Ukraine war — heading toward Armageddon?

Ukraine war — heading toward Armageddon?

Lito Monico C. Lorenzana
LML Polettiques
28 August 2024
Comments:DISQUS_COMMENTS
I HAD devoted 13 of my columns to the Russo-Ukraine war starting the week of Feb. 24, 2022, when Russian Premier Putin made his move and invaded Ukraine. This 14th article is precipitated by the invasion by Ukraine of Russian territory. On Aug. 6, 2024, Ukraine's army entered the Kursk region, capturing dozens of settlements in the biggest offensive by a foreign army on Russian soil since Hitler's Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 — 83 years ago. Zelenskyy's ostensible strategy is to create a buffer zone around the 1,000 square kilometer occupied territory to prevent Russian cross-border strikes and daily hostile shelling of Ukraine's civilian population. This invasion was a long time in coming and "tit-for-tat" for Russia's occupation of Ukraine's Donbas region.

NATO and even Putin himself believe that the recent Ukrainian sortie improves Zelenskyy's negotiating position for the coming ceasefire talks, if ever, the Donbas region and Crimea in exchange for the Kursk Oblast. Both sides need a respite from this war, time to lick their wounds and regroup before resuming the conflict at some future date.

But this invasion is unraveling Putin's image as the strongman, destroying the myths he so judiciously built up over the years: Russia is impregnable and invincible, owning the second-largest army in the world. Putin's credibility is called into question, subjecting him to humiliation among his allies and to the world — and to his own people.

America and NATO are taking a curious stance. They have always cautioned Zelenskyy not to go beyond Ukraine's border and imposed restrictions on the use of Western weapons to strike targets deeper into Russian territory for fear Russia will respond in kind, expanding the war and engulfing Western and Eastern Europe and beyond. Ukraine's leaders have repeatedly requested NATO for weapons that can give them the capability to hit targets inside Russia itself, which NATO was reluctant to allow. Zelenskyy has sought authorization for long-range strikes on Russian air bases and other infrastructure used to pummel Ukraine's energy facilities and other civilian targets. Ukraine was grudgingly recently granted a squadron of F16 jets — which were presumably used to accomplish air dominance during this invasion. With this, Zelenskyy has handed them a fait accompli, stating, "It is crucial that our partners remove barriers that hinder us from weakening Russian positions in the way this war demands."

Implications of Ukraine invasion

This invasion has "presented a dilemma to Russia" — as Biden put it succinctly — yet NATO allies may have no choice but simply be "forced to good." Putin's saber-rattling on using tactical nuclear weapons has been silenced lately as he was warned by China against this alternative. And the immediate and total destruction of Russia in retaliation is a no-brainer.

Still, this invasion could provoke a significant backlash inside Russia as the tightly guarded press freedom and news dissemination of the massive evacuation of the population around Kursk filters the larger Russian populace, bringing the war uncomfortably close. Putin's leadership may be put to the test, undermining his authority, although no immediate change in leadership is expected as Putin has a firm grip on power. Nevertheless, Putin's hands-on involvement in the war has put the blame squarely on him, resulting in several of his generals being sacked and sent to the front and disappearing — if rumors are to be believed. This recent development reveals weaknesses in Russia's military readiness and morale. According to Ukrainian intelligence services, more and more soldiers of the Russian army want to lay down their arms; the number of Russian deserters has been higher than ever in the past weeks.

This invasion, gaining confidence for Ukraine, may lead it to seek and reclaim more territory and certainly lead to an escalation of hostilities. Putin and the Russian leadership will not tolerate Ukraine forces to be ensconced in Kursk for long. To retake the oblast, he will not spare the remaining population and its destruction as it did with the Ukraine cities around the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Overall, this temporary advantage to Ukraine will precipitate a reevaluation of NATO's support that could lead to calls for negotiations or a ceasefire. This is for the best interest particularly of the US now in the midst of a presidential election trending towards a Democratic win — a known factor to Ukraine. A Trump government with his admiration and schoolboy crush on Putin and the former's declaration to "end the war in one day" may prove to be a step towards unknown and uncharted territory.

Thus, the long-term consequences of this invasion could reshape the geopolitical landscape in Eastern Europe, leading to a reconfiguration of alliances, increased military presence of NATO in Eastern Europe, and a shift in the balance of power in the region.

Putin has threatened to get his forces in Kaliningrad to move into western Ukraine with no specifics, as Kaliningrad is Russia's enclave along the Baltic Sea and has no avenue toward Ukraine except through Lithuania and Poland — NATO countries. But it has sufficiently disturbed the three Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — that they issued a chilling warning: they're prepared to send troops into Ukraine without NATO approval. Fearing Russia's growing aggression, these Baltic nations see themselves as next in line. With historical ties to the Soviet Union and recent Russian threats, they're taking matters into their own hands — preventing Putin from mimicking his American acolyte to "Make Russia Great Again!"

Antecedents of the war

To put things in proper perspective, this development in the Ukraine-Russo war brings us to its beginnings. In my March 2022 column, I traced the seeds of this conflict from the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). "The collapse started on Premier Mikhail Gorbachev's watch when the USSR loosened its grip on the Eastern European countries (Soviets) composing the USSR, allowing them multi-party elections that began a slow process of democratization. This led to the destabilization of communist control, and the ensuing momentum caused the greatest modern symbol of communist Soviet hegemony to fall — the Berlin Wall."

America, the USSR's greatest Cold War rival, was not exactly gloating on the sidelines. Nevertheless, this was a humiliating blow to the hardline Russian communist elite — though the Russian people and the freed Soviet republics welcomed Gorbachev's reform agenda and subsequently President Boris Yeltsin's rapid economic reforms."

Around this time, too, was the rise of a despot. "One who witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall was a KGB apparatchik, an undercover spy in East Germany named Vladimir Putin. The aftermath was chaotic for Russia, which lost 15 of its Soviets and 2 million square miles of territory, including the second biggest after Russia itself — Ukraine.

This was seen as the century's greatest geopolitical disaster, ushering in political and economic chaos in part caused by the unfamiliarity of capitalist concepts introduced after decades of socialism. This tectonic shift in the economic paradigm brought to the surface the shady part of capitalism — graft and corruption pervading all levels of bureaucracy. Putin came at the right time during Russia's metamorphosis."

To be continued000
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