AFTER months of a massive military build-up, Russia on Thursday launched its long-threatened invasion of Ukraine, defying the world and threatening to ignite a major war involving major world powers. Russian forces launched aerial, land, and seaborne barrages on Ukrainian cities, including on the capital, Kyiv, triggering a refugee crisis. It is the most egregious violation of another country’s sovereignty since Iraq under the late Saddam Hussein invaded and “annexed” Kuwait in August 1990. Just as the free world mobilised to expel the Iraqi invaders, it must not be cowed by the seeming might of nuclear-armed Russia but rally to stop Vladimir Putin’s tyranny.
Multiple options must be on the table. Should he be allowed to get away with his lawless act, Putin could move on to other weaker neighbours, embolden other despots and eventually upturn the relative peace the world has known since the end of World War II in 1945. As many analysts have posited, the destabilisation of the world order could trigger a chain of events that could result in another global conflagration. World War III, once seen as far-fetched, now seems possible.
Russian forces that had been massing on Ukraine’s borders attacked from multiple fronts, including from Crimea, which Putin had annexed in 2014 and from two breakaway provinces that had seceded with Russian military assistance, and from Belarus. Explosions have rocked Ukrainian cities and ground forces have penetrated backed by tanks, artillery, war planes and attack helicopters.
As the invaders closed in from 16 points in Putin’s “special military operation,” Volodymyr Zelensky, 44, President of the East European democracy, rallied the 44.3 million-strong population in a broadcast against Putin’s unprovoked “act of war,” declared a state of emergency and a general mobilisation. He vowed that the people would defend “their freedom, lives and our children’s lives.”
It will not be easy, and it will be bloody. An unequal contest, Ukraine, reported Reuters, “is both outgunned and outmanned.” Russia has 900,000 active-duty troops across all branches of its military, and two million reservists; Ukraine’s less than 200,000 active-duty troops and 900,000 reservists come up short. Russia has 10 times the number of military aircraft of its smaller neighbour although Ukraine has received up to $2.5 billion in military aid from the United States since 2014. Clearly, the country will need all the help it can get.
The world has reacted with anger. President Joe Biden widened the scope of US sanctions. The European Union countries and member countries of NATO followed suit. The alliance’s Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, described it as an unprovoked act of aggression against the sovereignty of a peaceful sovereign nation. It is, said the EU, “one of the darkest hours for Europe since World War II.” In addition to activating some military units, NATO said it stands solidly with Ukraine and restated its commitment to democracy, liberty, and unfettered sovereignty of all states. He came short of pledging full military intervention to protect Ukraine, saying deployments so far were “defensive” in posture.
Putin should be stopped. His brigandage harks back to an inglorious past of stronger powers making impossible demands on weaker neighbours, invading, and annexing them. Adolf Hitler triggered World War II by such behaviour, annexing Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in succession. With his aggression and obvious attempt to recreate the Soviet Empire, Finland, the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – are in danger. So also, are the other independent states that emerged after the fall of communism, which Putin has described as “the greatest catastrophe of the 20th Century.”
Moreover, Russia has both nuclear, thermonuclear, and hypersonic weapons and the means to deliver them. He recently boasted that he had enough firepower to “destroy 80 percent of the earth.” Obviously, he is banking that the fear of triggering an apocalyptic nuclear exchange will deter the US and its allies from confronting him militarily. He could be right.
Apart from his imperial ambitions, Putin wants express guarantees from Ukraine that it would not seek NATO and EU membership. With Russia having hitherto forcibly ruled over Ukraine for long, it claims that this demand is crucial for its own security. Naturally, a democratic and pro-West Ukraine has rejected such demands as a surrender of its sovereignty. Besides, the two breakaway and rebel-held Donetsk and Luhansk enclaves not only deprive the country of territory; they continue to claim most of the rest of Ukraine as theirs.
The cost is high. Already, the conflict in the breakaway region has cost some 14,000 lives and the media was reporting on Wednesday night that the death toll was rising. Ordinary people, the elderly and children will bear the greater brunt.
The global economy, still reeling from the COVID-19 plague, is threatened. Oil and gas prices have gone up, raising costs, stocks have plunged, and sanctions have derailed major international and national infrastructure and commercial projects. The impact will reverberate everywhere, including in Nigeria. Already, Nigeria’s dysfunctional governance is on display. While other countries scrambled to get their nationals out of Ukraine days ago, the country’s embassy dallied, only to issue a statement on Thursday urging Nigerians there to “remain calm.” Getting the 4,000 Nigerian students studying in Ukraine out safely should be a priority.
The United Nations leadership is distraught, Putin having brushed aside all diplomatic efforts to avert war. The world waits to see how far the Biden administration is willing to go beyond the wide range of sanctions it has imposed.
Ukraine is an independent nation that should be free to determine its own destiny, including whether to establish economic, political, and even military relationships with any bloc. Russia cannot dictate to it. It may be a hard, long slog, but the world should be firm on this principle of the inviolability of a country’s sovereignty by another. The UN should activate all its humanitarian machinery and raise funds to free Ukraine.
Because of its nuclear arsenal, the US may not wish to cobble together a coalition to expel Russian forces as it did with Iraq in Kuwait 30 years ago. Besides, Russia, being one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council with a veto, the council will not be able to unanimously mandate military force. Another permanent UNSC member, China, needs to apply moderation. As the world’s leading exporter, it needs to work for stability.
One major reason why Russia should be made to pay dearly is to discourage China from following its example and invading Taiwan, which it is determined to reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.
The West should supply Ukrainian forces with arms, advice, and training to resist Russia’s aggression. Ukrainians should not give up. Freedom is worth fighting for; they should conduct a determined war of resistance, using orthodox, guerrilla and asymmetric tactics. History is on their side. They should make the invasion excessively costly for Russia as the Afghans did when Soviet forces invaded and occupied that country in the 1980s. The world should pile on the pressure. Putin must be stopped and diplomacy must prevail.
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