Will Russia invade Ukraine? Will tensions escalate into conflict with the West?
For several weeks the world’s media have flooded their pages with analyses, reports and investigations on the situation between Russia and Ukraine.
They talk about escalating tensions in a long-running geopolitical conflict that has recently seen an increase in Russian troops on the border that has set off alarms before the possibility of a war between these two countries.
In fact, several leaders such as the president of France, François Macron, and even the US government have hinted that there is a high probability that Russia will invade Ukraine in order to prevent it from leaving the orbit of Russian military influence. and approach the West.
For its part, Moscow denies these speculations. and accuses the West of feeding anti-Russian sentiment to gain influence in this region of the planet.
Despite the imminence of the conflict highlighted by the media and which could lead to a confrontation between powers at a global level, this tension does not seem to be experienced on the streets of several Russian cities.
BBC journalists took to the streets to ask the inhabitants of the capital, Moscow.
“There will be no war. Why? Because I don’t believe the rumours. Putin said nothing will happen, so don’t try to make it up“, replied a Russian pensioner.
Another person consulted said: “I stopped watching TV, all these news about Ukraine, I’m fed up. I talk to my Ukrainian friends and they say everything is calm there too.”
“If Putin wanted to start a military operation in Ukraine, we would be the last to know, because in Moscow you don’t notice that tension,” Andrey Kortunov, head of the think-tank Russian Council for International Affairs.
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Many analysts point out that tensions between Russia and Ukraine could escalate into a global conflict.
“This is one of the reasons why I don’t believe, and many people who live in Russia feel the same way, that he is planning to invade Ukraine.”
This view is shared by many of the people consulted not only in Moscow, but in other parts of the country: that the situation is more critical in the news than what is actually perceived to be happening in the two neighboring countries.
Idyllic Vladimir
You have to travel about four hours east from Moscow to meet Vladimir.
In winter this Russian city looks like a postcard, especially because several of its buildings are historical heritage of humanity.
Although it is part of Russia and not close to the Ukrainian border, this city was founded by the Grand Prince of Kiev, which is proof that, despite the current differences, Russia and Ukraine have very close roots.
“My mother was born in the Ukraine and I did my military service when the Soviet Union existed. Russia and Ukraine are sister nations“, says Andrei, who agrees that there is this distance between what is read in the newspapers about the tensions and what happens on a day-to-day basis.
But he is clear that one of the nations has much more weight than the other.
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Ayten believes that the Russian government has tried to persuade people that they have an enemy.
“Of course Russia must have a sphere of influence. It is a military superpower. Now, the smaller countries should be able to choose who to ally with and the more powerful countries should be able to help them in that decision,” he adds.
According to BBC Moscow journalist Steve Rosenberg, many Russians believe in the message coming from the Kremlin: State media accuses the US, NATO and Ukraine of turning a diplomatic conflict into a war.
And from what the inhabitants of Vladimir themselves point out, they experience the consequences of these tensions in a different way. For example, seeing how it affects the price of food.
“I am concerned about what is happening in Ukraine, but I am more concerned about what is happening with the economy in Russia,” Lidia Ivanova, a resident of Vladimir, told the BBC.
Ivanova has a fruit and vegetable store in the central market and his biggest concern is having the money to pay the billssince the pension he receives is not enough.
The same goes for their neighbors and many other Russian citizens: “Of all the concerns that Russians have right now, from the economic crisis to the coronavirus pandemic, there is no appetite for a military escalation in Ukraine. Much less with the WestRosenberg points out.
However, that does not mean that there are not those who believe that things will end badly.
“I don’t feel hate coming from the West or NATO. I think it’s being created out of nothing and the russian government is trying to cross that line. They want them to hate us. They want us to believe that there is an enemy,” Ayten, a resident of Vladimir, tells the BBC.
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Andrei sees Ukraine as a necessary ally of Russia,
And he points out that Putin’s military threats on the border, which some experts describe as a strategy to achieve his political objectives, “should not be a tool used by the State in full 2022.”
“To think that people have to respect you because you’re threatening to destroy them… We should probably change what we saybecause we are not in the Middle Ages,” he said.
“An Impossible But Imminent War”
“What we are seeing is something curious: a war that seems impossible, but at the same time, imminent,” the Russian affairs analyst at the Wilson Center, Maxim Trudolyubov, tells BBC Mundo.
Trudolyubov, who lives in Moscow, explains that people continue to fill theaters and cafes and go about their lives as if nothing had happened, even though much is happening.
“What I think is happening is that many in the West don’t understand that these tensions have been going on for a long time. There have already been serious military incursions, That is why inside Russia people live differently, there are other concerns”says the analyst.
“There are people who when I talk to her tell me: ‘it’s just games,'” he adds.
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Russian military exercises continue around the border with Ukraine, in countries such as Turkey and Belarus.
However, Trudolyubov stresses his concern about the gap between what is seen on the streets and what experts think.
“I can’t remember another case in which popular opinion diverged so dramatically from expert opinion“, he notes.
He adds: “Today, many analysts think that the current deployments, as opposed to those of last spring, are a preparation for action.”
For him, as well as for other observers, it is clear that how the Russian military exercises in Belarus conclude will determine the direction the conflict takes in the coming months.
“I personally believe that Putin does not want to get involved in a conflict that could cost him bloodshed, neither in Ukraine nor much less in a war with the West, but we will have to be aware of what happens in the coming weeks“, he concludes.
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