In conflict with Moscow since 2014, Ukraine observes with some astonishment the recent geopolitical fever thrust. Without really believing in a large-scale invasion, in the capital, leaders and inhabitants are ready to resist.
by
Capital of a country that has been living in the Kremlin Damocles’ sword, Kiev is not a seat in headquarters, store shelves are supplied, the cafes are open, the stations of Peduced gasoline and invisible safety measures. Far from the forehead, it is rather a war of the nerves that undertakes it, first fueled by the military pressure of the Russian troops massaged for three months on the eastern border of Ukraine, but also by the Russian-American tension and the sometimes contradictory Western statements on the subject.
The Ukrainians have understood it well: the current confrontation between the United States and their allies on one side and Russia of the other largely exceeds their own fate, even if they are the first concerned. They look with some astonishment this sudden rise of geopolitic fever about them, as if the West discovered a war that for them began when Moscow attached Crimea and invaded part of the donbass, relying on local militias. PRORUSSES. “The armed conflict has been lasting since 2014 and the hybrid attacks since 1991, when Ukraine has declared its independence from the Soviet Union, recalls a senior defense manager who is asked if he is asking for an increase in attacks. hybrids.
On the basis of interviews with a dozen officials and elected officials organized in Kiev by the German Marshall Fund Research Center, to which Le Monde participated, the scenario of the Large Russian invasion appears in the immediate as the least plausible. In a recent survey of the International Institute of Sociology of Kiev, one third of the Ukrainians say they are ready to take up arms to withstand a Russian intervention, plus 22% volunteers for civilian resistance: the human cost of Such an offensive would therefore be too high for Moscow.
It is more expected in the short term to an intensification of destabilization, misinformation and cyber attractions, while the military pressure on the borders of Ukraine; These operations are already underway, as evidenced by the Government’s IT site attack on January 14 or anonymous messages of bomb alerts that emptied Kiev schools on January 21. “We left for a marathon, not for a sprint,” predicts a European diplomat on the spot.
“People are a little disoriented”
Another hypothesis considered is that of a new operation located in eastern Ukraine. “If Russia chooses climbing, obviously it will do it in territories where historically people have family ties with Russia,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky Friday in an interview at the Washington Post . Thus, “Kharkiv could be busy”, under the pretext of “protecting the Russian-speaking population”, he said, while stressing that such an operation in a city of more than a million inhabitants would inevitably provoke a “Large scale war”.
You have 59.55% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.