Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: 11 months on

 

The conflict that officially started on February 24, 2022, is now rapidly approaching the one-year mark. Since the very beginning, Vladimir Putin lied to the world. He first said that his only intentions were to protect Russian-speaking populations in the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk. This proved not true as Russian forces have been consistently bombing civilian populations in central, northern, and even western Ukraine, also using their highly deadly hypersonic missiles.

At the beginning of his genocidal mission, when Putin and his warmongers thought that invading and annexing Ukraine would be a walk in the park, the Russian president said he wanted to “denazify” Ukraine. A very unfortunate expression by the former KGB agent: from day 1 the whole world realized that Putin had become the 21st century Adolf Hitler. Sadly, years before the world had let Putin walk free and unsanctioned with his unlawful annexation of the Crimea Peninsula in 2014.

Fortunately, this time it didn’t take too long for the U.S. and NATO countries to acknowledge the perils of letting Putin go on with his plans and decided to help Ukraine defend its integrity. At the same time, they decided to enhance their defenses against the always-present threat from a country led by a totalitarian government that has been signaling not to care to throw the world into a surely devastating, final nuclear war.

For months on now, Putin and his sidekicks had been warning the west to refrain from helping Ukraine. At this point, Russia has lost hundred of thousands of troops, and huge numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, aircrafts, and artillery pieces. Ukrainian defenses have also suffered, but they have been able to retake part of the eastern territories initially invaded by Russia. If Ukraine cannot win this war by itself without western help, it is also clear that Russia can’t either.

So far, Russia’s economy has been deeply affected by western sanctions, and Putin’s government has violently suppressed the Russian people’s protests and manifestations against the war. Simultaneously, European countries have finally understood that their energy supply cannot entirely depend on such an aggressive neighbor. Putin has been using the Russian oil and gas supplied to Europe to try to refrain Germany and other countries from helping Ukraine. So far, he has failed miserably.

At this point it is impossible to know how the war will develop. Unconfirmed sources say Putin has failed to appear at certain previously scheduled events and that he would be terminally ill; others say he would be under serious pressure from his top military to end the war a.s.a.p. Recently, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly said that his secret service was unable to confirm whether Putin is dead or alive.

As the conflict approaches its one-year anniversary, an extra effort is necessary to put an end to it as soon as possible, or the world may enter a very long period of stagnation with unforeseen consequences. It is now clear that Putin will not negotiate unless the already invaded eastern Ukrainian territories of Lugansk and Donetsk are recognized as part of Russia’s. On the other hand, Ukraine cannot and will not accept another part of its territory to be cut out as it happened in 2014 with the Crimea peninsula.