Category: Zelensky

Still Waiting for the Ukrainian Counter-offensive

By Nina Bachkatov

For weeks, the late spring Ukrainian counter-offensive has the object of intense speculation as it has been in late September, when the fall of Kherson seemed to pave the way for a roll back of Russian troops. But the situation is different today. During the winter, the West has responded to president Zelensky’s requests for the delivery of sophisticated offensive and defensive weaponry, and trained thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to man them. In those conditions, Ukrainian forces should be able to succeed in a counter-offensive, providing their country with a strong position at the negotiation table. In the meantime, the West has been scouting the world, to find ammunitions compatible with Ukrainian guns, sometimes bidding against each other or using dubious intermediaries. The Ukrainian forces consume ammunitions in huge quantities, which means more of it before and after the counter-offensive’s start.

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The Importance of Perceptions: President Zelensky in Europe

By Nina Bachkatov

Back from his European tour, on 9 February, Ukrainian president Zelensky had addressed the nation as he does almost daily. He told his compatriots that he got “important agreements and good signals… This goes from long range missiles and tanks, to a new level of cooperation including fighter jets. But work has still to be done on that issue”. Evidently, Zelensky has only met supportive interlocutors and enjoyed standing ovations, keeping successfully world attention on his country. But, if he indeed got a lot of promises, a lot of hugs, and another European flag to enrich his collection, he came back home without clear conditions, and dates, for the jet fighters deliveries; nor an agenda for EU adhesion. Anyway, the training of pilots and engineers is “already starting” and the general consensus has been since that taboos about the deliveries of Western jets to Ukraine were falling, the way those concerning battle tanks did earlier.

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Moscow and Kiev weaponizing orthodox Christmas

By Nina Bachkatov

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine leaves no stone unturned, witness the saga around Christmas celebrations, epitomized in two extravagant pictures: that of the Russian president celebrating the Nativity in an empty church; and that of a crowd of men in uniforms attending the mass in Kiev’s Pechersky Caves just ‘liberated” from the All Russia and Moscow Patriarchate by presidential decree.

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EU “diversified” aid to Ukraine

By Nina Bachkatov

The EU carries on with the preparation of its 20-21 October during which China will be the elephant in the room and all the complexity of the war in Ukraine the centre piece. After 8 months of violence and devastations, the EU is confronted with the full consequences of the sanctions it had imposed on Russian individuals and companies to undermine president Putin leadership and to starve Russia’s budgetary capacities to sustain a war.

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Putin’s new approach about Ukraine

By Nina Bachkatov

The successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, backed by Western new weapons and shared intelligence resources, obliged president Putin to come out. It took the form of a televised address to the nation, against a background of leakages and unusual stage crafting. It was first due to take place on the 20th evening, then it was postponed for the next day, at 8, then at 9 o’clock. That was enough to unleash new speculation concerning Putin’s physical and moral condition. The usual well-informed sources said that he had been so affected by fever and coughs that he was unable to face the cameras, despite the dispatch of a large medical staff; and that the program shown as a single tirade was in fact a re-mix of interrupted sessions.

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Another war in Donbass

By Nina Bachkatov

The Russian offensive in the Donbass on 19 April has been changing the face of the war in Ukraine. For the Kremlin, it was the opportunity to come back with its original narrative about a “special operation” forced upon itself as guarantor of its “brothers”’ security and freedom. Brothers, who supposedly, were threatened by Ukrainian “neo-nazis” who seized power in Kiev and Western Ukraine in 2014 and who trapped them in a pocket territory.  For president Zelensky, the Donbass offensive was the sign that the Kremlin, unable to seize Kiev, was coming back from the East, backed by separatist forces, with the intention to destroy Ukraine as a nation and a state.

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An orgy of summits around Ukraine and global competition

By Nina Bachkatov

In recent weeks, world’s leaders have been running from a summit to another one. Among Western allies, the key words were unity and solidarity; among the others, it was about multipolarity and convergence. But the background of all those diplomatic activities have been, and will be for a while, the war in Ukraine and its global consequences. There is also the growing awareness that the cost of the military operation and sanctions are indeed bleeding Russia, but much more Ukraine.

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