As recently as February 22nd Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated, “There will be no war.” That may be the last time he makes such a prediction
FOR WEEKS now, an invasion of Ukraine has been predicted to occur “in the coming days”. Some prophecies have even had precise times attached: at one point American officials suggested that Russia would go to war at 3am on February 16th. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who has spent months pooh-poohing the prospect of war, ended up marking the date as a “day of unity”. Some Ukrainians were even jolly enough to wish one another an ironic “Happy Invasion Day”.
In a speech on February 21st, Mr Putin had argued that Ukraine only exists thanks to an arbitrary administrative decision by Vladimir Lenin, who oversaw the creation of the Soviet Union’s republics after the Communists took control of imperial Russia in 1917. In Ukraine’s case, Mr Putin argued, Lenin was “severing what is historically Russian land”. The speech was meant to boost support for war at home, but Ukrainians were watching too.
This might help explain, along with some uncharacteristic sunshine in February, why the mood in Kyiv is at once macabre and slightly cheerful. Elation has followed the arrival of new sanctions on Russia from the West, including the longed-for suspension by Germany of Nord Stream 2, a big gas pipeline from Russia on the verge of going into service. And it still helps that large sections of the population remain unconvinced that war is coming.
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