The Russian invasion of Ukraine turns half a year dislocating the world

The Russian invasion of Ukraine celebrates half a year today, removing, like the first day, one of the world's great geopolitical flaws: with repercussions throughout the planet and with no solution on the horizon.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
23 August 2022 Tuesday 23:30
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The Russian invasion of Ukraine turns half a year dislocating the world

The Russian invasion of Ukraine celebrates half a year today, removing, like the first day, one of the world's great geopolitical flaws: with repercussions throughout the planet and with no solution on the horizon.

For six months, Russia has invaded a country whose existence it denies, and the date coincides today, Wednesday, with the anniversary of Ukraine's independence. Too short-circuit in a single day: the Kyiv government has banned any celebration for fear of a Russian coup and the United States has urged its fellow citizens to leave Ukraine.

"The State Department - warns the US embassy in Kyiv - has information that Russia will launch attacks against civilian infrastructure and government facilities in Ukraine in the coming days."

Since the beginning of the invasion, Ukraine – its prime minister announced yesterday – has spent 40% of its budget on military expenses. Thousands upon thousands of civilians have been killed, a third of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes, and entire cities have been razed to the ground.

Ukraine has lost 9,000 soldiers – the official figure, the real figure is higher –, has lost control of a fifth of its territory and two-thirds of its coastline. But it has accelerated its blows of effect within Russian soil and does not give up a single square meter: President Zelensky rejected on Tuesday any attempt to freeze the current front line to "calm" Moscow.

There is no peace on the horizon. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg yesterday predicted a "hard" winter and a "war of attrition", with "battles of will and logistics", on the same day that Washington and Berlin announced more military aid packages to Ukraine.

Russia, for its part, has not fully digested for six months the self-intoxication with which it invaded: that Ukraine would sink in a few days. Her military muscle is five times larger than the Ukrainian, and the image of the Russian army is no longer what it was. In just six months it has lost more soldiers – 15,000, according to US intelligence – than in the ten years of its invasion of Afghanistan.

The Russian economy, by contrast, has resisted Western sanctions more than expected, but the future is more worrying than relaxing.

The Kremlin, which before the invasion dreamed of the Finnishization of Europe, has in six months brought about the radical NATOization of Finland and Sweden. In this half year the northeastern countries of the European Union and NATO have joined the Ukrainian cause in the extreme. Or anti-Russian: the Lithuanian government made it clear yesterday that if the EU does not veto visas for Russian tourists, the three Baltic countries plus Poland, and perhaps Finland, will veto them on their own.

The Ukrainians remain as determined to resist as on the first day. In fact, the bulk of the Ukrainians who initially maintained an equidistance has opted in these six months towards the side of Kyiv. The Russians, by invading a country they denied, have reinforced the Ukrainian national identity. And they have extremely reinforced the feeling of what they do not want to be: Russians.

Six months after the invasion, which the Kremlin continues to call a "special military operation" and not a war, the thinking of the Russian population remains an enigma. With the media on a tight leash, the Russians are just learning about the war. But a survey by the Levada center a month ago said that 65% of Russians do not believe what the state media tells them about what is happening in Ukraine.

The geopolitical fault line of this conflict is long and deep. More than 7,000 kilometers away from Ukraine, a Russian plane yesterday entered without warning the air identification zone of South Korea, a country that has been strongly joining Western pressure on Russia. The South Koreans responded by sending fighter bombers to the area.

On the humanitarian front, the International Federation of the Red Cross warns that as the war in Ukraine drags on and humanitarian needs increase, the ability of organizations and donors to deal with other crises around the world is reduced.

Six months of invasion also have consequences going back in time. In Ukraine and the Baltic countries, the erasure of the Soviet memory has intensified. Yesterday, the Latvians began to dismantle in Riga an eighty-meter-high monument erected to commemorate the Red Army. The Army that liberated Latvians from the Nazis and the Army that had previously invaded Latvia with the blessing of the Nazis themselves: in this part of the world, history always gives you a choice.

Six months after the Russian invasion, Ukraine is struggling to maintain a modicum of normalcy. Shakhtar Donetsk opened the Ukrainian football league yesterday in a match against Metalist 1925.

Donetsk miners and Kharkiv metallurgists tied at zero. There were no goals, but there was no public to celebrate them either: the match was played in the Kyiv Olympic stadium without an audience and with the military controlling the surroundings.

From now on there will be more games, and the times and fields where they will be played are kept secret.

The war continues. Soccer, too.