Makaleler

Just as diplomats at the United Nations Security Council were calling for peace at the last minute, Russian fire began to rain down on Ukraine.

On a troubling night marked by an address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that sounded like a celebration of democracy, decades of peace between peoples on European soil ended with loud explosions in many Ukrainian cities. For several hours, a live video showed a convoy of military vehicles entering the country from Belarus, where Russian troops were concentrated. And soon thunderous explosions rumbled over the capital city of Kiev as air raid sirens wailed, heralding a dangerous new crisis for a world already in turmoil.

This will have consequences, including painful surges in already high gas prices for Americans trying to get out of a once-in-a-century pandemic. And it could revive the Cold War, which once seemed like a relic of history, creating a dangerous new standoff between the US and Russia, the world's largest nuclear powers. President Joe Biden will introduce the harshest set of sanctions ever imposed on Russia when he addresses the nation later.

In addition to challenging the US-led world order, the Americans will pay a price for this attack, although they do not come under fire. Rising gas prices and inflation are inevitable. Oil soared above $100 a barrel almost as soon as the Russian offensive began.

And since Putin demanded the withdrawal of troops from NATO from the former Soviet satellite states that joined the organization, this is also an American crisis. The United States will not send troops to fight Russia directly in Ukraine, given that Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, does not enjoy the alliance's mutual defense guarantees. But it is almost certain that Washington will have to send troops back to support its European allies and to the bases they began to abandon 30 years ago. The Baltic countries - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - suddenly look vulnerable and, unlike Ukraine, are NATO members that the US is bound to protect by treaty. There is also the possibility of a US-funded insurgency in Ukraine, raising the risky prospect of another proxy war between Washington and Moscow.

More broadly, Putin's attack on Ukraine is yet another challenge to America's global power and the concept of a unipolar world that multiplies its influence.

The scale and duration of the operation, carried out by tens of thousands of Russian troops concentrated throughout Ukraine, has not yet been determined. A senior US official familiar with the latest US intelligence said this had long been predicted by the United States.

In the early fog of war, it is still too early to tell the extent of resistance the Russians will face if they overthrow the government in Ukraine, or if an invasion sparks an insurgency that kills Russian troops and creates conditions that could challenge the Putin regime.

One Russia expert, former senior CIA officer Paul Kolbe, said that invading a country larger than France or Germany could end up creating an unsustainable situation for the Russians and was a huge gamble.