Russia has no right, under any international law, to invade a sovereign, independent nation, cause a huge loss of life and property and incalculable human suffering, apart from precipitating a global economic crisis.
It has been over nine months since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine and Russian bombs and missiles started raining on Ukrainian cities. The crisis triggered off by the Russian invasion shows no signs of ending soon. In the meanwhile, over nine million Ukrainians have become refugees, large parts of Ukrainian cities including civilian infrastructure have been reduced to rubble and thousands of innocent people including the elderly, women and children have been killed. According to the conclusions of a UN investigating team, which visited 27 towns and settlements in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and he sunny region as well detention and torture centres, Russia has committed war crimes in Ukraine including by bombing civilian areas, conducting numerous executions, and indulging in torture and horrific sexual violence. Mass graves in Bucha were widely reported by the international media. Russian bomb and missile attacks have caused huge environmental damage too.
This crisis isn’t affecting only Ukraine and Russia; its negative fallout is being felt all over the world. Shortages of food grains and fertilizers, disruption of energy supplies and resultant skyrocketing prices of oil and gas and a high rate of inflation in various parts are attributable to it.
As time passes by, goalposts are being shifted. The Russian calculation of a quick victory, occupation of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, deposing Volodymyr Zelenskyy and replacing him with a more pliable President has gone horribly wrong. The Ukrainian General Staff has claimed that 71,200 Russian soldiers have lost their lives. It’s a huge number even if we make allowance for exaggeration. Media reports suggest that over 1,400 T-90, T-80 and other types of Russian tanks have been destroyed. Though Russia has failed in achieving its initial objective, it presently occupies 20% of Ukraine’s territory. Ignoring Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sage advice that this is an era of war, conveyed at his meeting on the side lines of the SCO summit, Putin held a sham referendum in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherason Oblast and Zapor Oblast regions and annexed them. Now, with its control of the port of Mariupol, Russia is capable of preventing delivery of military hardware to Ukraine and hampering her exports including much needed food grains.
US President Joe Biden had pronounced, more than once, that China and Russia were the US’ strategic rivals. Given the trade war set off by Donald Trump and concerned about increasingly assertive and aggressive China in the Indo-Pacific region and her potential to challenge America’s global influence, China was perceived as the prime rival. Biden’s much hyped BBB (Building Back Better) and heightened activity of the Quad and discourse of Indo-Pacific countries for creating alternative supply chains were primarily aimed at outcompeting and containing China.
But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed the American strategic priority. With its overwhelming control of the international financial institutions, the massive use of dollar as the preferred currency of international trade and cooperation of its western allies, the US has unleashed an unprecedented regime of economic sanctions against Russia, including Russian banks and rich oligarchs, to cripple the Russian economy and force Vladimir Putin to reverse his invasion. While this has made life difficult for ordinary Russians, with thousands of rich Russians fleeing the country and millions of people the world over facing the consequences of the ongoing war, it hasn’t forced Putin to change his course.
Instead, he has been irresponsibly threatening to use nuclear weapons. He has also been exploiting the vulnerability of several European countries which heavily depend on Russian gas supplies (they are struggling to organise alternative supplies and are paying ten times more on the spot market). Putin’s huge discount on energy supplies has several takers; Russia has reportedly displaced Iraq and Saudi Arabia as the top supplier of oil to India (October)
Ironically, Biden has succeeded in pushing China and Russia closer. So long as Russia continues to get billions of dollars from its energy supplies, its economy can’t be crippled. Putin is also aware that the US, the EU and the NATO can prolong the war with the supply of sophisticated weapons and offer of billions of dollars of assistance to Ukraine but can’t put boots on the ground. He also realizes that the US and the West dare not call his nuclear bluff. He hopes that the mounting negative global impact of the Ukrainian crisis will nudge the international community to put pressure on Ukraine to acquiesce to territorial compromise and end the suffering of its people. Chances of economic hardships instigating Russian generals and the public to get rid of Putin seem very remote. So, while Russia hasn’t won the war and has suffered huge losses, Putin may still have the last laugh.
Apparently, NATO’s eastward expansion was reckless; it was provocative and insensitive to Russia’s legitimate security; these were sharpened by increased speculation about prospects of Ukraine getting admitted to NATO. Russian fears that Ukraine could become a spring board for anti-Russia attacks should have been taken more seriously. In the backdrop of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, it was foolhardy on NATO’s part to assume that Russia wouldn’t react.
Notwithstanding the above, Russia has no right, under any international law, to invade a sovereign, independent nation, cause a huge loss of life and property and incalculable human suffering, apart from precipitating a global economic crisis. It’s a pity that world leaders who loftily pronounce, at high profile summits, their unflinching commitment to uphold sovereignty, territorial integrity and human rights and honour the UN Charter don’t condemn the Russian invasion. If Russia gets away with what it has done and the world watches helplessly the destruction and devastation of Ukraine, we will be sending out a wrong message. If security concerns could constitute valid reasons for invading a neighbour, shouldn’t India be invading Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka or the US invading Mexico?
Putin must be stopped. The invasion of Ukraine should be reversed.
We shouldn’t be helping the dawn of the jungle raj. If the world doesn’t unite and act now, it would be committing the same blunder it did before World War II.
Surendra Kumar is a former ambassador of India.