundered, hoarding household appliances and televisions to send home. These are phenomena that go beyond the scope of military events on the ground and touch the deep substance of today’s Russian state.
Part of this type of Caporetto is the apparent dissatisfaction that younger generations, especially urban ones, feel towards people war in Ukraine and toward the prospect of a call to arms. The mass exodus to Georgia, Azerbaijankazakhstan, Finland and Turkey by hundreds of thousands of people, partial mobilization was just announced in the fall, testifies to that detachment of a significant part of the middle class towards the state.
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With this war it sets the post-Soviet phase of Russia. The future has yet to be written. The only thing that is not necessary is the thirst for revenge that dwells in certain Baltic and Polish circles – and understandably in a large part of the Ukrainian population – because real peace cannot be built on these foundations. And in the future, as Kissinger and Merkel recall, post-war Russia should be anchored in Europe.