The Ukraine Crisis: A Perceptive Look At The Issues And The War Mania!

As the title suggests this piece on the raging Ukraine crisis can only be at a perceptive level, because the issue is too complicated with debatable cum controversial angles, and this writer is not much used to write on international politics and cannot authenticate fully the information available on the public domain. Why I have still chosen to write on this is that as a writer with a journalistic bent of mind I cannot escape from this crisis that knocks the doors of my country too. And those ‘perceptions’ I’ve developed are based on the media reports, an international media that is not united objectively, but visibly divided and biased over the crisis. There are primarily two points of view (POV): one is obviously the pro-US mainstream Western Media that has been blaming Russia squarely as the imperialist invader and spreading the idea of an imminent war across the globe; the second is the neutral or the alternative media that is trying to present the real scenario (as per their views) despite getting drowned in the growing war mania. Both the POVs have some elements of truth that can be deciphered by all perceptive readers or analysts or simple writers.

 

The first POV seems to be justified in the fact that Russia had already had a war with Ukraine in 2014 when it annexed the Crimea region, and it had created international tensions again in March-April, 2021 by deploying forces across the Ukraine border and then withdrawing in July due to growing pressure. And during October-November of the same year again, it has started deploying military personnel, reportedly growing to over 100,000 in early 2022 which has led the US and their allied countries issuing warnings to Russia. Besides, Russia has been preventing Ukraine to have full sovereignty and to fulfill its aspirations to have an open border with Russia, to join the European Union (EU) and possibly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NTO), an organization of 30 countries for collective security. Also, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment recently about Russians and Ukrainians being ‘one people’ adds more fuel to their charges. However, the first POV misses, deliberately or unknowingly, a few vital cogs in the mechanisms of this jigsaw, including the historical fact that USA had been involved in much more invasions or strategic build-ups across the globe in the past few decades than Russia did.

 

Russia defends its decisions by saying that Ukraine joining the EU and the NATO would compromise its national security thus opening the way for a complete American domination; that it has no imperialist expansion plans; that while Ukraine still exists as an independent nation since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 certain parts of it still want accession to Russia; and that it has no intention of starting a full-fledged war (they, in fact, reportedly withdrew some of the troops in the last two days.).

 

The second POV of the ‘other’ media puts the focus entirely on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project which has been completed and once in operation it’ll supply natural gas and petroleum directly to Germany underwater through the Baltic Sea, doubling the supplies along with the existing Nord Stream 1 pipeline and reducing the transport costs by about half. Therefore, the basic factor here is Germany.

 

The US is deeply disturbed by this, because it’d make their friendly relations with Germany dicey apart from divisions among other EU nations, and more importantly, the operation of the Nord Stream 2 would open the way for the complete dependence of the European nations on Russian supplies thus tremendously increasing Russia’s leverage in the region. Accordingly, the US Government has warned Russia of stringent economic sanctions if it chooses to invade Ukraine. Besides, several environmental threats have also been raised against implementation of the project. It is abundantly clear that the sanctions would surely include neutralizing the Nord Stream 2 operation. So then, in a way, a war would actually help the US to have its ways.

 

Interestingly, the Nord Stream 2 project is set to cost several East European countries dearly including Ukraine in terms of lost revenues. A report shows that Ukraine will lose revenues worth at least $2 billion by way of losing transit fees received from Russia for surface transportation of the natural gas and petroleum products. Therefore, this whole issue of a possible invasion of Ukraine would act as a deterrent for some including Russia and Germany prominently while it can be an incentive for some including USA prominently. However, no sane global citizen would want a war in this peaceful digital age irrespective of the equations or sheer politics involved.

 

The crisis also suffers from the legacy of the Cold War that raged for nearly half a century following the World War-II, between the two clear post-war superpowers at that time, the US and the USSR. It formally ended in 1991 after the USSR ceased to exist. But America, naturally wants to continue its unipolar domination as a superpower which is hardly welcome for Russia or its growing ally China. Naturally again, the US has slammed China for its support to Russia on the Ukraine issue.

 

Meanwhile, India is having the proverbial tight-rope walk. It can neither oppose its strategic ally Russia nor antagonize the growing friendly relations with America and the EU nations. Amid the war mania spread sensationally by the mainstream media the Government of India has safely issued advisories for the Indians in Ukraine to come back home and not to travel to or within Ukraine to others. The country has already been suffering from the unprovoked Chinese aggression along its borders.

 

One important question remains though. What do the Ukrainian citizens want? We perceive divisions or differences between eastern and western regions of Ukraine in terms of loyalty to Russia or in terms of languages spoken or their loyalty to the Government in Kyiv. As per a report by Craig Charney in 2014 the majority of Ukrainians does not support accession to Russia as they consider themselves purely Ukrainian with nothing to do with Russians, despite the apparent differences. They also do not question annexation of Crimea seriously, because almost 100% Crimean people are Russians in both religion and language. All they want is full sovereignty as an independent nation with open borders with Russia and Ukraine’s integration with the EU and the NATO too. The powers that be, super or otherwise, must take into account the citizens’ views before taking any decision.