Ucrania (Continuación)

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Ahora que estamos viendo, día a día y en directo, la guerra bajo cero que padecen tantos ucranios, aquellos que conocimos el cerco de Sarajevo, de Mostar, de Tuzla durante su guerra, podemos recordar algunas cosas. Un primer elemento en común: los civiles de esas ciudades, víctimas del agresor serbio. Los civiles de toda edad y condición tienden a parecerse en todas las guerras. Pero una primera diferencia es, de momento, la duración de la agresión. En Ucrania llevan nueve meses bajo las bombas, en Sarajevo el cerco duró más de tres años y medio, de marzo de 1992 a octubre de 1995.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukrainians gather at the grave of the poet Taras Shevchenko, Kaniv, Ukraine, September 1991. Alain Nogues/Sygma/Getty Images

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The Soviet Union’s demise in 1991 took everyone by surprise, including the man most directly responsible for it. In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev had launched perestroika (“reconstruction”), a reform program aimed at radically restructuring Soviet society. A crucial aspect of this initiative, glasnost, promised that the party-state’s work would from then on be “transparent”. In other words, Communist officials could be criticized openly. Among the many unexpected consequences of these reforms was the emergence of new civil-political organizations that broke the Communist Party’s monopoly on public space.

In the Soviet Union’s satellites in Eastern Europe, perestroika emboldened domestic opposition movements that helped launch the series of “gentle” revolutions, such as Solidarity in Poland and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, that brought down Communist regimes in 1989.…  Seguir leyendo »

During the 1930s Holodomor, millions of Ukrainians died of starvation. The peacetime catastrophe was unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. CPA Media Pte Ltd/Alamy

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After long days working in offices dotting Kyiv’s downtown, a small group of women head to their kitchens. Their evening job is just beginning.

Before the night is over, platters of meatballs, fish, traditional salads, cabbage rolls, homemade apple cakes and poppy seed pastries will overflow from countertops.

As Christmas approaches, seasonal treats like “kutia”, a sweet wheat-based porridge, will appear – one of the 12 dishes traditionally found on every Ukrainian table.

But these nightly banquets are part of a special mission. They are being lovingly prepared for wounded soldiers in Kyiv’s military hospitals.

As Russia’s continued bombardment of Ukrainian cities prevents relatives from visiting wounded loved ones, homemade meals from strangers are weaving new surrogate family ties.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Prirazlomnaya platform in the Pechora Sea, Russia, is the world's first operational Arctic rig to process oil drilling, production and storage, end product processing, and loading. Photo by Sergey Anisimov /Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.

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Since the start of Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine, the West has struggled with the difficult question of how to curb Russia’s oil cashflows. How should they cut off Vladimir Putin’s energy profits – used to line Russia’s war chest – while also protecting their economies from price spikes?

After months of member state wrangling and debate, the European Union (EU) has finally agreed a plan which will ban seaborne imports of Russian oil and introduce an oil price cap at $60 a barrel.

The price cap, initially put forward by the G7 in September, is expected to be agreed on 5 December and will see sanctions take immediate effect.…  Seguir leyendo »

El riesgo de prolongar la guerra

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Hay, por ahora, un consenso europeo bastante amplio en que la invasión rusa de Ucrania requiere una respuesta de Europa (en tanto que Unión Europea y en tanto que países europeos miembros de una OTAN liderada de facto por los Estados Unidos). Una respuesta de apoyo a Ucrania, que restaure las fronteras anteriores a la invasión y respete, y haga respetar, las reglas básicas del derecho internacional; conjurando el peligro mayor que se deriva del uso del aparato militar por parte de un Estado (en este caso, Rusia) para dirimir contenciosos políticos con sus vecinos. Pero para que su respuesta sea eficaz, Europa debe tener en cuenta los riesgos que asume y las capacidades estratégicas de las que dispone.…  Seguir leyendo »

Citizens shelter in the Kyiv Metro as Russia launches another missile attack on Monday. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

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The Russian military is losing on the battlefields of Ukraine, so Moscow is trying to freeze Ukrainians into submission. We cannot let them.

Over the past nine months the Ukrainian military has defeated the Russian army in the battles of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson. Ukrainian forces continue to drive the Russians back toward their own borders. Russian morale is dropping as soldiers — including many of the several hundreds of thousands recently mobilized — refuse to fight, potential draftees flee the country, and others simply surrender. The Kremlin is desperately seeking negotiations out of weakness (and some in the West are unhelpfully pushing for compromise at Ukraine’s expense).…  Seguir leyendo »

A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) fires a rocket during a training exercise at the Yakima Training Center outside Yakima, Wash., on Nov. 4. (Emree Weaver/Yakima Herald-Republic via AP) (Emree Weaver /AP)

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The conflict in Ukraine has already lasted nearly 10 months, and it has turned into something the United States has not seen since World War II: a battle of production lines. Both Russia and Ukraine have been expending munitions at a furious rate. “At the height of the fighting in Donbas, Russia was using more ammunition in two days than the entire British military has in stock”, notes the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

Not surprisingly, both sides are now running low. Ukrainian intelligence estimates, for example, that the Russians have already expended 80 percent of their Iskander short-range ballistic missiles, which have been used to target Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russian conscripts in Omsk, Russia, November 2022. Alexey Malgavko / Reuters

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In late September, following devastating Russian setbacks in Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s controversial “partial mobilization” of the Russian population, the Kremlin faced an explosion of popular discontent on social media. Notably, some of the most vocal criticism came from the government’s core supporters: ultranationalists and military hard-liners who felt that Russia was not fighting as well as it should. By the beginning of October, the recriminations were coming close to Putin’s own circle, with Ramzan Kadyrov, the notoriously brutal head of Chechnya, issuing a long diatribe on Telegram, the messaging app. According to Kadyrov, a Russian general who had lost a crucial town in Donetsk was “being shielded from above by the leadership in the General Staff”.…  Seguir leyendo »

FT Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelenskyy

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Nine months into a brutal struggle for national survival against Russian invaders, Volodymyr Zelenskyy looks tired, with dark circles under his eyes. What he would like to be doing instead of confronting a merciless invader is fishing with his son. “I just want to catch a carp in the Dnipro river”, he says.

For a taste of normal life, the unlikely president may still have a long wait, despite the surprising streak of battlefield successes for Ukraine’s forces. But the folksy message is characteristic of a leader who still depicts himself as an everyman with humble tastes and a deep sense of humanity, qualities that have earned him the admiration of Ukrainians and their supporters abroad.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Christmas market in front of Berlin's Charlottenburg Palace illuminated in the Ukrainian national colors on Nov. 24. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters)

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An American friend called me the other day, having just returned from Berlin. He told me he’d been struck by how deeply Russia’s war in Ukraine has affected Germany. He could trace its impact throughout his visit. One telltale sign he mentioned — dimly lit airports and streets in the late afternoon of his arrival — seemed a bit superficial to me. That, after all, is almost nothing compared with Russia’s systematic attacks on the Ukrainian energy system and the hardships it is inflicting on the Ukrainian people. And yet his impression — as first impressions often do — had the ring of a more profound truth.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘The willingness of Ukrainians to support local sporting events is a form of resistance.’ Men play chess in a bomb shelter in Odesa, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

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While Ukraine lives in fear of the next mass bombing of its energy infrastructure by Russian missiles and Iranian drones, and constantly monitors the actions of troops located in Belarus, there are still small forms of normalcy, small forms of resistance. A blitz chess championship was recently held in Zhytomyr, a city 140km west of Kyiv and a regular target of missile attacks.

Blitz chess – because slow chess is impossible in today’s Ukraine, where everything has to be done quickly or very quickly. The games were played according to the Swiss system, and with nine rounds in which players have only three minutes a move.…  Seguir leyendo »

El castigo a Ucrania

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Acaso peor que la ocupación del territorio, sea lo que está ocurriendo en estos días con Ucrania. El Ejército ruso se ha retirado, pero ahora, desde sus protegidas posiciones, bombardea sistemáticamente los lugares que abandonó gracias a la valentía con que los ucranios le salieron al frente e impidieron que tomaran posesión del territorio invadido. El retiro de las fuerzas militares rusas no ha servido de gran cosa, pues ahora, con los misiles que envía, se asegura que los intolerables ucranios reciban un castigo, por el crimen de haber peleado como leones en la defensa del suelo nativo y haber impedido que las fuerzas enemigas se adueñaran de un territorio que no les pertenece.…  Seguir leyendo »

President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Khaled Elfiqi and Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

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The Biden administration would like to make one thing clear: It won’t throw Ukraine under the bus. If President Volodymyr Zelensky doesn’t want to pursue a peace deal that could leave Russia with some Ukrainian territory, America won’t use its leverage as Ukraine’s main arms supplier to push him into negotiations.

“The United States is not pressuring Ukraine”, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan in early November, the day after NBC reported that he had broached the subject of negotiations with Zelensky. President Biden said, that same week, “We’re not going to tell them what they have to do”. And a week later, national security spokesman John Kirby asserted that “nobody from the United States is pushing or prodding or nudging [Zelensky] to the table”.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky singing the national anthem in Kherson, Ukraine, November 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Reuters

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When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, few observers imagined that the war would still be raging today. Russian planners did not account for the stern resistance of Ukrainian forces, the enthusiastic support Ukraine would receive from Europe and North America, or the various shortcomings of their own military. Both sides are now dug in, and the fighting could carry on for months, if not years.

Why is this war dragging on? Most conflicts are brief. Over the last two centuries, most wars have lasted an average of three to four months. That brevity owes much to the fact that war is the worst way to settle political differences.…  Seguir leyendo »

A cyclist passes a ruined building in Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 27 November 2022.

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On 17 November, Kyiv woke to its first snow of the winter, the now familiar sound of air-raid sirens and explosions, and the news that, yet again, scores of Russian missiles were cutting through Ukraine’s skies headed for power plants and electricity substations.

The destruction of civilian infrastructure is meant to paralyse Ukrainian cities, but has led instead to a new buzz of activity as people try to adapt. Walking through the capital, you tune in to the hum of generators outside cafes that hint cooked food may be had. Other eateries have switched to cold menus and pre-brewed filter coffee, kept warm in a flask.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Los ejércitos de trolls se han convertido en un elemento primordial del manual de desinformación del Kremlin. Se manifiestaron por primera vez en 2016, cuando la Agencia de Investigación de Internet (IRA) del confidente de Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, empleó a miles de personas en una "granja de trolls" de San Petersburgo, para intervenir en elecciones clave, incluida la carrera presidencial de Estados Unidos entre Donald Trump y Hilary Clinton.

Hoy siguen vivos y coleando, en una escala completamente diferente, como parte de la invasión rusa de Ucrania. Aunque menos obvios en sus manifestaciones, después del bloqueo geográfico de los principales medios de desinformación, Sputnik y Russia Today, y la eliminación de su contenido en las plataformas de redes sociales más grandes del mundo, Twitter, Facebook y YouTube.…  Seguir leyendo »

Un bombero intenta extinguir el fuego ocasionado por los bombardeos rusos, en la ciudad de Vishgorod, a las afueras de Kiev, Ucrania, este miércoles.Efrem Lukatsky (AP)

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Tras los ataques rusos con misiles del pasado miércoles contra edificios residenciales en Vishgorod, una ciudad vecina de Kiev, Valentina y Vitali Aleksenko acabaron ingresados en hospitales diferentes. Tuvieron suerte. Sobrevivieron, pero durante el bombardeo y el incendio posterior en el edificio de viviendas, sus perros Jack Russell y Bonia huyeron asustados y el gato desapareció. Valentina, desde el hospital, hizo un llamamiento a los habitantes de Vishgorod para que buscasen y salvasen a los perros y al gato. Uno de los perros apareció en seguida, y también encontraron al gato más tarde en el sótano de otro edificio, pero se desconoce la suerte que ha corrido el segundo perro.…  Seguir leyendo »

In a pharmacy in Lviv, a man uses the light on his phone to help the pharmacist find products, amid rolling blackouts, on November 16. Gaelle Girbes/Getty Images

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A truce now in the war in Ukraine would essentially spell victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nine months in, Russian hopes of a swift seizure have been well and truly dashed, its army largely on the defensive across more than 600 miles of battle lines strung along the eastern and southern reaches of Ukraine.

Indeed a truce or negotiations may be the only path to victory possible at this moment for the Russian leader; his manpower exhausted and weapons supplies dwindling.

At the same time, there is a flagging will of the West that could prove equally toxic for Ukraine – and that Putin is almost certainly counting on.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Desde finales de septiembre, cuando el ejército ucraniano emprendió una exitosa contraofensiva para recuperar los territorios ocupados por el ruso, se han venido intensificando los llamamientos a negociaciones para poner fin a la guerra. Desafortunadamente, ni los países involucrados en el conflicto ni los países occidentales que apoyan a Ucrania están preparados para ello, por diferentes motivos: los rusos y ucranianos, porque creen que todavía pueden ganar la guerra; y los occidentales, por considerar que es Ucrania quien debe decidir cuándo sentarse a negociar, pero también por la falta de una idea común acerca de cómo debería concluir la contienda.

Tras la invasión del 24 de febrero, Rusia, a pesar de sus sonados fracasos en el campo de batalla, no ha renunciado a sus principales objetivos políticos: impedir la entrada de Ucrania en la OTAN y en la UE, convirtiéndola en un Estado fallido y controlable desde el Kremlin mediante gobiernos títeres.…  Seguir leyendo »

The author's military unit poses with its adopted dog, Yur, in Bakhmut, Ukraine, in October. (Courtesy of Yehor Firsov)

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When we think of the casualties of the Ukraine war, we obviously think of the human cost — the lives lost, the wounded and injured, the families displaced. But there are other, smaller casualties of this war. They’re not announced on the television news, but I see them in the war zone every day.

They are the many homeless, abandoned animals that roam the streets of front-line towns and villages leveled by the Russian assault.

Most of these animals, and there are hundreds, even thousands, of them, are former pets — dogs and cats left behind by owners who’ve fled or died.…  Seguir leyendo »