The war has turned one year old. There is nothing to celebrate, but there is something to celebrate: Ukraine continues to fight against a terrifying, disproportionate and cruel invader. And it is not that it is resisting in a redoubt that is getting smaller and isolated from its geography: it has suppressed it on some fronts and is holding it in the separatist and pro-Russian provinces in the east. It is true that Russia managed to open a corridor north of the Sea of ​​Azov, to the Crimean Peninsula, which it occupied in 2014, but it did so at the cost of leveling cities like Mykolaiv and Mariupol (there is no other way to conquer the enemy of the cities and that is the reason they gave up from the capture of Kiev). This does not seem to upset the Ukrainians, who are willing to retake the rebel Donbas region and also the Crimean peninsula in this second year of war.

Since last year, Vladimir Putin has been isolated from the rest of the world, as not even Xi Jinping is convinced that he supports this madness. On the other hand, Ukraine is supported by a large number of Western powers, especially the United States, NATO and the European Union, which have emptied their stockpiles of expired weapons to help them fight the occupiers; It is interesting that they have now started to supply state-of-the-art weapons…

Lula da Silva reiterates to Volodymyr Zelensky his intention for Brazil to be a mediator in the conflict with Russia

Russia shot down a ‘massive’ Ukrainian drone in Crimea

Everything points to the fact that, as things stand, Putin’s days in power are over this year. What we do not know is whether his end will be in the regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu or Erich Honecker, the communist tyrants of Romania and East Germany. The ripple effect will fall on Belarus and its president, Alexander Lukashenko, and other Russian puppet dictators who rule the disintegrated states of the former Soviet Union.

Russia has – or had – the second most powerful military in the world, but two key factors work against it: the corruption that reigns in its logistics and complicates its movement, and the little desire of its soldiers to fight in a war that does not move the needle on patriotism. Despite its vast armed forces, Russia had to hire mercenaries without a homeland – which included hopeless prisoners – for its vanguard operations and they counted around 100,000 dead with huge losses in war materiel.

The supreme evil is not so much war as aggression. When someone is attacked, they have no choice but to fight back…

The supreme evil is not so much war as aggression. When someone is attacked, they have no choice but to fight the aggressor until they win or die. It is a fight for life and freedom and there is no human force that can oppose it. War is an enigma, a disease of the human project that since Cain and Abel – and before that – confirms that conflict is in our fallen nature. There is no choice but to try to avoid them and reduce their consequences.

History teaches that armed invaders cause disaster and leave as they came. Instead, the empires that thrive are commercial: those that dominate production, buying, and selling. And to complete the picture, it’s worth remembering that these realms don’t just buy and sell information, food, energy or dreams; they also make and sell the best weapons. (OR)