Europe News Desk!! In addition to the devastation in Ukraine, the war has cast a long shadow over global affairs, the International Crisis Group said in a recent report. So far Ukraine has protested Russia’s invasion and thanked Ukrainians for their heroism and Western aid. But even after almost a year of fighting, there is no end in sight. When the Kremlin launched its all-out offensive in February last year, it was expected to topple Ukraine’s government and install a more flexible regime. But it was miscalculated. The report noted that Ukraine’s resistance was as fierce as Russia’s planning was incompetent.
It has been disastrous for Russia so far. An offensive that was supposed to subdue Ukraine, weaken the West and strengthen the Kremlin has so far done the opposite. It has turbo-charged Ukrainian nationalism and pushed Kiev closer to Europe. It has breathed new purpose into an already disoriented NATO. Reports say Finland and Sweden are joining the alliance, which appears on track to dramatically change the balance of force in northern Europe, also doubling the length of Russia’s borders with NATO states. More.
The report says the war has exposed vulnerabilities in Russia’s military, which were hidden in operations in Syria (2015) and Ukraine (2014 and 2015). It has revealed resolve and capability in the West that the fiasco in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya had obscured. Still, the war is not over yet. Russia’s economy has largely adapted to Western sanctions. The Kremlin appears convinced that Russia has staying power. Moscow could still make an ugly deal and set a troubling precedent for aggression.
On the other hand, if Putin does indeed feel in trouble because of Ukrainian progress or for other reasons, it is not impossible – not unlikely, but difficult to completely rule out – that he might use a nuclear weapon as the last roll of the dice. do. It states that whatever happens in Ukraine, the West and Russia will remain a miscalculation far from confrontation.
The war highlighted the influence and autonomy of the non-Western Middle Powers. Turkey has long been walking a tightrope between NATO membership and relations with Moscow. It has made a deal with the United Nations to bring Ukrainian grain to global markets through the Black Sea. The initiative follows years of Turkish assertiveness abroad, including balancing the battlefield in Libya and the South Caucasus and expanding drone sales. The sudden removal of Russian oil from the market was a boon for Saudi Arabia. It forced a visit from Biden, who entered office promising to shun Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Riyadh along with other oil producers decided to keep prices high, much to the fury of Washington.
India, once a US security partner and a major buyer of Russian arms, has both bought Russian oil and reprimanded Putin for his nuclear saber. It is not a coordinated non-aligned movement. In fact, for a catastrophic scenario — a possible nuclear escalation between NATO and Russia — both Moscow and Western capitals have taken pains to avoid direct conflict, the International Crisis Management Group said in the report. The West has rejected the idea of no-fly zones, for example and has drawn a line on the supply of some advanced weapons. Russia has refrained from attacking NATO territory.
Putin has repeatedly made references to Russia’s nuclear capability, seemingly aiming to warn the West, although he has recently walked back his rhetoric. A nuclear strike would serve little military purpose and could potentially trigger direct NATO involvement, which Moscow hopes to avoid. Still, the possibility cannot be ruled out, especially if Putin feels his grip on power decline. In fact, the war poses perhaps the greatest risk of nuclear conflict in 60 years. The International Crisis Group said it also sets the stage for a longer standoff, with Europe bracing for ever more dangerous demonstrations no matter what happens in Ukraine.
Instead of quickly conquering Ukraine from multiple directions as it had intended, Moscow is waging a slow war in the east of the country to drain Kiev’s resources at a rate greater than its own. It hopes that Ukraine will eventually surrender voluntarily or that its organized military resistance will collapse. Russian policymakers are relying on their information warfare and pushing energy supplies to Europe to get international aid to Ukraine, wrote Gustav Greusel, senior policy fellow at the Council for European Relations. Russia is therefore likely to remain on the offensive until early summer, at which point its fighting power is likely to decline again. Moscow will have to call for another wave of mobilization by the end of this winter.
–IANS
SGK/ANM
World News Desk!!