Russia has invaded Ukraine after President Vladimir Putin recognised two eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk as ‘independent’ nations and then on their ‘request’ it sent a ‘Peace Keeping Force’ to maintain order. So we have two new ‘nations’ in the world map: the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) as independent.
Both these two states have a majority of Russian speaking people and have been in conflict with the Western region which dominates the East. Vladimir Putin’s speech was decisive when he blamed human rights violations in the Eastern Ukraine. Most of the Russian origin people in these Eastern provinces were getting Russian passports since 2014 and more than 800,000 passports were issued by Russia to its ‘citizens’ in these two eastern provinces.
Ukraine was part of Soviet Union and got its independence in 1991 after many ‘republics’ broke away from it. The Western world celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union and felt it was the ‘end’ of the day for Communism world over. It all happened because of the politics of ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika’ initiated by President Mikhail Gorbachev.
In 1991, the three biggest ‘republics’ of the Soviet Union, named Russia, Belarus and Ukraine decided the end of Soviet and became independent states. Eight more republics too declared themselves as independent and creating a Commonwealth of Independent States ( CIS).
Ukraine is the second largest country in area after Russia. It has a size of 603,628 square kilometre and population of nearly 43.6 million and is eighth most populous country in Europe. Bordering with Belarus, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Romania. That apart, it has a coastal line with Black Sea which link it to Turkey and the rest of Europe. 77% of the population is of Ukrainian origin while 17% of Russian origin mostly based in the Eastern Provinces.
Ukraine became an independent country on June 23, 1917 but became one of the founding members of USSR in 1922. The country is rich in mineral and other natural resources particularly Uranium, coal, iron, ore, natural gas, manganese, salt, oil sulphur, timber and mercury.
NATO encircling Russia
It is true that after the Soviet Union disintegrated, the western world rejoiced and Americans did everything under the sun without any protest. In 1991, the US intervened in Kuwait after Saddam Hussein’s forces occupied Kuwait. After the September 11, 2001 attack on US financial institutions, the then President decided to avenge it with Afghanistan.Americans intervened in Iraq under the pretext of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which could never be found. They targeted the leadership, arrested Saddam Hussein as well as Col Gaddafi and through their media manipulations converted them into the worst human being. No questions were asked as why the top leadership of these countries were targeted and killed in such a brutal manner.
Even when the Russians invaded Ukraine, Israel continued violating airspaces of its neighbours like Syria and Lebanon, bombing innocent people and Saudi Arab persisting with its bombing in Yemen.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) came into existence on April 4th, 1949 after 12 founding members signed the treaty in Washington DC. These countries were: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom and United States of America to create a counter force Soviet Forces placed in different countries of Europe in the post-World War II.
It was suggested that it was result of a cold war pressure that compelled Western European countries to build up an alliance with the United States so that they remain ‘safe’ in Europe but was NATO necessary in the post cold war especially after the ‘collapse’ of the Soviet Union in 1991. Unfortunately, after it, NATO aggressively pursued all the ‘independent’ countries emerging from the former Soviet Union such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
The other Eastern European countries who were part of the Soviet alliance such as Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Slovenia became part of NATO. Vladimir Putin had already mentioned in his speech that he would like to revive the Soviet Union if get a chance but the major factor behind his worry seems to be if the western world and NATO continue to encircle Russia then there is a real and legitimate concern related to the security of that country which needed to be addressed.
The fact was, shouldn’t NATO be disbanded once the cold war was over and replaced with a global peace keeping force under the United Nations but then these are part of the international mechanism to dominate.
Ukraine used by western world against Russia
In all the international talks between Russia and the United States, the issue of NATO expansion has been of real concern for Russia. Every country has a right to protect and promote its interests. While Western world were rejoicing over the ‘death’ of the Soviet Union, they made Mikhail Gorbachev the ‘greatest’ intellectual, inviting him to various universities and ultimately handing over the Nobel Peace Prize for the disintegration of the Soviet Union.One may disagree with Putin and may look down upon him but none can deny that under his leadership Russia is now confident and much more powerful. It is regaining its glory which the western world wants to deny. Whether it was during Covid period or in Syria, Russia has demonstrated more maturity and control than its contemporaries.
Often Putin has been criticised for being ‘self-obsessed’ and using media to promote his cult but the fact is in the former Communist regimes, we had leaders who were far better planner and communicators.
Every year Vladimir Putin address media and take questions from ordinary people too and any one who has seen those programmes can vouch that he knows things and far superior to many of his contemporaries elsewhere who pretend ‘democracy’ and ‘liberalism’ but can assault any one under the pretext of ‘protecting’ ‘democracy’. No country returned to Democracy and stability after US or NATO intervention be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria.
2014 crisis
The roots of the current crisis in Ukraine are the ‘protest’ against the then President Viktor Yanukovych who had rejected an alliance with the European Union (EU) or Europe. He was considered to be not merely ‘pro-Russia’ but a ‘stooge’ of Moscow but these are the ‘narratives’ which western media plant to legitimize regime changes that have happened in various countries.Victor was the fourth president of independent Ukraine and had to flee his country. He was prime minister of his country from 2002 to 2007 with a break in 2004. In 2010, he became President of his country but his pro Russia policies were responsible for his ouster in 2014. The protests broke out against his policies at the Euromaidan Square for rejecting the EU deal and accepting a 15 billion dollars bail out from Russia.
The western world was encouraging ‘democratic’ protests and ignored the pro-Russia protests in the Eastern Ukraine terming them as ‘insurgency’. None questioned that a democratically elected government should be removed through democratic moves. It is here that the western world used the popular media narrative as per its conveniences.
In their over zeal to counter Russia, western world actually ignored the human rights violation of the Russian origin people in the Eastern part of Ukraine. There is no doubt that the two eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk had huge support for Russia apart from Crimea.
It was surprising that Russia did nothing in 1991 when Crimea became part of Ukraine but perhaps that was the time when, in their obsession against communism, all the oligarchs were busy protecting their business interests and not interested in other states. Though Russian was the official language, after separation every effort was made to isolate the Russian language.
The Western Ukraine continued to dominate the politics and identity of Ukraine while the issues and concerns of the eastern provinces were completely overlooked. Russian president Vladimir Putin actually accused the Ukrainian government of committing genocide of Russian origin people.
This was a serious accusation and can not be ignored even if the western world might suggest it as overhyped but the fact is since 2014 Eastern Ukraine was dominated by the rebels accused of support from Moscow and virtually cut off from the rest of the country.
After the 2014 intervention in Crimea, NATO and western allies started arming Ukraine. Given by any standard, Ukraine has fairly big armed forces and NATO provided it with all the big equipment yet it’s leadership rarely showed the strength of a matured nation while dealing with a country it belonged to once upon a time.
It was clear that Ukraine was clearly divided between ethnicities on the issue of joining the EU as the Russian origin people were happier with Russia. It is not the issue of mere sovereignty of Ukraine but also the survival question for Russia which feels threatened if NATO expands towards the Eastern Europe.
Underestimating Russian sentiments
Russia is world’s biggest country with a 36,000 kilometres long coast and 17 million square kilometres of land area. It has 11 time zones, the highest in the world. Whatever may be the differences of governance, Russia undoubtedly a great power where architecture and literature thrived.During the second world war, it is the Red Army of the Soviet Union who defeated Hitler’s fascist forces but it is also a fact that immediately after world war II, the western block decided to join hand against the mighty Communist Soviet Union. The cold war started by then though ended by 1990 when Soviet Union disintegrated but the mighty empire doesn’t go away that easily.
To underestimate Russia and its power was a miscalculation on the part of the Ukrainian president who now feels that Europe and the United States have abandoned him and that he was ready for a negotiation with Moscow but it looks the matter is over. Whatever be the outcome, the massive bombardment at Ukraine has destroyed his infrastructure as the war is basically inside Ukraine and Russia has significantly destroyed its defence infrastructure and captured the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant.
The Ukrainian crisis should not escalate but for that western world must sit together with other nations. Each big country has its share of problems and exploitation of the other countries. Europe’s colonial powers have their own track record of colonising the world while Americans have taken it to themselves as the sole spokesperson of the world. Russia, China are new power places and will definitely not like to get economically isolated.
China has already challenged the Western monopoly on economy but Russia was also building up in the last one decade. The new Russia under Vladimir Putin is assertive, economically strong and militarily stronger who have shown much better diplomacy than his western counterparts on various occasions.
Now, the call for negotiations will not work as Russia will only stop once the regime change is done and a pro-Russian government is installed in Kyiv and Russians are not alone in doing so, for they have many examples in recent pasts when the western world followed the same pattern elsewhere.
The things are clear that Russia will not allow NATO to move towards its border as it is a life and death for the powerful country as it knows well that Western World never want a strong Russia but will ensure it is weakened or broken. By invading Ukraine, Putin has sent a strong message to all his neighbours in Europe and CIS countries to not cross the Red line of inviting the western world and NATO to its border as it will be a no tolerance zone for Russia.
One should not look for big moral questions in the Ukraine crisis as every country has to work according to its territorial integrity and what Putin did was perhaps important to protect Russia from encircling by NATO. No self-respecting powerful nation would allow its border to be surrounded by the adversaries.
Ukraine could have avoided the crisis by not becoming a pawn in the hands of adversaries of Russia but it looks it deliberately allowed itself to be used and now paying the price for the same. It is time all the global power sits together, introspect and strengthen mechanisms so that rights of all countries whether small or big are protected but at the same point of time it is also essential that countries do not become pawns in the hands of powerful countries and their international chess board.
The war is not between Moscow and Kyiv but between Russia and NATO whose tremors are being felt globally and must not escalate further as any miscalculation on any part might begin a chain of event which could be worse than World War III.
All efforts need to be made to stop this and look for long term solutions by not threatening economic sanctions or criticising without introspecting their own fault lines and strengthening institutional mechanism of the United Nations but for that to happen, big powers will have to negotiate for many things leaving their own economic interests and sharing it with others.
Anti-war efforts like that happened in post-world war II are needed but for that we need leaders of stature and not manipulators who have long term strategies and not their own corporate nationalist interests. Till then, we can only hope that good sense will prevail and the crisis will be over soon.
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*Human rights defender. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat. Twitter: @freetohumanity
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