By the time you read these lines, the martyred city of Bakhmout in Donetsk Oblast may have fallen into Russian hands. Caught in a vice since August, this symbol of Ukrainian resistance is on the verge of faltering after seven months of bombing and fierce fighting. Of the 70,000 inhabitants it had, only 5,000 remain.
But Bakhmout is not only the symbol of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainians. It also illustrates the type of war that is unfolding in Ukraine today.
The geographical maps eloquently show how, after the crazy dream of the Russians to bring down kyiv, the respective positions of the belligerents have practically not moved for a year. We may talk about tanks and planes, but we are in reality in a trench warfare of which it is still difficult to see what could change its course. “It’s the Battle of Verdun of the 21ste century”, rightly noted, in The world, Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. What is Verdun if not the carnage that occurred in 1916, which left 700,000 dead after 10 months of uninterrupted fire, and that without changing anything during the war.
Last week, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin each marked the first anniversary of this war in their own way. But this view is misleading. Because this war did not start on February 24, 2022.
Ukraine has been at war since at least 2014. Since the secession of the Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, there was no doubt that the hooded men who marched with weapons in their hands in the streets of Slaviansk were Russians. What was the annexation of Crimea if not a formal declaration of war? In 2018, there were already 10,000 deaths.
This reminder shows how much we are engaged in a spiral that has been getting bogged down for a decade. There are reasons for this. Despite the tanks — and perhaps soon the planes — it is clear that Ukraine remains condemned to fight with one arm tied behind its back. Unless you risk nuclear fire, there is obviously no question of touching Russian territory. As for the Russians, they are reproducing in Ukraine what they know how to do best since the battle of Stalingrad: opposing numbers to technique, cannon fodder to armored vehicles, even if it means transforming the battlefield into a slaughterhouse.
Another sign of this stalemate: the lost illusion of Putin’s dismissal. We finally understood that the successor could be worse. “Putin’s speech is working flat out with his troops”, recently confided the former great reporter Régis Le Sommier (who spent 25 years in Paris Match and a year at RT France), back from the Russian front. And he added: “They are waging war on their grandparents. »
Because this war has nothing to do with a “war of civilization”, as both Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden claim, for once in agreement. On the one hand, the rhetoric of the decline of the West. On the other, that of the great democratic war. In reality, this war is not a war of the XXIe century, but of the last century. Thirty years late, Putin is waging battles that were not waged at the time of the disintegration of the USSR, as the state was then in ruins. At least he tries to sanctuary the confines of an old empire which, long before the Soviet parenthesis, has never brought anything but misfortune and desolation to the Russian people, said Solzhenitsyn.
Short of declaring war on Russia, China, Iran and how many other “democracies”, it is obvious that democracy is not the issue of the fighting in Ukraine, which is essentially aimed at restore national sovereignty. We also discover late in life that, despite the hopes born of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States has ultimately never followed any other strategy for 30 years than the marginalization of Russia and the enlargement of the NATO. We are paying the price today.
From the American point of view, the success is nevertheless unexpected. In “a state of brain death” barely two years ago, in the words of Emmanuel Macron, the Atlantic Alliance has never been so well. Without having sacrificed a single boy », the United States has re-established its undisputed ascendancy on the European continent. And they sell weapons and liquid gas to the whole world. It remains to be seen whether, when two-thirds of humanity have not condemned Putin, throwing Russia into the arms of China will be a winning long-term strategy. But we are not yet at this kind of question.
Europe is the continent that is today paying the high price for economic sanctions. Its unity of facade poorly hides its deep divisions. If Chancellor Olaf Scholz is to be believed, “thanks” to this conflict, the European Union could soon no longer have 27, but 36 members. This will only increase an already yawning democratic divide. As for France, what voice can it make heard in a Europe that has become the shadow cast by NATO?
The essential thing remains, however, that Ukraine emerges victorious from this war. Unless it drags on for months or even years. It is not impossible.