{"id":2737,"date":"2022-03-16T01:47:08","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T01:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worabia.com\/news\/top-trends\/2737\/"},"modified":"2022-03-16T01:47:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T01:47:08","slug":"ukraine-putin-will-search-for-a-way-to-save-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worabia.com\/news\/top-trends\/2737\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine: Putin will search for a way to save face"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Even the worst war comes to an end. Sometimes, like in 1945, the only result is a fight to the death. However, for the most part, wars end in a deal that satisfies no one completely, but at least puts an end to the bloodshed. And often, even after the worst and most bitter conflicts, the two sides gradually resume their former, less hostile relationship.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If we are lucky, we are beginning to see the beginning of this process between Russia and Ukraine. Resentment, particularly on the Ukrainian side, will last for decades. But both sides want and need peace: Ukraine, because its towns and cities have taken a terrible beating, and Russia, because it has already sacrificed, according to the Ukrainian president, more men and material than it has lost in its two terribly violent wars. in Chechnya, although that is impossible to verify.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But no one voluntarily signs a peace agreement that could lead to their own downfall. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the search for ways to save face is on. Ukraine’s President Zelensky has already shown remarkable skill as a diplomat, and is clearly willing to say and do whatever is acceptable to him and his people in order to get Russia off his country. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For him, there is one overriding goal: to ensure that Ukraine emerges from this ordeal as a united and independent country, not as a province of Russia, which is what President Putin originally thought he could turn it into.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For President Putin, all that counts now is that he can declare victory. Never mind that everyone in his entire administration understands that Russia has been given a nosebleed in this unnecessary invasion. Never mind that the 20% or more of Russians who understand what is really going on in the world will know that Putin bet the house on a fantasy of his own invention and lost. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The battle will be for the support of the remaining majority of the population, who tend to implicitly believe what they are told on state television, even when there are moments like the sudden appearance on the screen of the extraordinarily brave television editor Marina. Ovsyannikova with a banner saying that everything that is told to people is propaganda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So what will make President Putin come out of this disastrous war looking good in the eyes of most of Russia? First, a guarantee, perhaps even to be written into Ukraine’s constitution, that he has no intention of joining NATO in the foreseeable future. President Zelensky already paved the way for this, by asking NATO for something he couldn’t agree to (establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine), then criticizing the alliance for letting him down on this, and finally musing out loud that he wasn’t sure. that if Nato behaved like this, it was worth joining. As the smart and wise political position says, it doesn’t get any better than this. NATO gets the blame, which it can easily afford, and Ukraine gets the freedom to act as it pleases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But that’s the easy part. It will be harder to hone in on Zelensky’s and Ukraine’s urgent ambition to join the EU, something Russia is almost equally hostile to, though there are also ways around it. The hardest thing for Ukraine to swallow will be Russia’s total theft of Ukrainian territory, in total defiance of the solemn international treaty that it had signed to protect Ukraine’s borders. The loss of Crimea in 2014 is something Ukraine may well be forced to come to terms with formally, in some way. And Russia clearly intends to hold on to those areas in eastern Ukraine that are already virtually under Russian control, and perhaps more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1939, Joseph Stalin invaded Finland, which had once been part of the Russian empire. He was sure that his troops would break through before long, just as Putin envisioned the Ukraine in 2022. Stalin’s generals, understandably terrified for his lives, promised him that he was right. And of course he wasn’t. The Winter War dragged on until 1940, the Soviet army was humiliated, and Finland was left with justified national pride in resisting a superpower. It lost ground, because autocrats like Stalin and Putin need to come out of these things as if they had won a victory. But Finland was left with the most important, the most imperishable thing: its full independence as a free and self-determined nation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As things stand today, Ukraine, having repulsed so many Russian attacks and made Putin’s forces look weak and ineffective, should be able to do that. Unless Putin’s armies can capture kyiv and much more of Ukraine’s territory, then Ukraine will survive as a national entity, just as Finland did in 1940. Losing Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine would be a bitter, illegal, and utter loss. unfair. But Vladimir Putin would have to start using even more serious weapons than he has already used, if he wants to be victorious. As it is, in the third week of fighting, no one can seriously doubt who will be the real winner of this war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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John is the BBC’s World Affairs Editor. His weekly news show, <\/i>Unspun World with John Simpsonit airs Wednesday nights at 11:15 GMT on BBC 2, on BBC News Channel on Saturdays and on BBC World on Sundays.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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