Russia targets civilians as the world argues about how to end the war
Ever since Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops across the border into Ukraine, the role of the UN as a global problem solver has been under scrutiny. All efforts to get the Security Council to act meaningfully are immediately hampered by the fact that Russia, as a permanent member, can simply veto it. But resolutions voted on by the General Assembly at least give a good indication of where the world stands – by and large – on Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
When last night’s General Assembly voted on a resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, it was interesting to see who sponsored it, who supported it, who voted against and who abstained. Besides Russia, only Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria voted against. China, India, Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian countries were among the 35 countries that abstained. 143 nations voted in favor of the conviction – the largest vote of no confidence against Russia since the beginning of the war.
The most worrisome aspect of this, however, is that while there is a clear consensus that the Russian invasion is a bad thing, there are deep disagreements about how to end the conflict. Stefan Wolff, an international security expert at the University of Birmingham – who has been a regular writer here since the war began – has identified a fairly unbridgeable rift between those countries who want Russia to withdraw from all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and its territories since 2014 and those who want to bring Ukraine and Russia to the table to negotiate.
Read more: Ukraine War: Latest UN vote shows world wants to end conflict – but can’t agree on how to stop Putin going nuclear
Unsurprisingly, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been adamant that there can be no negotiations until Russia has completely withdrawn from Ukraine. He is supported in this position by most Western countries. They think talks based on the idea that Putin and Russia could be offered any concessions in the form of territorial gains would set a disastrous precedent by effectively rewarding armed force.
Joseph O’Maloney, an international relations scholar at the University of Reading, has returned to 20th-century history to give us an example of how a lack of international solidarity after Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia in the 1930s led to a policy of appeasement was to prove disastrous in dealing with Hitler’s Germany. There are now several examples of non-recognition of territorial conquests that have existed for decades, such as in Northern Cyprus.
READ ALSO: Ukraine War: Why The World Cannot Afford To Let Russia Get Away With Its Land Grabs – Lessons From History
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Given these arguments, it is difficult to understand what US President Joe Biden means when he says that Putin must be given an “exit”. Rod Thornton, an international relations expert at King’s College London who served in the military and has lived in both Moscow and Kyiv, believes there is little the West can do other than sell Ukraine to get Putin a release clause as he can sell to his own supporters. Thornton sees Biden’s words both as a signal to the Kremlin of the scale of the catastrophe Russia is risking and as a betrayal of the US’s lack of capabilities when it comes to de-escalation.
READ ALSO: Ukraine War: Putin Walks Off The Ramp And Why He Probably Won’t Make It
Kerch Bridge
Meanwhile, Putin continues to escalate. It’s hard to imagine that the Russian leader wasn’t personally struck by the attack on the Kerch Bridge last weekend. The bridge was a project he consistently pushed and personally opened when he drove the first truck across the bridge from Russia to Crimea in 2018 when its road section opened. So he certainly took it personally. But quite apart from that, writes Frank Ledwidge – a military strategist at the University of Portsmouth – the bridge is an important strategic asset for Russia as it supplies its southern offensive.
The severe damage to the bridge, inflicted (we believe) by Ukrainian special forces, will seriously hamper Russia’s war effort and jeopardize its occupation of Crimea. Ledwidge sees Putin’s decision to escalate by targeting civilians in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities as a direct result of this backlash.
Read more: Ukraine War: A Desperate Russia Targets Civilians By Default
We also have this fascinating piece by Monash University’s Colin Caprani and University of Sheffield’s Sam Rigby, both engineering experts assessing the damage to the bridge. They examine how reuse could be made safe and conclude that work of this scale will take time and cause a lot of disruption.
Read more: Crimean bridge explosion: Experts assess the damage
Putin’s popularity shrinking?
Many observers also interpret Russia’s decision to resume attacks on Ukrainian cities and the civilian population as an indication of the increasing pressure on Putin.
Arik Burakovsky is a Russia and public opinion scholar at Tufts University in the United States. He is skeptical of opinion polls from Russia, which show persistently high levels of support for the war and for the president. Burakowski says polls show that the most common emotions evoked by the war are no longer national pride, but “fear, fear, horror” and “anger, indignation.”
Recent mobilization has not helped as more and more families have or know someone directly affected by the conflict. And it’s also worth noting that Putin’s personal approval ratings are starting to decline.
READ ALSO: Russia Recruits Hundreds Of Thousands To Fight Ukraine But Public Support For Putin Is Waning
Meanwhile, if the draft hasn’t helped Putin’s ratings at home, it’s hardly helping the Russian army in the field. Jack Adam MacLennan and James Horncastle, American national security and international relations scholars, believe that dumping 300,000 reluctant and poorly trained and equipped conscripts into an already unfavorable military situation will further damage Russian morale and also their army’s growing problem with the Lack of equipment could exacerbate .
Read more: The Russian draft is unlikely to help Vladimir Putin win the war in Ukraine
talking past each other
One of the problems that regularly surfaced during the course of the invasion was the language and the large number of Ukrainians who speak Russian as their first language. This was one of the justifications for the invasion by the Kremlin, which saw it as “proof” that Ukraine has traditionally always been a part of Russia. In some parts of the eastern provinces recently annexed by Russia, almost half the population uses Russian as their first language.
But it’s not that simple, writes Ievgeniia Ivanova of the University of Aberdeen, who explains the fascinating history of the Ukrainian language over many centuries.
Read more: Why many Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language
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