The surprising proposal put on the negotiating table by USA to end the war Ukraine brings back the bitter memory of the war Crimea in which Russia began a conflict to appropriate a port with less frigid waters from which to take its cereals to the international market. The pretext used in those times was that the Orthodox Christians who inhabited the holy places had to be protected from the Muslims who ruled the Ottoman Empire. Russia made that bold decision because it considered that the weakened and decadent Ottoman Empire would not be able to respond to its aggression and could take over Crimea.
As is known, the calculation was fatal because England and France They decided that allowing Russia to take over another country’s territories would simply be the beginning of a chain of aggression against European nations. And therefore they decided to stop the Russian pretensions and declare war. And history tells us that not only did the European powers win, but Russia retreated into itself and began to carry out internal reforms such as ending feudal serfdom. And although the war was bloody, particularly in Sevastopol, the territory of the Ottoman Empire was left intact.
178 years later Russia repeats the exercise. But this time she is sure that the West is weakened and divided. The pretext for invading Ukraine was to protect citizens of Russian origin who populate Crimea and other Ukrainian latitudes such as Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Odessa. And now the Russian calculation was correct. The West will not be able to stop its imperial pretensions.
Proof of how successful the Russian maneuver has been is that the United States has put on the table a plan for the cessation of hostilities in 28 points in which 26 favor Russia. Being the country that invaded, breaking with all the norms of international law; According to this plan, Russia keeps the territories that it illegally occupies today; It prevents Ukraine from joining NATO or foreign armies from settling on its territory to protect it, it must reduce the size of its army (we assume to levels that are comfortable for Russia) and sanctions are lifted against Russia, returning all its assets deposited in the West with interest payments. That is, Russia is rewarded for carrying out the occupation, destroying the country and causing the death of 416,000 Ukrainians.
Russia has won this battle because it knows that the United States is weaker than ever due to the breakdown of the political consensus that has sustained the democratic game since 1776. It sees a Europe numbed by a welfare state that silences dissent and sows conformism. It knows that the fiscal imbalances of the West could soon lead to an economic crisis and it understands that the empire of artificial intelligence is going to create a rupture of the social pact on which its democracies are based.
For Ukrainians, this episode will go down in history as the end of the republic and the beginning of an era of servitude that promises to be long and painful.
For the West, this is just the beginning of a battle that will move to the Arctic where Russia shares with the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden a region that global warming has given strategic character because it has opened unsuspected routes for trade and war. And although countries like Sweden sought to protect themselves by joining NATO, the defeat of Ukraine is the beginning of the end of that organization born after World War II. And Russian advances will continue until their forces accompany them, turning back the hands of the clock of history.
