War in Ukraine | Ceasefires, a mirage?

The Russian government is blowing hot and cold in Ukraine by promising to offer the civilian populations of several cities besieged and bombarded by its army the opportunity to flee through “humanitarian corridors” which are slow to materialize.

The Russian Ministry of Defense returned to the charge on this subject on Monday evening, announcing that local ceasefires would apply from Tuesday in half a dozen cities, including the capital, Kyiv, for allow such evacuations.

Moscow demanded that the planned routes be approved overnight by the Ukrainian authorities, who were defiant.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russian troops in a video released Monday night for intentionally opening fire in recent days on civilians trying to flee the violence.

« Est-ce que les corridors ont fonctionné ? Ce sont plutôt les tanks russes qui ont fonctionné. Les GRAD russes [des lance-roquettes]. Russian mines. They even mined a road which was to be used by mutual agreement to transport food and medicine for residents and children of Mariupol”, he lamented.

This city in southern Ukraine has been surrounded for several days by the Russian army which has been bombarding relentlessly, forcing tens of thousands of people to confine themselves to their basements.

Residents are deprived of water, food and electricity, and are “desperately in need of assistance”, pleaded on Monday the United Nations Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, during an intervention at the Council of security reported by Agence France-Presse.

The same scenario is repeated in other cities, such as Kharkiv in the northeast, and could ultimately occur in Kyiv, which the Russian forces are trying to encircle despite major supply and logistical problems complicating the advance of the troops. troops coming from the north.

Eugene Rumer, a Russia specialist attached to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, thinks that Moscow’s mention of humanitarian corridors should be taken with skepticism.

“Their strategy is to destroy Ukraine. How can one speak of humanitarian considerations in such circumstances? “, notes the researcher, who accuses Moscow of having shown contempt towards the Ukrainian population by evoking Monday evacuation corridors going as far as Russian territory.

“Ukrainians bombed by Russia do not want to be evacuated to Russia. Russian leaders are adding insult to injury to the trauma these people are going through,” he notes.

Anna Borshchevskaya, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted in an analysis published a few days ago that Russia has often cynically used negotiations on ceasefires or humanitarian corridors in the past to ” save time” and reposition their forces to give themselves an advantage.

This was particularly the case, she said, in Syria, where all Russian actions, including at the negotiating table, were aimed at promoting the maintenance of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in power.

In Ukraine, Vladimir Putin “now sees that he miscalculated the invasion initially” and could try to take advantage of a “strategic pause” linked to the negotiations on the humanitarian corridors to strengthen his hand, warns M^me Borshchevskaya.

No significant progress

During a third session of talks, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators did not make substantial progress on Monday in the search for a negotiated end to the war, Moscow in particular continuing to insist on the need to disarm the Ukraine and to ensure the country’s neutrality vis-à-vis NATO and the European Union.

The Ukrainian government, which has received weapons from many Western countries, is urging its allies to go further in their support by setting up a no-fly zone over the country that would prevent Russia from taking advantage of its strike force in this domain.

However, the hypothesis has been rejected by NATO, the United States and the United Kingdom, which fear that the war will spread if their planes are directly confronted with Russian aircraft in such a context.

In an analysis produced Monday, the International Crisis Group notes that NATO planes could even be forced to strike on Russian soil to disable Russian anti-aircraft defenses, increasing the risk of a conflagration.

It would be, warns the organization, an “extraordinarily risky” bet with uncertain gains, since Russia has not so far made full use of its planes in Ukraine, preferring artillery strikes and missiles .

President Zelensky, who is to address British elected officials on this subject on Tuesday, is at the very least asking the countries that support him to provide him with planes.

American elected officials want the states of Eastern Europe to supply the Ukrainian army with Soviet-made planes and receive newer fighter planes in return from Washington.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that this scenario was “actively” being considered by President Joe Biden’s administration.

Poland is rather reluctant to “send its fighter planes to Ukraine” and assures that it will not authorize the use of its airports in support of such an exclusion zone.

Its leaders partly fear finding themselves in the crosshairs of the Russian president, who has warned Western countries about such an initiative.

Other Divisions

The question of the toughening of economic sanctions against Moscow is also causing divisions, even if most of the countries supporting Kyiv agree on the need to go further to try to influence Moscow’s attitude.

The United States, in concert with the European Union and Canada in particular, blocked access to the interbank exchange system of several Russian institutions and froze part of the assets of the country’s central bank, favoring a sharp fall in the ruble.

Washington is now considering boycotting Russian oil and gas. Joe Biden’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, clarified that he had not made a decision “at this stage” but did not rule out such an initiative.

M^me PSAKI specified in the same breath that this measure was potentially much more serious for European countries since several of them are very dependent on Russia.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who caused surprise at the start of the conflict by announcing the suspension of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, argued that Russian hydrocarbon imports were “essential” for the “daily life of citizens in Europe » and that the needs of his country could not be assured « otherwise for the moment ».

Berlin argues that it is necessary to opt for sanctions that can hold “over time”. “It is useless if, in three weeks, we discover that we only have a few days of electricity left and that we must therefore reverse these sanctions”, noted the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, quoted by Agence France-Presse.

The Netherlands also pleaded for a more cautious approach to Moscow, which reacted angrily to the idea of ​​a boycott.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak argued that the rejection of Russian oil would have “dramatic” consequences on the markets and would more than double the price per barrel to “$300 or more”.

He also warned that Russia could decide to cut off the supply of hydrocarbons to European countries if the United States takes the initiative of a boycott.

Mr. Rumer thinks that such a retaliatory measure does not seem very credible because it would prove to be very costly for Moscow. “I don’t think they can deprive themselves of this income,” he says.

The scientific director of the Center for International Studies and Research at the University of Montreal, Frédéric Mérand, believes that the proposed boycott would have the effect of considerably increasing the cost of sanctions for the States of Central and Eastern Europe. the East supporting Kyiv, including Germany.

However, the pressure to move forward is likely to be strong, he said, since Russia is currently making a lot of money from the rise in oil prices.

“The idea of ​​energy sanctions can gain ground if it is accompanied by credible compensatory measures for the most affected countries”, notes the analyst.

— With Agence France-Presse