Expect unforeseen situations in the war in Ukraine

All wars bring surprises, but the most surprising thing about Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine and indirectly against the entire democratic West is how many bad surprises have been made for Putin so far, and how many good surprises have been made to Ukraine, allies around the world.

How about that? Well, when Putin planned this war, he thought that three weeks after the start he would give a victorious speech in the Ukrainian parliament and greet him again as Mother Russia. He also said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be in exile on Airbnb in Poland, and the Russian army is still removing all flowers from the tanks thrown by the Ukrainians who welcomed them, and Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are shaking hands NATO and Sleepy Joe in the future I showed someone who would set the rules of the international system.

Instead, Ukrainians gave the Russians a tutorial on how to fight and die for freedom and the right to self-determination. Putin seems to be trapped in a containment room without his germs. Perhaps you were worried that the approaching Russian soldier could point to the gun. Zelensky will, in fact, speak to the US Congress. And instead of the end of globalization, individuals around the world are using a global network to monitor and influence the war in a completely unexpected way.In just a few clicks, they send money to support Ukrainians, and to everyone from McDonald's to Goldman Sachs, taps a few more times that Russian soldiers should withdraw from Russia until they withdraw from Ukraine.

In particular, there is another surprise that China and Russia have hardly come. China has relied on its own vaccine to fight Covid-19, along with zero-tolerance policies and immediate quarantine to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Unfortunately, the Chinese vaccine seems to be less effective than other vaccines against Covid.And since China's quarantine strategy has left little immunity against the previous infection, the virus is now spreading like a fire. The Times reported on Tuesday that: “Tens of millions of residents in Chinese provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, are in quarantine amid the outbreak of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Inter-city travel has been suspended, production lines have been suspended, and shopping centers have been closed.”

What is this doing? The price of crude oil, which fell below $100 on Tuesday after the war in Ukraine approached $130 per barrel, is killing demand.And which countries are in desperate need of high oil prices because they are too little to sell to the world to finance the war? Putin's Russia. Therefore, China's Covid strategy is disrupting Putin's oil price strategy, and it will probably hurt him as much as the United States does. We are all much more connected than we think.

As I passed through the early stages of this war, surprises keep coming. For me, the three biggest things are the special acts of cruelty, courage, and kindness that this war reveals and inspires.

After starting this war, there was no illusion that he would quit anything so that he could claim to be the “winner”. But it is impressive to see how quickly he is tied up. For three weeks, Putin said that he came to free Ukraine from the “Nazi” leadership and return Kiev with Russia to the homeland of nature, crushing cities, bombing civilians indiscriminately, breaking resistance to their will.

Is it possible for the leader to say that one day Ukraine and its people are an integral part of the soul and structure of Russia with a shared language, culture and religion, and when rejected, immediately turn to turn the place into rubble? Ukrainians, the world or theirself people?

It is a ruthless madness that can be seen in contemptuous lovers or “crimes of honor”. And it was shocking and petrified to see the leader of a superpower with about 6,000 nuclear warheads reveal it. There is something in this guy that foreshadows a more sinister surprise.

I have always been amazed by the courage that ordinary people appear in the war. In this case, not only Ukrainians, but also Russians who refuse to scam Putin's lies know that he is turning them into a Pariah state. That is why I was surprised by the impressive courage shown by Marina Ovsyannikova, an employee of the national television channel Russian Channel 1, who broke into the live broadcast of the most watched news program in Russia on Monday night. Behind the presenter “Here they are lying to you.” She was asked and was released for the time being. Probably because Putin was afraid to turn her into a martyr.

Marina Obsianikova - Remember her name.He dared to tell the Tsar that he had no clothes.What a value.

Finally, the war also reveals a special act of kindness. In this war, some spontaneously arose and took advantage of Airbnb, the platform, the room exchange site, in a way that no one expected. Airbnb executives say they basically woke up in early March and discovered that community members were using the platform voluntarily in a new and novel way to transform booking technology into a home, person-to-person foreign aid system.

According to the company, over the past two weeks, people from 165 countries booked more than 430,000 nights in Ukrainian homes on Airbnb without using their rooms, but most of them just to donate money to Ukrainian hosts that they haven't heard of. Because Airbnb temporarily waived all guest and host fees for bookings in Ukraine, these reservations were converted to $17 million and passed directly to hosts. Customers departing from the US, UK and Canada are the most booked. Australia, Germany, and other European countries ranked in the top 10.

In addition, as of Sunday, about 36,000 people from 160 countries signed up to welcome refugees fleeing Ukraine through Airbnb.org, a non-profit subsidiary of Airbnb.

It is impossible for a huge US international development organization, the USAID to have such a rapid impact.

Many Ukrainian hosts who received these donation reservations responded in writing to their donors to establish new friendships and allow foreigners to understand the impact of this war much more deeply. There is nothing like communicating privately with Ukrainians hiding in the basement. It explains why I am happy to rent a basement, but I never use it; it creates a friendly community that cannot be won by Putin's chariot alone, but it can help strengthen those who are determined to resist by reminding them that they are not alone. Putin said yes.

None of this is surprising. I have always argued that globalization is not just a trade. It's about the ability of countries, businesses, and an increasing number of individuals to connect and act globally. Humans are programmed to want to connect, and programming in today's world makes it easier and cheaper to connect every day.

That is, what makes the pleasant surprise of this war so surprising is that it is a surprise for those who are responsible for it, but it is just a warning. There will be more surprises, and not everyone will be pleasant.

(C) 뉴욕 타임즈.-

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