On 24 February it will be one year since Russia attacked Ukraine in defiance of international law and the UN Charter. One year on, how do we assess the situation and what are the options at stake?
As of 13 January, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has recorded 18,096 civilian casualties since 24 February 2022. This total includes 6,952 people killed and 11,144 wounded. On the military side, an American estimate speaks of 200,000 military dead or wounded, split half and half between the two sides. The material destruction in Ukraine is considerable, including in terms of civilian infrastructure, deliberately targeted by Russian forces. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that these losses may be greater in other contemporary conflicts such as that in Yemen. Indeed, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is not the only open or latent conflict on the planet today, nor is it the only catastrophic regional crisis.
The International Crisis Group think tank lists "Ten conflicts to watch in 2023". The list includes: 1. Ukraine; 2. Armenia and Azerbaijan; 3. Iran; 4. Yemen; 5. Ethiopia; 6. Democratic Republic of Congo and the Great Lakes; 7. The Sahel; 8. Haiti; 9. Pakistan; 10. Taiwan.
The Russian-Ukrainian war has a sinister originality, since it directly involves a nuclear power as a direct belligerent, as was the case in 2003 with the US aggression against Iraq.
There have been two scenarios over the past twelve months, if we discard the one that would have consisted in accepting without protest the fait accompli of Russian aggression against an independent country, a member of the United Nations,
The first scenario, that of seeking a political way out of the conflict, was almost nipped in the bud by the accusation of playing into Putin's hands. Expressions or initiatives for peace by Pope Francis, the Israeli Prime Minister and India were rejected without discussion. A "main stream", a dominant thought, has settled in the European media, taking up almost all the old clichés of war propaganda, described by the academic Anna Morelli in her book "Elementary principles of war propaganda".
It is a second scenario, which has been chosen over the past year by the European countries and the United States, which have formed a new "Western bloc". It has been decided, even if this is not officially assumed, to respond "to war with war" by multiplying economic and political sanctions against Russia and by granting more and more military aid to the Ukrainian government, both in the form of credits and arms supplies.
The vocabulary used, even if the "Westerners" claim that they are neither at war nor co-belligerents, confirms this choice. On Twitter on 4 January 2023, President Macron still speaks of "victory": "Until victory is achieved, until peace returns to Europe, our support for Ukraine will not waver. It is a victory over Russia and not a victory for international law, which is no small difference.
One year on, it has to be said that this military option, supported and chosen by the West, is failing: every day sees new military and civilian victims and new destruction. With cynicism, the Russian army has adapted to this stagnant fighting and is methodically destroying both military and civilian installations, thereby committing more and more war crimes. This is the implacable logic of all wars: we have seen it in Iraq, Syria, etc.
This choice of the military option has deeply divided the international community. While the United Nations General Assembly condemned the aggression by a majority, it did not support economic sanctions against Russia. In several votes, we note that the majority of African countries and non-aligned countries abstained, because the war in Ukraine appeared to them as a "European" war, and that the "double standards" seemed blatant to them, in the face of the indifference of Western countries to the bloody conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and in the face of the complacency of the USA's imperial behaviour in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of France in Mali. This explains the renewed interest in the coalitions of emerging countries grouped within the BRICS.
Faced with this stalemate in Ukraine, the leaders of the Western coalition and NATO say coldly that the conflict may last for a long time, even for "many, many years" (statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stotenberg, 15 February). Many observers believe that there will be no clear-cut victory for either side, as Emmanuel Macron acknowledges (According to him, "neither side can win entirely", JDD interview, 19 February).
In spite of this, announcements are being made about the intensification of arms deliveries to Ukraine. A new step has just been taken with the delivery of heavy battle tanks. It should be noted that, despite declarations that apparently call for restraint, the French President gave the political signal to lift the taboo on the delivery of tanks on 5 January by announcing the sending of French AMX-10 RC tanks to Ukraine. The newspaper Le Progrès headlined: "French tanks delivered to Kiev: why it is a gesture heavy with symbolism". The Americans and the British followed suit, as well as the German government which gave the green light for the delivery of Leopard II tanks. These tanks are integrated into the armies of some fifteen countries in Europe, for a total of nearly 2500 units.
I must admit that, for someone of my generation, the prospect of hundreds of German tanks rolling out onto the plains of Central Europe, even if officially in the name of the defence of freedom, is not without a certain unease....
How far can this escalation in the supply of increasingly sophisticated weapons go? On 15 February, the European Parliament voted on a resolution calling on its member countries "to give real consideration to the delivery of suitable Western fighter planes, helicopters and missile systems to Ukraine".
In the final analysis, if we compare these two observations: the first that the war will last several years without any decisive advantage for one side, the second that there will be an intensification of arms expenditure and supplies, the conclusion seems obvious. The military option, despite the rhetoric in inter-ministerial forums or in the corridors of NATO, does not aim to shorten the suffering of the population or to shorten the duration of the war.
At this stage, two additional observations emerge. The first is that this "long-term" war might not have, in the minds of certain political leaders or military chiefs, the hidden aim of profoundly weakening Russia in order to prevent it from being a useful ally in the US/Western confrontation against China that has already begun?
The second is this: doesn't this obstinate choice of the "all-military" solution set up a series of mechanisms that could one day escape all international political control and trigger the real "der des der", the third atomic world war?
To understand this risk, let us think of the First World War of 1914-1918. It was preceded in the years before 1914 by a series of commercial and political diplomatic incidents and the construction of a system of competing alliances. All it took was a pistol shot on a bridge in Sarajevo to set off the mechanisms of alliances, which eventually led to a world conflict.
Who does not see that in Ukraine we are at the mercy of a real or simulated provocation: flying over the territory of a NATO country, sending a missile into a Russian city to trigger mechanisms that quickly get out of hand... Some incidents of the last few months, real or simulated, with the visible insistence in some incidents of President Zelinsky to involve NATO directly in the conflict, should give pause for thought.
It was this borderline absurd situation that justified the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres on 6 February 2023 before the UN General Assembly: "I fear that the world is not being led blindly into a bigger war. It is doing so with its eyes wide open. The world needs peace. Peace in accordance with the UN Charter and international law.
Even if these words have been partially relayed by the international media, should not much more be done to make them known and meditate on?
Today, after a year of suffering for the Ukrainian people and destruction in this country, should we not resolutely change course? We know that there will be no military outcome, even President Macron recognised this on Sunday 19 February ("I am convinced that in the end it will not be concluded militarily"). Of course, we know the megalomaniac obstinacy of Vladimir Putin, who makes any Ukrainian power a geopolitical nightmare. We know that Ukraine has great resistance, thanks in particular to Western military support, even if this country is divided with a quarter of its population excluded from the debate and rampant corruption even in the spheres of government (see the scandal surrounding the Minister of Defence).
But we must be aware that if the leaders of the Western bloc, the large emerging countries such as China, India and Turkey decide to do so, diplomatic resources and mechanisms can be activated and become effective in the search for a diplomatic process towards peace.
Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs and Peacebuilding, reminded the Security Council on 13 January that "all wars end, and this one will too. Ukraine, Russia and the world cannot afford for this war to continue. The Secretary-General stands ready to assist the parties to end this senseless and unjustified conflict on the basis of the UN Charter and international law.
It is sometimes forgotten that negotiations have already led to an agreement allowing the export of Ukrainian wheat, supplemented by another agreement on Russian fertiliser exports. The circulation of wheat and fertilisers (ammonia) is essential for many developing countries, especially in Africa.
Let us repeat that concluding a cease-fire and partial peace agreements is not a capitulation: it is the condition for allowing discussions to take place, for negotiating partial agreements. Let us bear in mind that, during this time, the population can breathe, live again, scattered families can be reconstituted, construction can begin. Diplomats know that it is over time, with discussions, pressure and guarantees that are developed, that new solutions can be built without losing sight for a moment of the framework of respect for international law and the United Nations Charter, which is the essential condition for these compromises to become lasting solutions
For this to happen, a movement of opinion must grow to make the aggressor feel that he cannot continue like this, but at the same time to demand that the other countries, more or less directly involved in the conflict, suspend the military route and take another path, that of diplomacy and political solutions.
In this respect, the days of 24 and 25 February will be important to observe, as major peace organisations (International Peace Bureau, Europe for Peace) are calling for peace demonstrations in several European countries.
The central condition for the success of any peace process is to put the United Nations, its diplomats and its agencies back at the centre of this new process.
This was not the case in 2014 for the Minsk agreements. A UN official recently recalled that "the United Nations has not been formally part of any mechanism related to the peace process in Ukraine, such as the Normandy Format (including the Donbass belligerents as well as Germany, France and Russia), nor to the Minsk negotiations or the efforts of the OSCE trilateral contact group".
This reliance on the UN was one of the weaknesses of the agreements. In spite of this, the UN leadership has continued to work for the successful implementation of the agreements in co-operation with the OSCE. They have consistently warned all relevant actors of the dangers of complacency in the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the risks of keeping this conflict unresolved.
Today, armed with the experience of the failures of the last eight years, the solutions and safeguards to be implemented are known to all the leaders in the region. The challenge is to impose a political will on all the actors: if the key figure is Russia, the responsibility of Western countries and NATO is also clearly engaged.
One year after the start of the war in Ukraine, the inflammatory rhetoric and military escalations must stop. The time for choice has arrived. There is no intermediate position as Emmanuel Macron claimed with his formula "defeating Russia without crushing it", an ambiguous position that reveals his inability to resolutely take another path than the military solution.
The choice to be made is radically simple, even if it is far from easy: either the choice of warlike escalation for several years, as NATO is preparing, with the aggravation of the suffering of the populations, the risks of uncontrolled slippage into a Third World War, or the choice of priority to the opening of political and diplomatic channels towards a cease-fire, a process of partial agreements, and then later, the re-discussion of the conditions of a stable and balanced regional security for all.
Daniel Durand - 20 February 2023
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