War in Ukraine threatens to become a world war

Origins of the war in Ukraine

The close origin of this war in Ukraine was the coup d’état that with Western help took place in 2014. This coup openly fractured the Ukrainian society between an Eastern sector of Russian cultural and language background, and the Western sector that preferred a rapprochement with the European Union and NATO.

Since then, a NATO-fueled civil war has raged, resulting in at least 16,000 deaths on the eastern side in the territory known as Donbas.

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Several Western countries sponsored the so-called Minsk agreements in 2015 which, in reality, as later recognized by European leaders, sought to gain time to prepare the Zelensky government for a larger scale confrontation.

Behind the Western support was the purpose of including Ukraine in the Atlantic alliance and from that country to bring its military devices closer to Moscow.

At that time and according to the Minsk texts, Russia did not intend to annex the territory of Lugansk and Donetsk, part of Donbass, but demanded the neutrality of Ukraine, accepting its territory as a whole.

After the conflict started, new agreements were signed in Istanbul with the full support of Ukraine and Russia, but the explicit intervention of the West through the British Prime Minister at that time, Boris Johnson, aborted the new agreements with the promise that with strong military aid, the Ukrainian government could defeat Russia and the rebel regions.

War breaks out in Ukraine

The consequence was the intensification of the war in Ukraine, the repression of the pro-Russian sectors that provoked the Russian intervention that sponsored the plebiscites in the Donbass, in the areas that first went from asking for autonomy within the Ukrainian State to requesting independence and later approved the annexation to Russia.

In February 2022, Russia launched the so-called Special Military Operation with the purpose of achieving demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.

Two long years after the beginning of this conflict the Ukrainian forces have been practically destroyed with approximately 1 million dead on the Ukrainian side and at least 250,000 on the Russian side.

NATO during those two and a half years has provided about USD $300 billion to Zelensky’s government, a sum greater than the annual Russian military budget, the annual GDP of Ukraine and similar to the Chinese military budget.

Western mercenaries and military experts have helped the Ukrainian government forces, but this has not been enough to counter the enormous Russian military power that boasts a demographic, economic and technological superiority that has challenged the capacity of Western powers.

From the way events have unfolded, it would seem that the manifest weakness of the Ukrainian forces with Western support is leading to a resounding defeat on the battlefield.

Russia, for its part, has achieved the explicit solidarity of numerous countries and the benevolent neutrality of many others, including countries of the stature of India, China, Turkey, the rest of the BRICS and most of the Global South.

NATO has included Finland, Norway and Denmark in its ranks and has gained the support of Australia, Japan and South Korea and has achieved the almost total severing of Russia’s economic ties with Europe, becoming the main supplier to Europe of fuel, grain and weapons with huge profits for US companies. This threatens to turn the war in Ukraine into a world war.

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Consequences of the war

The consequences for Europe, especially for Germany, have been devastating. The increase in fuel costs for German companies is producing a deindustrialization visible in the closure or relocation of factories such as those of Volkswagen, Bosch and BASF.

The peace proposals from the West have had no viability as they all demand a surrender from Russia that does not correspond to what is happening on the ground.

The recent election of Donald Trump, who offered to end in two days the war in Ukraine, has created an uncertain environment that for the moment has been responded by the Biden administration with a flight forward with the authorization of the use of missiles and the supply of new resources.

The Russian response, for now, was the continuation of the war on the front lines and the launching of a medium-range missile with nuclear capabilities and which could reach European capitals.

The two months remaining before Trump’s inauguration may be the scene of an aggravation of the conflict and a desperate search for the new U.S. administration to face facts fulfilled before which it cannot back down or it would also seek to put Zelensky in a less weak position before an eventual cessation of the conflict.