The United States of America (USA) have entrapped Russian president Vladimir Putin. Putin will go down in history as someone who has isolated Russia and stopped a phase of world history.
These words encapsulate in brief the analyses of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict made for Kurir by prominent historians – Serbia's Predrag Marković and Croatia's Tvrtko Jakovina.
Ukrainians offered mere words
We asked Predrag Marković if he was surprised by Russia's attack against Ukraine and the intensity and duration of the attack, as well as how he saw the behaviour of the great powers in this situation. Here is Marković's reply:
"Every war in history goes on longer than anyone expects. As for its intensity, it is perhaps less than expected. Let us recall that Croatia launched an attack against the Krajina using over 120,000 soldiers. The Russian forces initially had a little over 200,000 troops. The air force was barely used. Since 2014, the US and the EU have been promising their alliance with Ukraine away. No matter how much they pretend it isn't the case, NATO remains an alliance whose main enemy is Russia. Russians couldn't stand the thought of NATO missiles at the gates of Moscow. Brussels and Washington offered mere words to the Ukrainians as they encouraged them to turn their backs on the Russians, with whom they'd shared a common fate in history."
Addressing the question whether the world would eventually end up even more divided, Marković said that Russia was now fighting to survive as a great power.
"The US have entrapped Putin. Russia is now fighting to survive as a great power," Marković said.
Tvrtko Jakovina said that, in historical terms, Putin had made a serious mistake.
"Russia shouldn't have broken away from the negotiations of January 2022, as it would have achieved a lot by diplomatic means. You could see everyone coming to Moscow as if on a pilgrimage. Now, he will eventually lose everything, no matter if he succeeds in taking over a large chunk of Ukraine at the present moment. He's antagonized the world against Russia and turned Ukrainians into his enemies. Putin will always be seen in this light, as someone who has isolated Russia and stopped a phase in world history," Jakovina noted.
When we asked him whether the ongoing crisis in the world could be compared with any of the previous ones in history, and whether what was happening now was in fact a new distribution of global power, Jakovina replied:
"All wars are similar in a way. Every war and the parties involved in the conflict are interpreted and compared by analysts to some of the recently ended conflicts using the knowledge that isn't invariably the best or most precise. In a similar vein, each war is unique to an extent, as each is waged in a different set of circumstances, a different international environment. There have been many wars in what is now Ukraine in the past 100 years, and even more in the past 500 years. They are all similar to a degree: the moment is the same or similar; urban warfare has been known for a long time; the Russians and the Ukrainians know each other well; they are both familiar with the doctrine of waging wars, etc. All this was well-known. I also think that the standard invasions carried out by big countries against smaller ones – even with the latter being huge – are also comparable. What distinguishes Putin's war in Ukraine is the attempt on the part of a former superpower – because other than in terms of weaponry and energy, Russia is no more than a big country – to bring back its empire. For the time being, after Georgia and Belarus, this evidently includes parts of Ukraine. However, the war in Ukraine and such a decisive response of the West means that the world is repositioning, that a phase in the international relations is over."
Europe once again has strong ties to the US
Jakovina thinks that the redistribution of power in the world will continue.
"Europe once again has strong ties to the US, and it turns out that the Global South isn't particularly interested in European wars. As for us, we could see yet again how marginal our importance is, including for Russia itself. Yes, power is being rearranged for the time being, and this will go on. No matter what the outcome of the war in Ukraine is, it won't be good for Russia or the Russians. This is small comfort for the Ukrainians, who are getting killed, but all of this may result in the weakening of all those forces in Europe that Russia has been supporting – conservative, clerical, right-wing," Croatian historian concluded.
Comparison with the war in Yugoslavia out of place
'The war has probably turned pro-Russian sentiments on their head'
Predrag Marković said that the development of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict nonetheless cannot be compared to the events in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
"The sinister referencing of our wars of the 1990s constitutes wrong expectations. The Yugoslavian Army generals expected in 1991 that the Croats would be scared at the very sight of our tanks and proceed to overthrow the government 'not of the people'. Putin seems to have believed that Ukraine wasn't a true state, and that its politicians were merely the West's puppets. He started the war in the east and south, where the pro-Russian Ukrainian populations live. Back in September, most people in Odessa were in favour of having closer ties to Russia. The war has probably turned the pro-Russian sentiments on their head."
Boban Karović
NE PROPUSTITE
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