We believed or wanted to believe for a moment, last fall, that the military setbacks of the Russian army in the cities of Kharkiv and then Kherson were going to convince Vladimir Putin to negotiate a way out of the war and curb the risks of a long conflict. . It did not happen. It was bad to know him, once again. This was followed by massive and indiscriminate Russian bombardments on Ukrainian infrastructure and populations. In the aftermath, on the occasion of an international conference organized in Moscow, Putin recamped the debate on the geopolitical level, in unequivocal terms, claiming with impunity that the “special military operation” in Ukraine was part of a “change tectonics of the whole world order”.
One year, eight million Ukrainian refugees and hundreds of thousands of deaths later, double observation: the Russian army is treading water, far from having achieved the objectives set by Putin, the Ukrainian country is standing up in an extraordinary way and the world order—read Western solidarity—that the Russian president seeks to implode is resisting aggression remarkably well. To denounce in delirious terms the decadence of the West, as he did on Tuesday in his address to the nation, he rather gave the impression that this war foreshadowed his own.
We must be ready for a long-term conflict, warned the Western leaders gathered last weekend in Munich for the conference on security, while again assuring Kiev of their unwavering support. In the posture of the good grandfather, Joe Biden put it back, Tuesday in Warsaw, by appearing as a great defender of the “free world”. However, there is no doubt that kyiv and its democratic ambitions must be supported at all costs in the face of Russian illiberalism. Who would want a regime in Ukraine that champions Putin’s idea that the West has normalized pedophilia? Even though making this conflict a big Manichaean fight between democracies and autocracies, the fact remains that the United States, without whose support Volodymyr Zelensky would not have lasted long, is falling into caricature, noting the poor state of health of American democracy. It is obviously obvious that this war is an opportunity for the United States, in their rivalry with a Russia they have looked down on since the collapse of the USSR, to boost their status as a world superpower. The reluctance of the “global South”, beginning with countries like India and South Africa, to align itself without grumbling with the so-called “free world” cannot be explained otherwise.
Beyond the rhetoric and the interests of each other, it is found in the immediate future that the fratricidal and revengeful war unleashed by Putin has entered a race against time. Some believe that this confrontation is now going through its most serious and decisive moments. Everything could be decided in the next two or three months. Or not. Very concretely, there is no other choice than to arm Ukraine sufficiently and as quickly as possible, with heavy tanks and ammunition, so as to prevent the Russian offensive expected in the spring from winning. Which seems potentially achievable in the current order of things, considering the state of disarray the Russian forces apparently find themselves in. After which, it is analysed, an end to the war would perhaps become possible, in the form, among other scenarios, of a “Korean-style” armistice or even a necessarily uncertain peace, where the taboo question of Ukraine’s neutrality would again be posed. This supposes that Moscow, without Putin rather than with it, resigns itself and that kyiv, in all realism, resigns itself under American pressure to give up territories. We are not there yet, of course, but it would be good if Emmanuel Macron were not the only one to say that “we must prepare the terms of peace now”.
If, moreover, the powerful Chinese ally decides to supply arms to Russia, which the United States accuses it of considering, and that would upset the balance of power by dangerously widening the field of the conflict. However, it is difficult for the moment to conceive that Beijing will take this step, as the latter can hardly afford to jeopardize its ample and crucial economic relations with Europe and the United States. It is an understatement to say that faced with Putin’s war, Beijing is in an ambivalent position.
Also, the reception with great pomp Wednesday in Moscow of the most senior Chinese diplomat, Wang Yi, was not without diplomatic swagger. To see him brandishing the nuclear threat, Vladimir Putin actually represents for Beijing a worrying ally, however “strategic” he may be. The so-called “peace plan” that Beijing is about to present is, in part, perhaps a way of signaling its desire to end this war. For it is at the bottom of a vassalized Russia that Beijing wants. Let us speculate that by wanting with his aggression to provoke a “tectonic change of the entire world order”, Mr. Putin will find himself, in the long term, weakening himself for the benefit of China.