The Ukrainian dream led by Volodymyr Zelensky is see all its territory free of Russian troops. That includes not only the donbaswhere a very slowly advancing Russian offensive is currently taking place, but also the crimean peninsula, in Russian hands since 2014. With this goal in mind and an extraordinary level of resistance, kyiv is committing all its military capacity -with a performance much higher than initially expected- and political capacity -convincing many Western governments to supply it with weapons to defend themselves and that Moscow be sanctioned for its violation of international law. As a result of all this, Russia is every day further away from achieving its goals, which should be seen as good news, and Ukraine shows a will to win that even leads it to think about moving from defense to attack, until it expels its invaders from all corners of its territory. And, paradoxically, It seems that therein lies the problem right now.
The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, pronounces himself in favor of a immediate cessation of hostilities. For his part, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, points to the need to offer some (territorial) concessions to Moscow, that they serve to Vladimir Putin to declare victory and thus find a way out of the disaster in which he has gotten himself. Two meridian examples of the appeasement policy that, to a large extent, both countries have followed with Russia for decades, and that has given so few positive results.
It is true that an immediate ceasefire would probably mean saving thousands of lives, since it would prevent the prolongation of a conflict in which nNone of the combatants is today in a position to achieve a definitive victory to surrender without further ado to his opponent. Therefore, if the defense of human life is placed above any other consideration, there is no doubt about the urgent need to stop the violence in Ukraine. It is also true that leaving Putin some way out can serve to avoid his stubbornness in error and to distance the possibility that he opts for an escalation that could even contemplate the use of nuclear weapons and, consequently, a world war.
But everything points to the fact that, seen from the perspective of Zelensky and his people, the panorama is very different. On the one hand, they can calculate that stopping the fighting now and launching a direct negotiation with Moscow would mean accepting that Ukraine will never again regain territory lost in combat; precisely when they are able to, as is the case around Kharkiv, push back ‘manu militari’ to the border common to their enemies. On the other hand, it would be enough to turn the tables on Macron and ask him which French regions he would be willing to cede to Russia in order to please Putin.
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At this point, in which both contenders continue to believe that they can improve their positions by means of arms, it would seem that a shocking situation has been reached. Ukraine has responded so prominently on the battlefield that it not only does not seem on the verge of surrender, but aspires to total victory. And that, in the face of a Russia that neither seems willing to give up her prey nor has victory within her reach, has become a political problem.
While we continue adding dilemmas of very difficult resolution, can we at least leave Let the Ukrainians themselves decide how far do you want to go?