VSis the mystery of the moment. What is happening on the Russian side along the Ukrainian border? Nothing unusual, senior officials in Kiev told us last week, as Washington began to sound the alarm bells over worrying clanking of boots.
The Ukrainians know that after their last show of force in April in this area, where they had massed some 100,000 men, the Russians had left behind them heavy equipment, a sign of a likely return. Since then, Kiev has been on the lookout for any movement that heralds hostile military preparations: at the beginning of November obviously, we were not there yet.
Everything changed on November 10 with the visit to Washington of the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba. The American thesis of a new concentration of Russian forces likely to constitute a threat of invasion then became the dominant discourse, from Kiev to NATO. Puzzled, some Europeans are wondering, including those most sensitive to the Russian threat: what is Moscow doing? And what does Washington want?
France is one of the cautious. She nonetheless straddled the theory of the worst and duly warned the Kremlin, Monday, November 15, against the consequences of a new attack on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. And during the long telephone interview they had on Monday, the Elysee said, Emmanuel Macron expressed to President Vladimir Putin his “Deep concern” on this subject.
Multiplication of crises on the European continent
In fact, nearly eight years after the annexation of Crimea and the Russian intervention in the Donbass by intervening separatists, no one dares rule out the possibility of a new incursion into Ukraine. First, because in the multiplication of crises on the European continent, from the instrumentalization of migrants by Belarus to that of gas, including nationalist agitation in the Western Balkans, as well as in the more distant crises in Sahel, Libya or Syria, the shadow of the Kremlin is never far away. Secondly, because Ukraine remains central in the geopolitical confrontation with Russia.
In 2021, two visions are opposed in this country of nearly 40 million inhabitants. That of Kiev, its beautifully renovated architecture, its dynamic and flourishing IT sector, its promising market for large contracts and its muddled democracy which is progressing step by step, under the friendly pressure of international donors.
And then there is, 800 km away, to the south-east, near Mariupol, the grim spectacle of another century, the line of contact with “The Russian enemy”, a no man’s land barred by trenches that can only be approached aboard military tanks: what was a pretty seaside resort on the Sea of Azov, Shyrokyne, a holiday resort for the people of Donetsk, is more, since the bombings of 2015, than a ghost village with buildings smashed by shells and missiles. Here, the conflict is practically frozen. Further north in Donbass, it remains active, “Low intensity” but still intense enough to kill regularly and justify on the Ukrainian side an army of 250,000 soldiers, whose budget devours nearly 6% of gross domestic product.
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