Sanctions, Refugees, Mediators, Weapons: A Dictionary for the Russo-Ukrainian War

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In the old biblical story, David vs. Goliath, a simple sheepherder wins over a ten-foot giant, teaching us that sometimes

.

Despite the fact that the Russian giant invades Ukraine by air, sea and land (and even threatens the world with pressing the "nuclear button"), the Ukrainian people resist;

The hours pass and he continues to stand up to him.

He mixes Molotov cocktails against the tanks and hides in the shelters when the alarms sound.

The war jumps from Kiev to all the televisions on the planet and, with it, an army of new words, proper names and concepts that until recently were strange sneak into our lives.

This is the dictionary of war.

Kyiv

It is the capital of Ukraine and more than 3.5 million people live in its metropolitan area.

It is the largest industrial, scientific and cultural center of the country.

Kiev has been, since Ukraine's independence in 1991,

.

At the end of 2004, it was the scene of the Orange Revolution in which thousands of people demanded a repeat of elections branded as fraudulent and where the country's rapprochement with the West and NATO was confirmed.

In 2014, the Independence Square (Maidan), baptized the protests in favor of the EU (Euromaidan), which later spread to other areas of the country and led to the never resolved

, one of Russia's pretexts for launch the invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

In recent days there has been some debate about

Kiev or Kyiv.

Ukrainians call it "Kyiv" (ki-iv), a transliteration of Ukrainian.

The Russian version is "Kiev" (kee-yev).

The reason for the difference between the two is tied to linguistic evolution in a region that has been under Mongol, Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian control over the last 1,000 years.

Since the war began, some international media such as 'The New York Times', CNN, BBC or 'The Guardian', as well as some foreign governments, have adopted the Ukrainian name.

In Spain there has been no change and Fundéu continues to recommend its Russian spelling.

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a political-military alliance founded in 1949 by 12 countries, including

,

, and the

Currently, 30 countries make up the so-called Atlantic Alliance, where all decisions are made unanimously.

There is a consensus among its members not to integrate Ukraine so as not to offend Russia.

Thus, one of the arguments used by Putin to deploy tens of thousands of soldiers on the border with Ukraine for months is that the latter could not and should not enter NATO because that put Russia's security and integrity at risk.

Is it impossible for NATO to carry out a military campaign in Ukraine?

The Alliance has intervened on two occasions in

.

In Kosovo and in Libya.

In 1999, NATO planes bombed Belgrade for weeks - without the approval of the UN Security Council - in retaliation against Serbia for the ethnic cleansing it was carrying out in Kosovo.

Several humanitarian organizations accused the Alliance of having committed war crimes in attacks that did not have the approval of the Security Council.

In 2011, with the authorization of the United Nations to "protect civilians and populated areas", the Alliance intervened in Libya in the context of clashes between opponents and supporters of Gaddafi.

NATO members do have to protect each other in case one of them is attacked (Russia has directly threatened Finland and Sweden, which are not part of the Alliance, as well as other EU countries such as Austria, Ireland , Malta and Cyprus).

It's called the principle of

it's enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, and it was first invoked in 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks.

sanctions

From shyness to forcefulness.

From applying measures with few repercussions to breaking all taboos.

European countries have been showing themselves more and more firm against Russia.

Brussels yesterday approved the total closure of its airspace to all Russian aircraft and banned the broadcasts (in the EU) of Russia Today and Sputnik, two of the media most closely related to the Kremlin.

It has also been agreed

international, in order to isolate the Russian economy.

Additionally, certain Russian banks have been removed from the Swift messaging system to isolate them from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.

Swift is the foundation of the global financial architecture and is used by 11,000 banks in 200 countries or territories to make transfers.

However, the effectiveness of this measure is limited, since the ban does not affect payments for energy purchases from Moscow, so oil and natural gas will probably continue to flow freely.

Other announced sanctions are aimed at Russian state-owned companies or are intended to limit the granting of

that make it easier for very wealthy Russians to gain citizenship in European countries.

The case of the United Kingdom is particular, criticized for not doing enough against the Russian oligarchs who have been installed in the country for decades and who are defended by an army of experienced lawyers.

Neither the assassination by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London nor the attempted assassination of the Skripals (both of which took place in the UK) have made British governments stop these billionaires.

Weapons

The last to appear on the war board, even in the form of a threat, have been

Vladimir Putin put his deterrent forces on high alert on Sunday.

Although in the daily part of the war Russia insists that its

and avoids civilian casualties as much as possible, the images from the front confirm the opposite.

The deployed arsenal even includes a heavy flamethrower (TOS-1) that can launch

, incendiary and fuel-air explosives, the latter with the ability to generate high-temperature explosions.

It is one of the weapons systems with the greatest destructive potential.

For its part, Amnesty International has denounced that "the Russian Army uses ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide-ranging effects in densely populated areas. Some of these attacks may be war crimes," in the words of the AI ​​secretary general, Agnes Callamard.

On the other side, the Ukrainian forces are resisting for the moment against the Russian military power in a dramatically unequal combat (compared to the almost 16,000 armored vehicles of Moscow, Ukraine has 3,300).

In Kiev, there are more and more

identified with yellow armbands, people who until a few days ago had never picked up a weapon.

The country's deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, urged the entire population to resist and encouraged them to make homemade weapons.

The party of the mayor of Kiev has even published on the Internet the

made by pouring a flammable liquid into a glass bottle).

"We welcome the invader with a Ukrainian cocktail," the statement said.

Refugees from Ukraine

The number of Ukrainians fleeing the war is growing exponentially every day.

If on Friday, a day after the beginning of the invasion, there were about 50,000, UNHCR has already raised that figure to 500,000 people, of which more than half entered

although they are also fleeing to neighboring countries such as Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and Romania.

, as many men have responded to the Ukrainian president's call to fight Russian troops.

The EU has approved the application of the Temporary Protection Directive (adopted in 2001), which provides for the granting of protection to displaced persons and which has never been applied until now.

This regulation would grant immediate protection to all Ukrainians for one year (extendable for another two years).

Raw Materials

Russia and Ukraine are key countries in the global supply of strategic raw materials, for industrial or food use.

As a result of the war, the price of many of these materials has skyrocketed, reaching levels never seen before.

Since 2018, Russia is the world's leading exporter of wheat, "crucial" to feed the planet.

Ukraine is the largest exporter of sunflower oil and the fourth largest exporter of corn in the world.

What is most worrying is that, due to military movements in the Sea of ​​Azov and the Black Sea,

.

Added to that is the risk of crop damage if the war continues over time.

There are other raw materials affected, such as aluminum, which will affect the automobile and aeronautical industries.

The Rusal group is the second largest producer of aluminum in the world: its price has also skyrocketed.

Nickel (Russia is the world's second largest producer of refined nickel) was already setting record prices and will be even higher (it is essential for electric batteries).

The automobile sector will also be affected by the rise in palladium, for which Russia controls 50% of the entire world market.

Mediators

Russia and the Ukraine agreed to negotiate in

, a faithful ally of Moscow.

They did it on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, next to the Pripyat River and near the exclusion zone created around the

According to Zelensky, the Belarusian regime is responsible for the safety of the Ukrainian delegation.

Both parties have recognized certain advances and have called for a second round of negotiations, other voices willing to mediate have appeared on the scene.

Beyond French President

- who held a conversation with Putin today - who, despite multiple phone calls and meetings with Putin, failed to stop the war, on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister

, offered Putin to mediate a cessation of hostilities.

For his part, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on Sunday that former German Chancellor Angela Merkel should mediate in the war.

"She is the only one who can speak and be heard in Moscow, Washington and all the capitals. Are we going to put her aside while the world falls apart?" Renzi wondered in an interview.

Also from Italy,

called the Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, who has taken refuge in the basement of the Kiev cathedral to protect himself from the bombs, to assure him that "he will do everything he can".

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