Putin's three defeats

Little doubt remains.

People will still die and the impact on human suffering, global economic disaster and physical destruction is impossible to calculate.

It will be sky-high, the highest since World War II.

But with his lies, President Putin is losing the war, even though his army advances, slower than he expected.

The audacious essayist Yuval Noah Harari already speaks of historical defeat.

Winning in the frozen muds of the north, east and south of Ukraine is a pyrrhic victory.

Putin has 44 million Ukrainians in a grip, of whom more than a million are refugees and displaced persons.

Europe, in suspense and the Western powers trying to guess its macabre next step, will it dare to manipulate an uncontrolled nuclear power plant?, or will it continue playing with the terrified civilian population of the besieged cities, opening and closing corridors?

For the time being, three decisive defeats are already clear: economic isolation, greater internal social fragility and geopolitics against it.

Russia is in the process of financial and economic strangulation, oligarchs included.

And this despite the accumulated reserves of more than 650,000 million dollars since, for now, the severe sanctions save the energy sector.

Gas and oil continue to flow to the usual customers, including the EU.

Even when?

The West must calibrate it, because this is the sanction with the greatest boomerang effect.

More information

War in Ukraine, last minute live

To take this drastic step of cutting the supply, it would not be strange to have to wait for a renewed supply of Iranian production, for the moment inaccessible due to the sanctions against this country imposed for withdrawing from the nuclear agreement in 2020. It is an extraordinary coincidence , since, in these dark moments for diplomacy, the return of Iran to this transcendental pact for regional and global stability is being very actively negotiated in Vienna, by the EU, together with Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in addition to the US, China and Russia.

Putin's second defeat leads us to look at his stressed and manipulated society.

True, at the moment the mobilizations are limited and for this he has had to resort to the harshest of repressions against his fellow citizens, in particular the media,

whose journalists face long sentences if they spread the truth.

But, despite some social networks blocked, the messages flow, the videos are shared and the truth finds its way.

At any moment the apparent fragility of the soldiers' mothers can turn into force against them.

At key moments in the wars in Afghanistan or Chechnya, they played a decisive role.

With their unflappable search for the missing children at the front, they were a pillar of social consciousness, standing up to the lies of the Kremlin.

Now they receive messages that leave no doubt that the Russian invaders are deliberately shooting at the civilian population, at their peers.

Their children send them to them.

the videos are shared and the truth finds its way.

At any moment the apparent fragility of the soldiers' mothers can turn into force against them.

At key moments in the wars in Afghanistan or Chechnya, they played a decisive role.

With their unflappable search for the missing children at the front, they were a pillar of social consciousness, standing up to the lies of the Kremlin.

Now they receive messages that leave no doubt that the Russian invaders are deliberately shooting at the civilian population, at their peers.

Their children send them to them.

the videos are shared and the truth finds its way.

At any moment the apparent fragility of the soldiers' mothers can turn into force against them.

At key moments in the wars in Afghanistan or Chechnya, they played a decisive role.

With their unflappable search for the missing children at the front, they were a pillar of social consciousness, standing up to the lies of the Kremlin.

Now they receive messages that leave no doubt that the Russian invaders are deliberately shooting at the civilian population, at their peers.

Their children send them to them.

With their unflappable search for the missing children at the front, they were a pillar of social consciousness, standing up to the lies of the Kremlin.

Now they receive messages that leave no doubt that the Russian invaders are deliberately shooting at the civilian population, at their peers.

Their children send them to them.

With their unflappable search for the missing children at the front, they were a pillar of social consciousness, standing up to the lies of the Kremlin.

Now they receive messages that leave no doubt that the Russian invaders are deliberately shooting at the civilian population, at their peers.

Their children send them to them.

Outside masks.

The third defeat is geostrategic.

There is no disguise that hides what was behind Putin's direct, almost folksy style and incisive gaze.

Europe, with Germany in the lead, has lost its innocence.

A return to political realism.

And as a consequence of this, significant strategic changes of significance are predicted, particularly in the European continent.

How to better anchor and protect democracies?

How to promote transitions in institutionally fragile countries?

How to help in transitions?

Changes in the boundaries of key Western institutions can already be glimpsed once the guns are silenced.

And in no case will these changes be favorable to Putin's interests.

NATO and the EU are closer than ever.

And the condemnatory majority in the UN, too.

Russia resists for its veto.

Thus, from "you can make deals with him", as the CEOs of energy, chemical, mining... who visited him used to say, we have moved on to "no more deals".

The main, and probably the most difficult agreement to prepare with astuteness and strategic vision, is the eventual diplomatic negotiation.

Although this, unfortunately, is still far away.

Among other reasons, because of the bravery and determination of the Ukrainians and their vigorous president.

Yeltsin's Russia, in the 1990s, was extended the helping hand of the EU and NATO.

Moscow was active in reforming the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to give greater content to cooperative security in Europe that reform entailed.

In 1997, the G-7 became the G-8 until 2014, when the annexation of Crimea made membership unacceptable.

And in 2012, it entered the World Trade Organization.

This despite the fact that Russia's anchorage in the West began to turn around in 2007. With a cold speech at the Munich Security Conference, delivered before an undaunted Merkel, Putin began the journey towards the current position of claiming a new Yalta, for the force and at the expense of Ukraine.

The three defeats take him away from that destiny.

Cristina Gallach

is a former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and a member of Global Women Leaders Voices.

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber