BERLIN/MOSKAU (dpa-AFX) – The Eastern Europe expert and historian Serhii Plokhy already sees Ukraine as the victor in the Russian war of aggression, regardless of the outcome of the planned major offensive. “From a historical point of view, Ukraine has already won because it survived the attack and is fighting for its existence,” said the director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (HURI) of the German Press Agency. The historian is presenting his book “The Attack. Russia’s War Against Ukraine and Its Consequences for the World” (Hoffmann and Campe) in Berlin, which will be published this Thursday.
At the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022, as head of the Kremlin Wladimir Putin Assuming the country would be conquered within a few days, it was not clear whether the country would survive, Plokhy said. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has faced the fight for democracy and independence.
Even if the forthcoming counter-offensive may not bring the expected result in terms of retaking territory for the country, “it will not break Ukraine’s morale”. The 65-year-old expert believes it is possible that Ukraine, which is striving to join the EU and NATO, could end up being a divided country – like Germany after the Second World War. “There is no chance that Ukraine will ever recognize the loss of territories. No country has ever done so,” said the researcher. “The war can end without Ukraine having full control over its territory.”
Russia, on the other hand, could become part of a new bipolar world order with the US on one side and China on the other. However, Moscow is no longer the one pole, as it was in the Cold War, but Beijing’s junior partner. China is the main beneficiary of the war – for example because it receives cheap raw materials such as oil and gas from Russia and thus remains economically competitive, said the researcher.
In his book, Plokhy, who was born in Russia and has Ukrainian citizenship in addition to the USA, traces the historical background to Russia’s invasion and repeatedly goes into the smallest detail of various stages of the defensive struggle and Russia’s defeats. According to Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, the book will first have its world premiere in German and will only be published in the USA afterwards. In addition to the story, Plokhy also processed the war events up to December 2022 in the book./mau/DP/mis