World News: World Wearies as Ukraine War Drags On

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Category: World News - Europe

Published on Wednesday, 15 June 2022 11:45

Written by Olivier Longhi

As the most violent conflict that Europe has experienced since the end of World War II drags on world public opinion, preoccupied by other themes of a social or economic nature, is showing signs of weariness.

Between abstention rates, gradual rise in interest rates, possible cohabitation and heat wave, France, and with it a large part of the West, seems to have somewhat lost interest in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Several reasons explain this loss of attention, starting with the stalemate of a war that some thought was fast, even lightning, arguing in a low voice that the Ukrainian opposition, certainly brave and courageous, would hardly resist the Russian power.

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However, if every day that passes is a reminder of the conflict, if only by the part of this war in the soaring prices, it simply appears that a form of weariness affects many of us in view of this crisis with effects that are nevertheless essential in the diplomatic and geostrategic balance of Europe.

From there to think that one news chases the other, the step is quickly taken but turns out to be true as the conflict no longer seems to be apriority, supplanted by other themes erected as an emergency. The proximity of the summer period, the baccalaureate exams or the destinations chosen for the holidays are all happier and less anxiety-provoking themes for many of us.

Having to Negotiate

The fate of the Ukrainians, who had moved us so much during the first days of the conflict, where political and geopolitical analyses, demonstrations of support, donation campaigns and other gestures of solidarity multiplied, is now moving to the second or even third rank of concerns.

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Proof of this is the statements of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, who announced on June 15 that Ukraine must prepare to negotiate with Vladimir Putin's Russia. The latter announced moribund dozens of times and its president with it, yet still have a foothold in Ukraine. So what partition is Volodymyr Zelensky's country heading towards?

After the emotion of the conflict and that linked to the dozens of military victims, or innocent civilians of the conflict, Ukraine will certainly have to agree to cede the territories under Russian influence since 2014 as well as the port of Mariupol and perhaps that of Odessa. These symbolic and strategic war catches for Vladimir Putin will constitute the heart of the negotiations between the two belligerents.

Far from France and much of the world, these war goals, in the eyes of Ukrainians impossible to abandon, are for the rest of the planet only confetti in the immensity of the problems to come.

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Mobilized Rivalries

"Cowardice!" will shout some and rightly so, while others will argue that Europe and the Western camp have already done a lot for a devastated Ukraine. Faced with a conflict that is ultimately regional with global consequences because it is quick to mobilize the old or current rivalries between the United States, China and Russia, it also appears that this war escapes many of us in its deep motives.

Certainly Russian hegemony, the desire to create a cordon sanitaire between the West and Eastern Europe, the expansion of NATO are all pretexts put forward by Vladimir Putin to justify this conflict, but these included, without being accepted, refer to resentments, and to hatreds cooked and annealed between the two peoples who are foreign to the Westerners, in a hurry on their side to move on, in any case no longer have to worry about an increasingly distant conflict.

Legitimate or not, this feeling that pushes us away from the ills of Ukrainians refers to human instincts judged as sometimes the vilest: selfishness and individualism. Surely. But as Machiavelli recalled, not without realism, "Men do not know how to be entirely good or entirely evil."

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Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist, recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, a press and publishing consultant, and a communications consultant.