Just as all Americans know exactly where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001, so the early morning of February 24, 2022 is burned into the collective memory of Ukrainians. The shock of that day, when Russian tanks rolled towards Kyiv from Crimea, Donbass and Belarus, when rockets fell in numerous cities, when President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared martial law – it is deep-seated. Disbelief at the aggressive war of the big neighbor, with which Ukraine has a centuries-long history, turned to desperation and hatred overnight.
It’s now almost exactly six months to the day, and a “turning point” has happened not only for the Ukrainians. The war has changed the unstable statics of the Western security architecture, exposed weaknesses and dependencies in global trade and energy policy, increased world hunger and politically isolated Russia in parts of the world. For the Ukrainians, however, six months after the start of the war, it is more important than ever: everything. The country has celebrated its Independence Day on August 24 since 1991; At that time, the parliament almost unanimously declared the withdrawal of the Soviet Republic from the USSR, a referendum later ended with 92 percent approval.
This is usually celebrated with a big parade on the central Independence Square, the Maidan Nezaleschnosti in Kyiv. This year, however, the Ukrainian government fears a particularly heavy shelling by Russian artillery next Wednesday; Vladimir Putin, it is said, will want to prove that February 24 heralded the end of the Ukrainian nation, which according to the Kremlin never existed. And that there will be nothing more to celebrate on August 24th.
So far, however, little in this war of aggression has gone as Putin hoped or commanded. If Russian propaganda had had its way, the planned blitzkrieg should have lasted three days. Instead, Putin’s army not only had to withdraw from occupied areas in the north-west and give up taking the capital. Rather, it is fighting itself, unexpectedly for many security experts, in a war of position and attrition, in which hardly any ground gains have recently been recorded. The Kremlin is now recruiting from prisons and private mercenary troops. Estimates of the number of dead and wounded on the Russian side range up to 80,000 soldiers.
Other apparent certainties have also faltered: eight years after the Maidan uprising, Ukraine was granted EU candidate status. Moscow, long considered a reliable gas supplier, is using energy as a weapon. The EU, notoriously incapable of making decisions, surprisingly proved to be united, at least at the beginning of the war; now seven rounds of sanctions are proof of this. NATO, which has been declared dead, is likely to have two new members in Finland and Sweden.
But any wartime inventory is piecemeal. Because the political determination to stand together against the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions is crumbling, parallel to solidarity in society, with each passing day that the fear of high heating costs and rising inflation increases. Right-wing extremist groups are already mobilizing for the “Winter of Anger”. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Kremlin is likely to try to stir up fears of an existential crisis in Germany with the “targeted dissemination of false information”. According to the Ukraine Support Tracker of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), since July hardly any new arms deliveries or other aid have arrived in Ukraine.
At the same time, Russia’s political isolation is proving to be wishful thinking on the part of the EU; just 40 countries worldwide have joined the sanctions, the trade volume between India and Russia has increased fivefold since the beginning of the war. According to the Indonesian hosts, Vladimir Putin has now also announced that he will travel personally to the G-20 summit in Bali.
The Ukrainian President is now reminding people every day that only further arms deliveries could stop the Russian troops. Almost desperately, he warns that war-weariness and familiarization will gain the upper hand among Western partners. “We can and must only think of victory: on the battlefield, on the political front, in information warfare, in the fight against economic decline. We have to believe in ourselves.”