Hans van Koningsbrugge, professor of Russian History and Politics at the University of Groningen, gives his commentary on the war in Ukraine every Saturday. Today episode 121.
“Just before New Year’s Eve, rocket attacks in both Ukraine and Russia caused the largest number of civilian casualties in the war so far. At least 55 people were killed in the Russian air raid on several Ukrainian cities on December 28. At least 32 residents were killed in Ukraine’s revenge attack on the southern Russian city of Belgorod two days later.
The war year 2023 thus had an extremely violent final chord. It is striking that Zelensky no longer hesitates to hit Russia hard on its own territory. Until then he promised to attack only military targets. He can no longer keep that promise after Belgorod. Putin, in turn, has announced that he wants to intensify the attacks.
‘Ukraine needs long-range weapons’
Against this background, Mart de Kruif, former commander of the Dutch army, does not rule out that the battle could turn into a ‘total war’.
If we believe that Ukraine should win, it should have access to many more long-range weapons. That is crucial. You can say that Ukraine should not hit Russia on its own territory, but that is slowly becoming a somewhat absurd position. After all, Russia continually attacks Ukraine domestically. Not only Kharkiv and Kyiv, but also further away cities such as Lviv and Odessa are being targeted.
‘The Netherlands is one of the military suppliers’
Anyway, right now a lot depends on what will happen in America. Whether President Biden’s promised arms support will receive the blessing of the Republicans in the US Congress. That is very important, especially now that Great Britain and France are reporting that they have run out of ammunition supplies. They do want to provide support, but only for setting up an arms industry in Ukraine.
Thanks to the transfer of F-16s, the Netherlands is currently one of Ukraine’s military suppliers. The question is of course where and how Ukraine will deploy those F-16s. Perhaps agreements have been made about this. It goes without saying that they are used for targets in Crimea; Russia occupied that peninsula. If they are also used to bomb military objects in the Russian Federation, then there will be a real escalation.”