Conflicto territorial (Continuación)

Russian forces’ occupation of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine is the first military-provoked crisis at a civilian power plant in the annals of nuclear energy. This situation requires leadership and ideas urgently. Disaster mitigation and military strategy must be balanced in order to avoid dire consequences.

In recent weeks, Russia and Ukraine have accused one another of shelling the plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since early March. Fires caused by shelling have disrupted power lines to the facility, causing the last working reactor at the plant to be disconnected from the grid on September 5th.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Ukrainian soldier takes a selfie as an artillery system fires in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, on Sept. 3. (Kostiantyn Liberov/AP)

At the end of August, Ukrainian forces launched a slow-motion offensive to push the Russian invaders out of Kherson, one of the biggest cities they have occupied since the start of the war more than six months ago. The Institute for the Study of War reports that “the Ukrainian counteroffensive is making verifiable progress”, although it remains far from clear when, or even if, the Ukrainians can liberate Kherson.

But, while the fate of Kherson remains to be determined, the larger trend is not in dispute: Ukraine is winning its war of independence. The major issue now is how much of its territory it can claw back.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russia’s melancholy oligarchs

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raged this spring, the billionaire oligarch Mikhail Fridman called Kristina Kvien, then the US’s most senior envoy to Kyiv, with a proposal.

Fridman — who grew up in Lviv, in western Ukraine, but has Russian and Israeli passports and made most of his estimated $13bn fortune in Russia — would donate part of his wealth towards repairing damage from the war.

In return, the US would help him avoid the sanctions that were being imposed on oligarchs, which western policymakers hoped would force them to break with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

After Kvien raised questions about Fridman’s proposal, the conversation quickly became heated, according to three people familiar with the matter.…  Seguir leyendo »

The emerging stalemate in the Russia-Ukraine war poses huge challenges for Russia even as it offers opportunities to Ukraine. It gives the latter country time to revitalise its army, which could eventually force Russia out of its territories. That is because although Vladimir Putin is powerful politically, Russia’s economic system is impervious to reform. This means that even though the Russian economy will survive sanctions in the short term, it will not be able to sustain a national war effort and simultaneously maintain Russians’ quality of life over the long term.

When discussing the major dilemmas that Mr Putin faces, commentators often focus on political constraints.…  Seguir leyendo »

A tank destroyed in Ethiopia’s civil war, Afar region, Ethiopia, February. 2022 Tiksa Negeri / Reuters

As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine enters its seventh month, many African countries have yet to show strong support for Kyiv, to the chagrin of Western leaders. In the early days of the conflict, after 17 African countries declined to back a UN resolution condemning Russia, several European diplomats assigned to African capitals made a grand show of browbeating African leaders for not taking a stand against the invasion. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in particular, was the target of some strikingly undiplomatic tweets, with Riina Kionka, at the time the EU’s ambassador to Pretoria, writing that “we were puzzled because [South Africa] sees itself and is seen by the world as a country championing human rights”.…  Seguir leyendo »

Soldiers walk amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv, on April 3. (Rodrigo Abd/AP, File)

Less than a week into Ukraine’s latest counteroffensive against Russian forces, there’s a natural desire to pronounce success or failure, but the nature of the fighting and the fog of war don’t allow that. It’s simply too soon to tell whether Ukraine will, in the swaggering language of President Volodymyr Zelensky, drive Russia beyond his nation’s borders.

In the larger picture, however, the fact that Ukraine is counterattacking in organized, well-supplied columns is another mark of Russia’s costly and disastrous failure. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s self-made war was intended to decapitate Ukraine, occupy the capital and install a puppet government in a single multi-front blitz this past February.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russian tanks seized by Ukrainian forces are paraded in Kyiv. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Helmuth von Moltke, the chief of staff for the Prussian army, once made the astute observation that no war plan survives “first contact” with a hostile force. If there was ever a war to validate that claim, it’s the one currently churning in Ukraine. As the conflict in Europe’s largest country marks its six-month anniversary on Wednesday, 24 August, the main protagonists have all experienced their fair share of jolted assumptions, operational mistakes, and misplaced beliefs about what is and isn’t possible. Inflated expectations have been punctured, hopes have been dashed, and strategies crafted to cause the enemy discomfort instead produced unintended consequences that are just as painful.…  Seguir leyendo »

"Those who play with fire will perish by it". Xi Jinping’s threat to Joe Biden in July was a warning against Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. And after her departure from the island, China fired ballistic missiles and took other dangerous actions in the waters surrounding the island. Twenty-two Chinese aircraft crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait. Ships from the Chinese navy ran drills that mimicked a blockade of Taiwan—no small threat for an island which imports over 60% of its food and 98% of its energy.

For the past four decades, Republican and Democratic American presidents have maintained the policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward the defence of Taiwan, maintaining the capacity and military capabilities to defend the island against attack by China without explicitly committing America to doing so.…  Seguir leyendo »

Todo el mundo sabe ya que Volodímir Zelenski personificó al presidente ucraniano en la serie televisiva Servidor del pueblo antes de serlo en la vida real, y que esa ironía llevó a que muchos no lo tomaran en serio —como si haber sido miembro de la KGB antes de la presidencia fuera algo mejor—, pero la trama básica de la serie es menos conocida.

Zelenski hizo de Vasili Petrovich Goloborodko, un maestro cuyos alumnos lo graban quejándose de la corrupción, comparten el vídeo en línea (que se hace viral) y luego lo inscriben como candidato para las siguientes elecciones presidenciales. Goloborodko, aprovechando involuntariamente la frustración generalizada de los ucranianos por la corrupción, transita una difícil curva de aprendizaje mientras está en el cargo y, finalmente, comienza a enfrentar a la oligarquía del país desde su nuevo puesto de poder.…  Seguir leyendo »

A mass burial in Bucha, Ukraine, this month. Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Recently, one of the companies in our battalion returned from a mission in eastern Ukraine. When we saw our comrades a month earlier, they were smiling and cheerful. Now they don’t even talk to each other, never take off their bulletproof vests and don’t smile at all. Their eyes are empty and dark like dry wells. These fighters lost a third of their personnel, and one of them said that he would rather be dead because now he is afraid to live.

I used to think I had seen enough deaths in my life. I served on the front line in the Donbas for almost a year in 2015-16, and I witnessed numerous tragedies.…  Seguir leyendo »

Los ucranianos, como estas personas en el río Dniéper en Kiev en 2014, tenían un nivel de vida más alto que muchos de los soldados rusos que ahora ocupan partes del país. Jonatha Borzicchi/Redux

A principios de abril, llegué a Andriivka, un poblado a unos 64 kilómetros de Kiev, con mi batallón de las Fuerzas de Defensa Territorial de Ucrania. Fuimos de los primeros militares ucranianos en llegar al lugar tras casi un mes de ocupación rusa. Por todas partes había desperdigadas carcasas de balas y cajas de municiones, y las casas se encontraban en distintos estados de deterioro. En uno de los jardines que vimos, había un tanque incinerado y abandonado en el césped.

Los rusos asesinaron a ciudadanos de a pie en Andriivka, donde registraron y saquearon casas. La gente del lugar nos habló de algo más que hicieron los rusos: un día, tomaron motocicletas y bicicletas de algunos de los patios y las condujeron por las calles como si fueran niños; se filmaban unos a otros con sus teléfonos y reían con deleite, como si hubieran recibido un regalo de cumpleaños que habían esperado mucho tiempo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Imaginemos que durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial los aliados hubieran comprado materias primas a Hitler, se las hubieran pagado en marcos, hubieran invitado a los líderes del Partido Nazi a pasar sus vacaciones en Europa y, para colmo, las empresas aliadas hubieran suministrado a Alemania el diésel que necesitaban sus tanques para conquistar Europa.

Eso es exactamente lo que está ocurriendo ahora. Alemania sigue comprando gas a Moscú. Hungría paga sus transacciones con Rusia en rublos. Los millonarios rusos siguen haciendo alarde de su soberbia en Europa y recientemente hemos descubierto que, desde el 24 de febrero, una empresa francesa está vendiendo el diésel que permite a los tanques rusos sembrar el terror por Ucrania.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Bayraktar TB2 combat drone donated to Ukraine being presented in Šiauliai, Lithuania, July 2022. Ints Kalnins / Reuters

At the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, most experts expected that Kyiv would fall quickly. Ukrainian forces were fighting against a military that was bigger and better armed. Russia’s troops had more combat experience and funding. The question was not if Moscow’s forces would depose the Ukrainian government but when regime change would happen.

Of course, Kyiv didn’t fall. Instead, the Ukrainian military stopped Russia’s assault on the capital and forced a retreat. Russia downsized its initial mission from wholesale conquest, and the war now mostly consists of grinding offensives and counteroffensives in Ukraine’s east and south. The question is no longer how long Kyiv can hold out.…  Seguir leyendo »

Putin o nuestro callejón sin salida

El asesinato de Darya Duguina ha empujado mi memoria como director de periódicos, veintitrés años atrás, hasta aquellos días de septiembre de 1999 en los que recurrentemente llegaban noticias de atentados en Rusia que las autoridades del Kremlin atribuían a terroristas chechenos.

Al menos doscientas personas, la mayoría civiles, murieron ese mes en media docena de explosiones diseminadas por el país. Casi a la vez crecían los rumores sobre la mala salud de Yeltsin y muchas miradas confluían en el ex primer ministro Primakov, cuyo Partido de la Madre Patria encabezaba todos los sondeos, de cara a unas probables elecciones legislativas.…  Seguir leyendo »

Taiwán se ha convertido en el mayor dilema estratégico de Washington y Pekín en el juego de poder por dominar el tablero geopolítico global. Ya lo era antes de la visita de la presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos, Nancy Pelosi, aunque su paso por la isla ha supuesto la actualización de las respectivas agendas estratégicas.

En la nueva normalidad resultante, los intereses nacionales de ambas partes no cambian. Por parte de China, la intensificación de las maniobras militares en el estrecho es una clara advertencia a Taiwán, y a su opinión pública, de que en esta cuenta atrás acelerada hacia la reunificación se podrían desplegar escenarios de bloqueo de la isla que impidan la llegada de asistencia por parte de Estados Unidos y Japón.…  Seguir leyendo »

La invasión rusa de Ucrania acaba de cumplir seis meses de vida desde su inicio el pasado 24 de febrero y todavía son muchos son los interrogantes que plantea un conflicto que ha hecho temblar los equilibrios de poder de la vieja Europa.

El ciudadano occidental, que vivía hasta hace poco en una burbuja de estabilidad, no digiere bien la incertidumbre y se pregunta con lógico temor qué otras sorpresas podría traer el futuro.

La guerra es la actividad humana más incierta y difícil de predecir. Y la cantidad ingente de variables que juegan en ella incrementan el ya de por sí alto grado de incertidumbre.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukraine: the $10bn steel plant at the heart of Russia’s economic warfare

The Russians came for the city of Kryviy Rih in the first days of the war, their columns of armoured cars advancing within kilometres of its sprawling Soviet-era steel plant, once coveted by Nazis and oligarchs and, now, Vladimir Putin.

Beaten back, they now menace the central Ukrainian city from some 50km away, occasionally lobbing rockets from afar. The prize, Ukraine’s largest steel mill that ArcelorMittal spent $5bn modernising, is within reach of their rockets, a mere half-hour’s drive from the city.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is usually measured by lines on the map — territory lost, cities vanquished, borders erased.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ucrania, seis meses de resistencia, resiliencia y determinación

Ucrania, un país bajo ataque por Rusia desde 2014, lleva ahora soportando medio año de bombardeos masivos, asedios a ciudades y atrocidades contra su pueblo. Ucrania está luchando para defender no solo su democracia, sino también su propia supervivencia como país independiente.

El 24 de agosto, ayer, marca el 31 aniversario de la independencia de Ucrania. Tristemente, este día también marca seis meses desde el comienzo de la invasión a gran escala y no provocada de Ucrania por parte del gobierno ruso, un ataque tan impactante para la comunidad internacional que fue condenado enérgicamente por la Asamblea General de la ONU e incitó a dos nuevos países (Finlandia y Suecia) a solicitar su entrada en la alianza de la OTAN.…  Seguir leyendo »

La guerra de Ucrania y la respuesta internacional serán un factor decisivo del orden político y económico mundial durante la próxima década. En particular, las acciones de la alianza occidental, sus narrativas y sus planes en relación con Rusia y con el papel del Sur Global en la reconstrucción de Ucrania en la posguerra actuarán como indicadores de sus objetivos estratégicos a largo plazo. ¿Occidente sólo busca ver a Rusia derrotada y a la OTAN ampliada y fortalecida, o es capaz de imaginar una «victoria» en Ucrania que siente las bases de un mundo donde la democracia esté más protegida y la gobernanza global sea más inclusiva y eficaz?…  Seguir leyendo »

Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, June 2022. Contributor / Getty Images

Vladimir Putin is determined to shape the future to look like his version of the past. Russia’s president invaded Ukraine not because he felt threatened by NATO expansion or by Western “provocations”. He ordered his “special military operation” because he believes that it is Russia’s divine right to rule Ukraine, to wipe out the country’s national identity, and to integrate its people into a Greater Russia.

He laid out this mission in a 5,000-word treatise, published in July 2021, entitled, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. In it, Putin insisted that Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians are all descendants of the Rus, an ancient people who settled the lands between the Black and Baltic Seas.…  Seguir leyendo »