The Russia-Ukraine War in Germany I. The „24 February“ 2022 – Ukraine’s fateful day.

Since the victory of the „Maidan“, the popular uprising against the kleptocratic regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February 2014, a Russian military invasion has been hovering over Ukraine like a sword of Damocles. Eight years later, on 24 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin cut the thread: He marched into Ukraine with an army of 150,000 men.

Although, in retrospect, there were many indications – especially the „Zapad“ military maneuver in Russia’s west and in Belarus – few „Kremlinologists“ expected such a large-scale military invasion by the Russian armed forces. It surprised experts and politicians, both Western and Ukrainian – and shocked the whole world.

Concerned warnings about Russia’s war preparations had come from the USA many weeks before the Russian attack, but they were disregarded in Europe as well as in Ukraine.¹  On 18 February 2022, US President Biden personally declared to the world public that Putin had made the decision to invade Ukraine. The Ukrainian President Selenskyj, however, did not want to hear the warnings of a Russian attack, Biden himself reported.²

The numerous speculations about Russian President Putin’s intentions turned out to be wrong.³ Perhaps he decided on a military solution to his “Ukraine problem” in the autumn of 2021. Since his plan to influence the internal and external orientation of Ukraine by implementing the „Minsk Agreement“ („Minsk II“⁴) did not work out, Putin lost patience, so to speak, and is now trying a violent achievement of his overriding goal, namely Russian control over the whole of Ukraine.

Due to the unexpected resistance by the Ukrainian army in the north-east (Kyiv and Kharkiv regions), the war has shifted its front to the south-east of the country; the „special military operation“ has turned into a trench warfare (German: Grabenkrieg, French: Guerre des tranchées) that reminds the Germans and the French of the horrors of „Verdun“ in World War I.

On 24 February 2023, one year after the invasion, Putin held about 20 % of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory under his control. Russia is targeting the civilian population through air strikes with missiles on public and private buildings and on civilian infrastructure.

There is no end in sight to the war.

1. Since the US war of aggression against Iraq, which was justified with untrue claims, Europeans understandably distrust „information“ from US intelligence services.
2. The Russian-Belarusian military maneuver „Zapad-2021“ („West“), which took place from 10 to 16 September 2021 – without Western observers – was, in retrospect, but also already in its course, but above all in the movements of Russian troops after its official end, recognizable as preparation for the war of aggression against Ukraine. One clear indication, among others, was the storage of large quantities of blood preservation near the border.
3. Admittedly, the author’s assumptions as well.
4. Specifically by anchoring a far-reaching autonomy for the southeast of the Ukrainian region of Donbas, one-third of which Russia has occupied since 2014.