By Fernando Prieto Arellano
The war in Ukraine can only have a negotiated end, given that a complete defeat of either side is not in sight, Serbian political scientist Mira Milosevich says in an interview.
Milosevich has just published his latest book “The Zombie Empire. Russia and the world order” (Galaxia Gutenberg), where he maintains that Russia is a state of imperial nature but with an idea of empire based not on the metropolis-colony scheme, typical of the British or French empires at the time, but on a model of border expansion and “buffer zones”, currently supported by an almost totalitarian political system.
This idea, he points out, is what led to the war in Ukraine, and its previous episodes, with the invasion of Georgia in 2008, and the Ukrainian territories of Donbas and Crimea, in 2014, the latter then annexed to Russia.
In this way, Milosevich maintains in the interview, what Russian President Vladimir Putin did was return to a concept already expressed in the 18th century by Tsarina Catherine the Great: “The only way to protect my borders is to expand them.”
The war that arose from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is a product of this concept, considers Milosevich, principal researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute.
“The end of the war is going to be negotiated because I do not see a complete defeat of either of the two actors fighting it”, Russia and Ukraine, indicates the analyst.
In Milosevich's opinion, “even if Ukraine regained Crimea, that would not mean a total defeat for Russia, because Russia can only be totally defeated in Moscow.”
On the other hand, the Serbian analyst refers to the current situation of the war, whose end she foresees is still far away, and which is producing a feeling of "fatigue", not only among the Ukrainians themselves but in the European population as a whole, but not so in Russia, at least apparently.
“If Donald Trump reaches the White House” after the United States presidential elections next November, “the end of the war may be accelerated, but, in any case, whoever wins in those elections, the reconstruction of Ukraine will be Europe is going to pay,” he says.
According to Milosevich, “the war is going on for a long time; We are in a situation of wear and tear. “It is a war based on a very old model, of fixed positions, trenches, and unspectacular troop movements.”
Milosevich refers to the expression "strategic patience", as a referential element of Russian praxis in this war and in all those it has fought throughout history and which consists of "never giving up anything for lost", and despite That this entails a great human and material cost.
“Both parties believe that they can still win the war and that is why they do not even consider negotiating,” highlights the Serbian political scientist, who affirms that “the Ukrainians would negotiate a solution to the war if they had security guarantees, but they do not have them yet. “They don’t even know who is going to occupy the White House starting in November.”
And all this leads us, in the analyst's opinion, to place ourselves "in a moment of realism", to think that the war in Ukraine is no longer so far away "and that it could touch you", and glosses the warning that he gave In that sense, during the last European Council, the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, to his Spanish colleague, Pedro Sánchez.
The policies of rearmament and even reestablishing compulsory military service that many countries in Europe are undertaking, or the recent statements by French President Emmanuel Macron about the possibility of studying sending ground troops to Ukraine are indicative that “we are in a moment of total realism”, based on the axiom “prepare for war”, considers Milosevich.
In Milosevich's opinion, “the war in Ukraine is the consequence of the increase in rivalry between the great powers,” which is, in turn, the cause of the rise of what he calls “revisionist powers” (Russia, China and Iran, above all) and whose objective is to dismantle, or at least weaken, the liberal order led by the United States.
To do this, he points out, they carry out wars, either like the one in Ukraine - with the direct participation of Russia - or fought by "proxies", by allies, such as the one in Gaza, in which Hamas, a "proxy" of Iran – in turn a “proxy” of Russia – is trying to wear down Israel and, by extension and as a goal, the United States. EFE