Albert Camus’s 1947 novel La Peste (The Plague) is often described as an allegory for the struggle against fascism during the Second World War. But it may also be read in a more straightforward way, as the moving tale of how ordinary people deal, or fail to deal, with a sudden, lethal threat to their existence.
The story so far of the war in Ukraine satisfies both readings – although, sadly, the war is no fiction. Ukraine’s citizens were unexpectedly thrust into a life-or-death struggle with a brutal foe bent on their extinction as a nation. Recent battlefield successes reflect the admirable way they have met that challenge, at terrible human cost.
Yet the murderous onslaught unleashed by Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, can also be viewed as a new, modern-day form of fascism that seeks to impose its totalitarian will at home and abroad – the antithesis of democracy. Like the Covid-19 pandemic, it is a pestilence whose spread threatens the entire world. Ukraine is not its only victim.
When Putin attacked in February, he dubbed his invasion a limited “special military operation”. But the repulse of that initial assault and subsequent Russian failures now fuel escalation upon global escalation. Putin, typically, is doubling down. And the disease he embodies inexorably spreads.
A conflict on the edge of Europe has gone on to shatter the authority of the UN, undermine the climate change fight, inflate global food prices, create a huge refugee emergency, bolster Europe’s and America’s far right, spark cultural and sports boycotts and harm international cooperation as far away as outer space.
President Joe Biden’s warning last week that the world is close to nuclear Armageddon is, perhaps, the most shocking illustration of this escalation. Putin’s repeated threats to use a nuclear weapon reflect his criminal recklessness and growing desperation.
It still seems unlikely that, detached from reality although he appears, he wants to deliberately provoke a suicidal nuclear confrontation with the US and Nato. Biden may be loudly raising such fears in order to deter him. But such rationalisations offer scant consolation in a profoundly irrational situation.
Shockwaves from Putin’s war are rocking global energy supplies and markets in previously unimagined ways. Last week’s decision by Opec plus Russia to cut global oil production could greatly exacerbate Europe’s problems this winter, causing serious hardship. Yet EU attempts to cap gas and oil prices are bedevilled by national differences.
The geopolitical impact of Opec’s decision may be more momentous still. At political cost to himself, Biden had personally appealed to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf exporters to boost output. Now, the US angrily accuses Opec of backing Russia’s war. Most of its members are supposedly western allies. Have they switched sides?
If that is the case, it would exacerbate another troubling symptom of Putin plague: the separating out of leading countries into two opposing camps. In one corner, China and India, which continue to buy Russian oil and refuse to impose sanctions, plus likeminded authoritarian regimes such as Iran. In the other corner, the US, UK, other members of the G7 and the EU.
In this developing confrontation, much more is at stake than Ukraine’s sovereignty. On life support, it seems, is the entire postwar consensus underpinning global security, nuclear non-proliferation, free trade and international law.
The war’s spreading economic impact sickens the world. As global recession beckons, stock exchanges turn bearish, inflation and debt levels rise, Ukraine’s grain exports are threatened by a resumed Black Sea blockade and climate targets are jettisoned wholesale amid a panicky stampede back to fossil fuels, typified by the UK.
For Kyiv, Putin’s war machine is not the only problem. It is running out of money. The US has pledged $1.5bn a month in non-military aid. But the IMF calculates that Ukraine needs $5bn a month just to keep its economy going. Washington and Kyiv accuse the EU of failing to do its bit. Of €9bn promised by Brussels in May, only €1bn has been paid out.
Disagreements over sanctions and military supplies to Ukraine also strain internal EU relations and transatlantic ties. Once again the US is in the lead, providing $16.8bn in security assistance so far. In contrast, France and Germany are accused of holding back vital weaponry. Pro-Russia Hungary, meanwhile, actively sabotages EU unity.
All this has cast a shadow over French president Emmanuel Macron’s vision of a self-sufficient, “strategically autonomous” Europe. Nato has been strengthened. US leadership appears indispensable once more. And, in a small way, Britain is back, hence Liz Truss’s warm welcome at last week’s inaugural European Political Community summit.
Just as the pandemic affected everyone, so the war’s fallout poisons all it touches. Nowhere, ironically, more than in Russia itself, where shaming military failures, alleged war crimes, a discredited Kremlin narrative and chaotic mobilisation plans have damaged Putin’s standing, split the ruling elite and dismayed ordinary Russians. The Kerch bridge fire in Crimea is but the latest humiliation.
If the Putin plague is ever to be eradicated, if the war is ever to end, such developments inside Russia, presaging a change of leadership, full military withdrawal from Ukraine and a fresh start, represent the best hope of a cure.
