4.20.22
The war in Ukraine massively intensified during its eighth week. Ukraine sank Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea, Russia launched a new phase of the war with a concerted bid to take over the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, and the United States began to ship heavy artillery to Ukraine. This military escalation stood in contrast to the lack of diplomatic or economic developments. Russian-Ukrainian talks have stalled and the West has stopped escalating sanctions, instead shipping more weapons to Ukraine. “This morning, almost along the whole front line of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, the occupiers attempted to break through our defences,” said Oleksiy Davilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told Ukrainian media on April 18. “Fortunately our military is holding out. They passed through only two towns – Kreminna and another small one.” Russian attacks were reported along a 500km (300-mile) front. In the area of Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces retook the towns of Bazaliivka, Lebyazhe, and Kutuzivka, as well as smaller villages, in a counteroffensive begun on April 16. Ukrainian counterattacks also continued just west of Kherson, in the southwest of the country.
Russia has tried and failed to control Ukraine through different strategies – political intrigue, diplomacy, ultimatum, and outright conquest, said Jose Miguel Alonso-Trabanco, a researcher at New Zealand’s Massey University. Now it is trying partition. “The Russians are concentrating their efforts on eastern Ukraine, a shift that could indicate their interest in negotiating from a position of strength, or the partition of Ukraine so that they can directly control the Donbas, the coastline – including places like Mariupol and Odesa – and much of what lies east of the Dnieper River,” Alonso-Trabanco told Al Jazeera, expressing his personal opinion. However, if even partition fails, he said he believes the war could become one of complete annihilation. “If the Russians are unable to reach a quick victory and this military intervention becomes a long war, then Moscow could likely refocus its efforts and capabilities towards the outright dismantlement of Ukraine as a functional national state,” said Alonso-Trabanco. “That would entail the massive obliteration of infrastructure, territorial fragmentation, political and economic instability and an even larger exodus of population,” he said. “A country under such chaotic conditions can’t have a viable future.”