A few weeks ago a study was published in the journal sciences Which showed that A chimpanzee can change his mind When they receive new information that makes them see that they are wrong. Behavior that brings them closer to humans…or at least that’s what the researchers claimed.
Are we humans really capable of questioning what we believe? Not as much as one would expect from a species that defines itself as rational. No, I don’t intend to talk about politics now – which may be the area where our convictions are most limited – But about the war in Ukraine, where no one seems to want to take a step back. Not on the battlefield, nor on the slippery arena of opinion.
In the first months of the war, Kremlin supporters, conditioned by their own chosen readings, used to assure anyone who would listen that the number of dead and wounded among Zelensky’s forces was It should have been much higher than Putin’s. What was your argument? In addition to the faith that moves mountains, they had one fact in their favor: that the experience of the wars of the previous century had shown that most of the casualties were due to artillery, and at that time, Russia launches many missiles every day From Ukraine. Three years later, this reasoning is still heard despite the fact that all analysts, including pro-Russian ones, recognize that drones are responsible for up to 80% of casualties on both sides.
Something similar happens when assessing what is happening these days in the city of Pokrovsk, which is about to fall into Putin’s hands. Those who predicted that Russia would enter Kiev in two days, then in two months, then in two years, are now advocating the fall of the city – which before the war was an important road and railway centre. This will mean the beginning of the end for Ukraine.
Are they right? The truth is that if you ask them, they themselves admit that it has been several months since then Nothing of importance flows through Pokrovsk. Zelensky had to do without this crossroads, and if we talk about railways, the trains no longer even reach Kramatorsk, Ukraine’s strongest stronghold in Donbass.
If not for Kiev, would the city be valuable to Moscow’s forces? Focal points are actually important in maneuver warfare because… They facilitate the rapid advance of mechanized units. Some of them were the scene of major battles in World War II. However, the same is not true in Ukraine. With the ever-present threat of drones, most of their advances are on foot and across country.
Pokrovsk will fall, and its fall will have limited operational value, This will have moral implications inside and outside Ukraine, and Zelensky will have to work to mitigate them. But the city had already played its part in a war in which the only strategy available to Kiev, clearly outnumbered, was to hold out, giving up space as slowly as possible in exchange for time. Time why? In the hope that the blood of Russian soldiers and the sanctions imposed by the West will weaken the will of the aggressor.
How long can Ukraine hold out? How much do you need? Putin is gambling in his war. He will not be the one to consider the game a losing one, and he will not tolerate the faltering of the will of his people. Ho Chi Minh, the leader of Vietnam’s independence, had better cards than Zelensky because he was a dictator and faced democracy. In Ukraine, things are exactly the opposite: it is the community that is under attack, not the aggressor, that can demonstrate against the war. The time will come when that happens.
Under these circumstances, the precedents of Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq are of little use. It’s hard to know who will last longer. However, Ukrainian forces are generally doing a good job. It is true that their strongholds end up falling, but the cities occupied by the Russians become increasingly smaller and resist the attacks of their enemies longer. The Pokrovsk campaign began in February last year. The city has been holding out for 21 months now Its population before the war was only 60 thousand people. More than twice as much as Bakhmut (80,000 people, occupied in May 2023), which in turn endured much more than Severodonetsk (100,000 people, occupied in June 2022), and the latter more than Mariupol (400,000 people, occupied in May 2022).
But I’m not sure about that The West’s response lives up to what is at stake. Ukraine is by far the best defense we Europeans have against Putin and what he represents: a world in which there is no law but the law of the strongest. Despite this fact, we negotiated our support and forced it to resist the Russian forces with the materials we had left behind and, moreover, delivered in small quantities. I hope we don’t have to regret it.
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