If we summarize the current situation of this war, Ukraine's available forces are now at their lowest. It is clear that Russia has gained the upper hand, and Putin is leading the war in line with his original intentions. President Putin's goal was to dismantle the unipolar system led by the United States and establish a multipolar system. Hello, I am Professor Ryu Hansoo from the Department of History Content at Sangmyung University. I mainly specialize in Russian modern history and European history. It has been quite a while since the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out. How is the current situation? In fact, in February 2022, everyone's expectations were shattered when President Putin ordered the Russian military to officially invade Ukraine, starting the war. It has been almost two years now, heading into the third year, and there have been many changes during this time.

Recently, if we summarize the current situation of the war in North Korea in the past two to three months, Ukraine's available forces are now being exposed. Therefore, it seems that the Ukrainian military is not able to defend properly against the Russian military's offensive. In the end, it would be advantageous for Russia if the war ends in the short term, but there were some difficulties for the Russian military as the war transitioned into a long-term one. One of the influences of the Russian military is their ability to conduct attrition warfare. By continuing this attrition warfare, they can weaken the opponent's strength and then seize the momentum of the war. In terms of Ukraine, it is a relatively large country. How large is it? It is a country larger than France or Germany in Europe, and it is also the largest country in terms of land area.

The size of the confession of Russia will be two to three times larger, so even if the Russian military is considered to have the second most powerful military in the world, it was not the original goal to occupy the large country of Ukraine, and Russia itself knows that it does not have that kind of influence. Therefore, the aspect of turning Ukraine into a country that cannot function normally and conduct any major wars to the maximum is what Russia primarily aims for. Thus, they mainly occupied the eastern territory where many pro-Russian residents in Ukraine live. It is not Russia's clear goal to expand further from this territory to occupy the rest of Ukraine. Even if Putin abandons negotiations, securing the eastern Ukrainian territory occupied by the Russian military is what he is currently aiming for.

So, the United States, a Western country, is continuously supporting Ukraine, which it did not do before, but recently started providing long-range missiles to Ukraine to help them. Providing these long-range missiles means that Ukraine's military can directly target Russian territory, not areas like Moscow or St. Petersburg, but the border regions where the war is taking place. By attacking these border regions using long-range missiles, Ukraine's military aims to make these Russian target areas safer. To achieve this, they need to limit attacks to a certain extent.

It seems that Russia's goal is to expand its territory as much as possible to the west. Therefore, it can be said that the full occupation of Ukrainian territory is actually beyond the scope. They are expanding the occupied territory through limited offensives. As I mentioned earlier, this is to secure the safety of the border areas with Russia. Next, it is clear that eventually a peace deal will be reached. In order to gain a favorable position in negotiations, it seems that Russia needs to occupy more territory. By pursuing these two goals, they conduct offensives. There are talks that the United States and Europe are stepping back from supporting Ukraine. What is the situation? I would like to use an analogy. Before the war, that is, before the war broke out, for the United States, it was like Russia attacking Ukraine, and they are in a quagmire.

Considering the situation where Russia suffered economic sanctions and supported the overthrow of Ukraine, we can now say that Russia has fallen into the trap. Russia, often symbolized by a bear, set a huge trap to catch this big bear, but now the Russian bear has fallen into it. The bear was caught in the trap, and it was expected that the Russian bear would eventually fall. Unexpectedly, Russia's resilience was stronger than anticipated by the United States. Despite being caught in the trap, the bear did not fall and continued to endure the prolonged war. Consequently, the U.S.'s expectations were wrong. Thus, initially, there was strong public opinion in the U.S. to support Ukraine in the early stages of the war.

As public opinion diminishes, why should we unnecessarily interfere and consume our American energy? This opinion is strong. Furthermore, currently, Trump clearly holds that position. So, in my view, the current U.S. Biden administration continues to support Ukraine, but not with the goal of helping Ukraine gain the upper hand, reverse the Russian forces, and win the war. Their aim seems to be to prevent the rapid collapse of the Ukrainian army. Therefore, it seems that the Biden administration has been supporting Ukraine to prevent its collapse so far. The U.S. presidential election is said to be five months away.

If it collapses rapidly, Biden's tournament policy is likely to fail, and if Trump candidate exerts tremendous pressure, the next president is likely to fail in re-election. To prevent such a situation, it is believed that support for Ukraine is necessary. On the other hand, countries like the UK, France, and Germany have aligned with the US to support Ukraine. However, even there, domestic public opinion is not very favorable. Recently, in European countries, parties advocating extreme right-wing, anti-immigrant, and anti-refugee policies have been gaining ground. Under these circumstances, it is highly likely that the current European countries' full support for Ukraine will pose a significant obstacle. As for the Ukraine war, how will it end? It's already out of the question for the war to end in the short term; it has been unfolding as a long-term battle.

In the past two years, if we look at the newspaper reports in our country, it seems like they have been portraying how sloppy the Russian military is and how Russia has significant economic problems, making it seem like there are huge issues in conducting a long-term war. In my opinion, it was quite an exaggerated report. Of course, it is a clear fact that Russia, which initiated the war, is responsible. Therefore, it is understandable for us to have negative feelings towards Russia. However, despite that, emotional factors should not influence objective judgments. A country like ours should assess international affairs with a cold and rational perspective. It is a fact that Russia has gained the upper hand now. The problem is that with Russia's victory, the war is likely to come to an end with Russia prevailing.

The issue is whether the war will end in a relatively short period or continue for a longer time. Experts with more specialized knowledge of international relations than me anticipate that some form of agreement will be reached in about a year and a half from now. It will be decided through negotiations, and eventually, a ceasefire will be achieved, leading to a reorganization of power relations. Looking ahead, this period of power readjustment is expected to take about one to one and a half years. What does the Russo-Ukrainian war mean politically? Putin's politics have put him in a difficult situation, like riding a tiger - once you mount, you can't get off, and you can't keep riding either. President Putin's tough stance was expressed, but in the end, this will be the outcome.

When it comes to war, you can gain tremendous benefits, but if it goes wrong, Putin's political power could crumble in an instant. So, Putin took a huge gamble, but regardless of the process, the results now show that Putin is leading the war in a way that benefits him originally. So, when you think about Putin's goal in starting the war, on a larger scale, Putin's goal was to dismantle the US unipolar system and establish a multipolar system. So, the biggest dissatisfaction was with the system where the US, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, has been the unchallenged top hegemonic power for almost 30 years in shaping the world order, and the person with the biggest dissatisfaction with this system was President Putin.

According to the expression, this world is not democratic because the United States monopolizes all kinds of hegemony. So, in order to achieve global democracy, it was argued that such unipolar system should collapse and transition to a multipolar system. It seems to be flowing in that direction. Of course, Russia knows very well that it is impossible to replace the United States and take its place. They just aim to pull down the United States from the top, and along with China, Russia, or other countries, they may try to change the global situation. In this grand picture of creating such a system, war contributes to Putin's grand picture.

푸틴 전쟁 오히려 좋아 러시아 전쟁 승리 직전이다 (류한수 교수 / 1부)

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