Tout comprendre à la guerre en Ukraine en 6 minutes — Transcript

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1. 0:00We have been living in quite a peculiar
2. 0:02time since the launch of Russia's
3. 0:03offensive against Ukraine on February
4. 0:0524, 2022. And even though it will be
5. 0:07completely impossible to tell the whole
6. 0:08story in 5 minutes, I will try my best
7. 0:09to help you understand what is behind
8. 0:11all of this. The thing to understand is
9. 0:18that the conflict between Russia and
10. 0:19Ukraine has actually been going on for
11. 0:21a long time. For example, in 2008,
12. 0:23Putin said in the newspaper Kommersant:
13. 0:25"But what is Ukraine? It's not even a
14. 0:27state, part of its territory is Central
15. 0:29Europe. The other part, the most
16. 0:30important one, is what we gave it." In
17. 0:33fact, more than 30 years after the
18. 0:34collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the
19. 0:36country's independence, there have
20. 0:38always been major divisions in Ukraine,
21. 0:39starting with language. According to a
22. 0:41census that took place in 2001 in the
23. 0:43regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, the
24. 0:45share of the population that identifies
25. 0:47Russian as their first language in
26. 0:49these regions is 69 and 75%. And in
27. 0:51Crimea, which was annexed in 2014 by
28. 0:53Russia, it is more than 76%of people.
29. 0:56And the real problems in this conflict
30. 0:58began to arise in 2004 during the
31. 0:59presidential election where the
32. 1:01pro-European candidate named Viktor
33. 1:03Yushchenko was elected. The problem is
34. 1:05that the election completely split the
35. 1:07country in two. The pro-European
36. 1:08candidate achieved scores between 70
37. 1:11and 95%in the west of the country.
38. 1:13While his pro-Russian opponent achieved
39. 1:15scores of over 90%in the regions of
40. 1:17Donetsk and Luhansk. And it is these
41. 1:19regions that were recognized as
42. 1:21independent by Putin on February 21.
43. 1:22And so in 2014, Russia made a power
44. 1:24move by annexing Crimea, which is just
45. 1:26a small peninsula in the south of the
46. 1:28country. And this military annexation
47. 1:31was validated by a referendum on March
48. 1:3316, 2014, with almost 97%of the Crimean
49. 1:36population voting in favor of joining
50. 1:38Moscow. At the same time, pro-Russian
51. 1:40demonstrations took place in the east
52. 1:42and south of the country, notably in
53. 1:44Kharkiv, Odessa, and Donetsk. And this
54. 1:46marks the beginning of the war that we
55. 1:47call the war in the Donbas. Donbas is
56. 1:49the name of the region in question. And
57. 1:51it was at this moment that President
58. 1:52Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown. And
59. 1:54on May 11, 2014, two referendums were
60. 1:56launched in Donetsk and Luhansk, but
61. 1:58they were not recognized by either the
62. 2:00Europeans or the Ukrainian government.
63. 2:03And in these independence referendums,
64. 2:04the "Yes" vote wins overwhelmingly
65. 2:06every time. Anyway, on September 5,
66. 2:082014, a little later, a first ceasefire
67. 2:10was signed, which didn't really work.
68. 2:13And so a new ceasefire was signed in
69. 2:152015 under the name of the Minsk II
70. 2:16agreements. These agreements split the
71. 2:19Donbas region in two, with the
72. 2:21territories controlled by the
73. 2:22pro-European Kiev government on one
74. 2:24side, and the self-proclaimed Republics
75. 2:26of Donetsk and Luhansk, held by
76. 2:27pro-Russian separatist groups, on the
77. 2:29other. And things remained more or less
78. 2:32like that until October 2021, when
79. 2:33Russia began amassing military troops
80. 2:35near these two regions on the Ukrainian
81. 2:36border. And I mean a lot of troops,
82. 2:38hundreds of thousands of troops. In
83. 2:40December 2021, the Chief of the Russian
84. 2:42General Staff estimated that since Kiev
85. 2:44had started using anti-tank systems
86. 2:46called Javelins, provided by the United
87. 2:48States, in the Donbas, the Ukrainian
88. 2:50government was violating the Minsk
89. 2:52agreements. And so a month later, in
90. 2:54January 2022, the Secretary of the
91. 2:56National Security and Defense Council
92. 2:58of Ukraine stated that complying with
93. 2:59the Minsk agreements would mean the
94. 3:01destruction of the country. Because, I
95. 3:03quote, "When they were signed under the
96. 3:05threat of the Russian army, it was
97. 3:06already clear to any rational person
98. 3:08that it was impossible to implement
99. 3:10these documents." And that brings us to
100. 3:12February 15, 2022, when the Duma, the
101. 3:14lower house of the Federal Assembly of
102. 3:16the Russian Federation, voted on a
103. 3:17request to President Putin to recognize
104. 3:19the independence of the self-proclaimed
105. 3:21Republics in eastern Ukraine. And that
106. 3:24is absolutely not in compliance with
107. 3:25the Minsk agreements. Then Russia
108. 3:27officially recognized the independence
109. 3:29of these Republics on February 21, 2022
110. 3:31. And on February 22, Putin decreed
111. 3:33that the Minsk agreements no longer
112. 3:35existed and that it was Ukraine, not
113. 3:37Russia, to blame for their collapse.
114. 3:39Immediately following this, he ordered
115. 3:41the Russian army to enter the
116. 3:42territories of the self-proclaimed
117. 3:44Republics to maintain peace. But within
118. 3:46just a few days, this invasion became a
119. 3:47full-scale one across the country. And
120. 3:49at the time I am recording this video,
121. 3:50Russian troops are already visible in
122. 3:52the capital, Kiev, which is very far
123. 3:53from those regions. And this is where
124. 3:55Europe is having a really hard time
125. 3:56taking a stance, because technically,
126. 3:58Ukraine is neither in the European
127. 3:59Union nor in NATO. NATO is a
128. 4:01political-military alliance that was
129. 4:03created in 1949 and today includes
130. 4:05about thirty countries. And the problem
131. 4:07for Russia is that NATO has been
132. 4:08constantly expanding for 30 years. And
133. 4:10in particular, Ukraine has been asking
134. 4:11to join for quite some time now. And
135. 4:12the current president, Volodymyr
136. 4:14Zelenskyy, urgently renewed his request
137. 4:15for membership when the Russian
138. 4:17invasion began. But until now, there
139. 4:19was a consensus among NATO members to
140. 4:21deny Ukraine entry, precisely to avoid
141. 4:23triggering a major crisis with Russia.
142. 4:26Because the real problem for Russia
143. 4:28regarding NATO is that, according to
144. 4:29Édouard Simon, research director at
145. 4:31the French Institute for International
146. 4:33and Strategic Affairs, NATO’s primary
147. 4:35and historical mission has never truly
148. 4:36disappeared: defending Europe during
149. 4:38the Cold War against the Soviet threat.
150. 4:41And so the thing is, when Russian
151. 4:43troops started massing on the Ukrainian
152. 4:45border, Putin clearly stated he would
153. 4:47only remove them if NATO committed to
154. 4:49completely refusing Ukraine entry into
155. 4:51its alliance. And that condition was
156. 4:54actually rejected. Russia has
157. 4:55absolutely no desire to be a direct
158. 4:57neighbor of NATO. And for several weeks
159. 4:59now, Putin has been repeating that he
160. 5:01demands an end to NATO’s enlargement
161. 5:03policy and no military deployments that
162. 5:05could threaten Russia. Which includes
163. 5:07the withdrawal of NATO military bases
164. 5:08in Eastern Europe. And those conditions
165. 5:10were also refused. So why does Ukraine
166. 5:12find itself all alone today? Simply
167. 5:14because, technically, going to war with
168. 5:16a NATO country automatically involves
169. 5:17all 30 countries of the alliance.
170. 5:19It’s called the principle of
171. 5:20collective defense. And since Ukraine
172. 5:22is not a part of it today, if a country
173. 5:24were to send soldiers on the ground to
174. 5:26help them defend themselves, that
175. 5:27country would effectively be going to
176. 5:29war alone against Russia. So the only
177. 5:31thing other countries can really do is
178. 5:33send equipment, and that’s it.
179. 5:34That’s what explains this sort of
180. 5:36general paralysis and the sanctions,
181. 5:37which are actually purely economic.
182. 5:38There is even talk of removing Russia
183. 5:40from the international banking system,
184. 5:42SWIFT, even though some countries are
185. 5:43still opposed to it for now. In short,
186. 5:45other heavy economic sanctions have
187. 5:46started to roll out, notably by
188. 5:48freezing the assets of some Russian
189. 5:50oligarchs and billionaires. But
190. 5:51actually, economically suffocating
191. 5:53Russia is almost impossible for one
192. 5:54very good reason. It can always turn to
193. 5:56China if it needs to conduct trade. And
194. 5:59so, it will still be able to sell its
195. 6:00products to the rest of the world via
196. 6:02China. In 2014, after the annexation of
197. 6:04Crimea, there were already economic
198. 6:05sanctions, so Russia simply learned how
199. 6:07to manage without Europe. And since the
200. 6:10threat of cutting them off from the
201. 6:11SWIFT banking system was already
202. 6:13brandished in 2014, Russian banks
203. 6:14created their own system, and the
204. 6:16billionaires whose assets we're
205. 6:17freezing have already moved their
206. 6:19wealth back a while ago. Furthermore,
207. 6:21one of Europe's biggest problems is
208. 6:23that Russian natural gas accounts for a
209. 6:24huge portion of our energy imports. So,
210. 6:27in effect, sanctions that were too
211. 6:28heavy and completely cut us off from
212. 6:29Russia would be complicated for both
213. 6:31sides. And besides, for sanctions to
214. 6:33work, China needs to at least remain
215. 6:34neutral in the conflict. Given this
216. 6:36alliance between China and Russia, the
217. 6:38sanctions have a very limited impact.
218. 6:41Well, clearly it's hard to cover all
219. 6:42these topics in five minutes, but I
220. 6:43hope this gives you a better
221. 6:45understanding of why there is suddenly
222. 6:46a war in Europe in 2022. Don't hesitate
223. 6:48to provide more info in the comments if
224. 6:49you have any, or ask questions, or
225. 6:51answer other people's questions. Right
226. 6:52now, we really need information.
227. 6:54Alright, see you later. He he he.