In my article published on January 31 about chaos in the world, I said wrongly regarding the then threatening storm in Ukraine: "The Russians, with a third-party economy and humiliated since the 1990s by NATO's hostile expansionism, are challenging Biden in Ukraine.(Probably the Germans will understand each other with them, ignoring the American hystericals today.)"
By Gonzalo Santos | NorteAmerica.mx | FEB. 29, 2022 | Leer en Espanol
Events have contradicted my prediction. The Russians, far from mounting a bluff, launched with all premeditation, treachery, and advantage a large-scale military invasion throughout Ukrainian territory on February 24. I underestimated Putin's determination to attack a country in the heart of Europe without embarrassment and massively, something that the American intelligence services, it must be said now, correctly evaluated.
Why did I underestimate the Russians? Because of how unlikely it seemed to me that the Russians were so reckless, irresponsible and risky as to get into another "quagmire" - losing international legitimacy and causing a strategic weakening.
I knew that the economic sanctions with which Americans and Europeans threatened their Russian counterparts would not stop them from invading Ukraine, but I believed that other important factors would - the main one being the tremendous sharpening of military tension and geopolitical unification in Europe against Russia that the invasion would entail.
But it was worth little to Vladimir Putin. He believes that he has three "ases" with which he can ignore the risks of going wrong and shoot himself in the butt.
The first is China and the strategic pact reached by Putin and Xi Jinping days before the Winter Olympics. This was palpably noticed in the statement they issued in Beijing, followed by the abstention vote and the Chinese statements in the United Nations Security Council yesterday, before the US resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine - vetoed by Russia.
Putin feels protected by China both economically and geopolitically. With India abstaining as well, more than a third of humanity overlaps Russian military adventure in Central Europe.
The second is the consolidation in recent years of an iron Russian authoritarian state, of absolute social surveillance and media control.
We could call it a neo-Stalinist regime without communism, of oligarchic state capitalism. Putin believes that he will be able to manipulate Russian public opinion and extinguish and suppress any domestic resistance or social rebellion that arises against the war with Ukraine, despite the very likely high costs in casualties of Russian soldiers and the immorality of a fratricidal Slavic war.
The third, of course, is the overwhelming military power with which Putin believes he will be able to decapitate the Ukrainian regime and impose a vassal, in the style of the Cold War.
As for the supposed Chinese "support", it can be said that it will favor China much more - at the expense not only of Europe and the United States, but of Russia itself, which now becomes a clientelistic, dependent and subordinate state.
"Who to whom?" Lenin said, and here it is clear that the Sino-Russian alliance will be a new step for the rise of Chinese power in the world.
We must concede that Putin does not have much to worry about or about U.S. criticism and economic sanctions. /U.E., not even of the universal condemnation (except China/India) in the United Nations, nor of the danger of a much greater war between NATO and Russia, but only if it is strictly maintained within Ukrainian territory.
But let's remember that once begun, the war located today in Ukraine can easily expand to neighboring countries. In addition, even in a contained war scenario, Ukrainians have the six countries to the west - from Poland to Romania - and beyond the Western European powers - as sanctuaries, both to stock up on military equipment and to shelter the Ukrainian regime and population under attack.
Even if Putin overthrows the government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and occupies the entire country, a Ukrainian insurrection will quickly emerge - as it emerged in Iraq when Bush overthrew Saddam Hussein, or when the Russians occupied Afghanistan - but with much better high-tech arms support.
The Russians will soon be bogged down in a new "endless war" that will bleed them to death.
Which leads me to question the firmness of the supposed total control of the Russian population by the Putin regime.
You only have to think for a second and remember that when the Russians invaded neighboring countries during the Cold War - the last being Afghanistan - there was neither satellite television, nor cell phones, nor the internet, nor social networks, which allowed the total censorship of information within the U.S.S.R. It's already other times.
The Shah of Iran was overthrown by an "armed" uprising of audio cassettes; dissent in Eastern Europe used the mimeograph and photocopier for its successful Color Revolutions; Anastasio Somoza Jr. in Nicaragua was overthrown by an "armed" revolution of video cassettes; the Chinese communist regime was almost overthrown by Fax; and the overthrow of dictatorships in the Arab Spring was achieved with the key assistance of Facebook.
How will the Putin regime stop the avalanche of images, videos, communiqués, and campaigns in solidarity with Ukraine and against the war that will now emerge around the world penetrate the new "iron curtain" and reach the Russian people?
Only the dramatic scenes in the UN Security Council and the ubiquitous images of urban destruction against civilian populations will encive the Russian people and fill them with fury and indignation against their government and their patently false propaganda.
All this indicates that the Russian invasion will not solve its geopolitical claims to Russia, but it will cause terrible damage to Ukraine and Russia itself, and increase chaos in Europe and in the world.
I could not end without mentioning Mexico's magnificent pronouncement in favor of the resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Mexican ambassador reminded his American and French counterparts of their past invasions and wars as unjust and imperialist as the current Russian one.
He demonstrated coherence and dignity, reminding the world that Mexico condemned the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the annexation of Austria to Germany. Another African ambassador reminded them of the recent unjust and unauthorized invasion of Libya by NATO.
Between these two ambassadors, the Global South reminded the imperialists of the Global North that by condemning the Russian invasion, it does not absolve them of their terrible previous - or future - invasions.
Bravo!
