Olechky: humanitarian aid, the Kremlin's new weapon?

According to Le Monde, some 2,000 residents of Olechky, an occupied Ukrainian town, are to receive aid and be evacuated by Sunday, 1 November. The daily reports that many fear manipulation by the Kremlin, and raises the worry of an operation that is both military and propagandistic. That is what we know. The rest of the dispatch does not tell us who is running the mission, or under what arrangements the evacuations will take place. We will not invent it.

First, the civilians. Two thousand people live under occupation, need help, and their safety comes before any geopolitical reading. No analysis should forget that.

But let us ask the awkward question: who benefits from the mission? An occupying power that organises, or even supervises, the "aid" to a population it has placed under its boot holds a precious tool. It can present itself as a protector. It can film convoys, smiles, expressions of thanks. It can also turn an evacuation into a smokescreen: who leaves, who stays, who is questioned, who sees what. These are the fears reported by Le Monde, and they are plausible. At this stage, they are not established facts.

Here is our reading: the state is never neutral, even when it hands out food. A state machine at war puts everything at the service of its objectives, charity included. The word "humanitarian" does the same job as "peacekeeping" in the mouths of chancelleries: it softens what is really a matter of power. This holds for Moscow. It holds too for its adversaries, who have their own narratives to sell.

For behind the battle of images lies the battle for territory. The Leninist framework is useful here, without making it a universal key: great powers fight over spheres of influence, resources and markets, and war is the continuation of that struggle by other means. Sanctions, arms contracts and military alliances are its political envelope, as the notes of the Gazette on imperialism put it. An occupied town is one point on that map. Its inhabitants, for their part, are not pawns.

Who gains, concretely? The Kremlin, if the operation consolidates its narrative and its control. The arms manufacturers, on both sides, for as long as the conflict lasts and defence budgets swell. Those who lose are well known: displaced families, emptied homes, people moved because others decide for them.

What we still do not know weighs heavily. Who is supervising the evacuation? Will residents be able to choose their destination? Will independent observers be present? These are the three questions to put to every communiqué in the coming days. As long as they remain unanswered, caution is in order, and so is scepticism towards every official account.