Russia Ousted From UNHRC Even As India Abstain Again!

In a very significant development on Thursday, April 7, 2022, the 193-member United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has suspended the membership of Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), a UN body formed in 2006 to replace the erstwhile United Nations Human Rights Commission, with 47 elected members and a mission to promote and protect human rights around the world. In an urgently called session of the UNGA 93 nations voted for the suspension of Russia, 24 including China voted against the move and 58 nations including India abstained whose votes did not count in the final tally, and therefore, the UNGA got its two-thirds majority to pass the move. Although the move is not legally binding Russia would be effectively prevented from raising its voice in the UNHRC.  Thus, Russia becomes the first permanent member-nation of the UN Security Council to be ousted from a UN body. The other Security Council members are the US, the UK, France and China.

 

The UNGA move follows in the wake of reports of civilian killings in the Russia-Ukraine war that has been raging for the last 44 days, particularly the recent Bucha massacre near Kyiv. The UNGA resolution expressed grave concern at the violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Russian Federation in Ukraine. While Ukrainian government has welcomed the move the Kremlin authorities have expressed regrets over the decision while denying that Russian soldiers were responsible for the civilian casualties.

 

According to a news agency Russia had called upon some countries prior to the session to vote ‘no’ to the motion instead of just abstaining which might seriously affect its bilateral relations with the abstaining countries. If such reports are true this would impact India both ways: affecting its bilateral relations with Russia adversely and antagonizing the US one more time as India has been abstaining in all the previous sessions of the UNGA on Ukraine invasion.

 

While abstaining from voting against Russia the Indian representative has reiterated India’s resolve for peace and immediate cessation of the conflict. Earlier in regard to the Bucha massacre India had asked for an independent probe into the human rights violations.

 

The UNGA move was expected in light of the fact that the US and its Western allies had had to watch helplessly, apart from imposing more and more sanctions, as the war raged on; their military presence in Ukraine and the involvement of the NATO were avoided to prevent the outbreak of a world war, possibly nuclear; and that recently the US President Joe Biden had downgraded Russia President Putin from a ‘war criminal’ to a ‘butcher’.

 

We feel intensive international diplomacy would be more effective than imposing more and more punitive actions in bringing the war to an end as soon as possible. It’s just unimaginable that destructions and massacre are taking place in a modern world with the digitally connected global citizens made to witness the atrocities in an apparent paralysis.

India Play Holi Amid Frayed Nerves Over Russian-Ukraine War And Concerns For A COVID-19 4th Wave!

The Festival of Colors, Holi, began in India with the symbolic burning of Holika (a demoness of ancient times representing the evil or the Satan) effigy last night. This festival is celebrated every year in the last full moon night of the Hindu calendar year. Today, the colors are submerging the country in a spirit of joy. The Indians righteously feel and justify the celebrations across the country as they have missed this for the last two years, and after all, this signifies the victory of good over evil. For the last one month the country has seen a return to near normalcy with all restrictions except for the mask removed, the schools/colleges reopening; and just when they felt that the Pandemic had finally entered the endemic phase came the WHO (World Health Organization) warning that the pandemic is far from over and it has been spiking globally again with more than 11 million cases new cases and over 43,000 deaths in the last week. Combine this with the Russia-Ukraine war raging now for over three weeks. Therefore, the Globe is in a real soup at the moment with the heady mix of war, pandemic and inflation—the last being fueled by the firsts. Indeed, we need victory over the evil forces desperately now.

 

Most of the international powers, super or otherwise, are really getting ruffled up now by what they call the Russian belligerence. True to its strategic interests Russia has been talking peace with Ukraine (that once Ukraine agrees to Russian conditions there'd be instant ceasefire) while stepping up the attacks, particularly targeting the civil population as alleged by Ukraine. The Ukraine official media has released pictures of airports, hospitals, schools, theatres and so on being hit by Russian missiles. The siege of Kyiv and other major cities continue. As anticipated, Russia had ignored the order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to suspend its war immediately. Somewhat inspired by the recent Indian trends perhaps, Putin’s government has decided to label all antiwar Russians as traitors.

 

Photo: cnn.com

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his trademark green t-shirt, has addressed the US Congress recently, urging them to help now or never to avert the invasion. Although he has been renewing his appeals for a no-fly zone it was made clear to him that the no-fly zone declaration or sending MiG fighter jets was not possible as it would escalate the war globally. So, Zelensky asked for other military aid from the US and the European countries in his last address. President Joe Biden responded by granting a $800 million worth military aid in terms of anti-aircraft systems, anti-tank weapons and drones. President Zelensky’s passionately emotional appeal earned him a standing ovation from the US Congress while a sort of comedy was created too as one lawmaker raised the query as to whether Zelensky did not own a suit.

 

Unable to either stop or defeat Russia through endless rounds of economic sanctions President Biden used the strongest words so far calling Putin ‘a war criminal’ while maintaining his stand to not send US ground troops to Ukraine as any direct conflict between Russia and the NATO would result in World War-III. The US Senate also called for an investigation into the alleged war crimes by Putin. The US lawmakers are applying more pressure now on India to take a stand against Russia while India’s Indian Oil Corporation has bought 3 million barrels of crude oil from Russia reportedly at a heavy discount. It was also reported that an Indian judge in the ICJ had voted against Russia in support of the court’s order.

 

With no end in sight for the Ukraine crisis the pandemic resurge has added more problems. The WHO warning said that one of the three sub-variants of Omicron, namely the BA.2 variant, has been found to be the dominant virus in the recent surge in China, South Korea and Hong Kong—China already putting nearly 37 million of its citizens under lockdown after reaching the highest ever daily-infection figures since the pandemic started; South Korea registering a record daily new cases of around 600,000 only yesterday, a supposed peak for the country; and Hong Kong reporting a rising trend of deaths, particularly because a large chunk of its elderly population is yet to be vaccinated.  A few cases of the BA.2 virus, also called the ‘stealth virus’ due to its ability to escape detection through the normal RT-PCR tests, are also being found in Israel. European nations like Germany, France and the UK among others are also showing rising infections in recent days. The WHO warns that the surge may be heading toward countries in eastern Europe too including Belarus and Ukraine, and appealed to the nations to not lax the testing/detection/contact measures further. President Biden is also put under more pressure due to the surge.

 

Some studies have reportedly said that the new surge or the COVID-19 Fourth Wave may reach India by June this year and may last for four months. Amid the relaxations, the elections and the celebrations the Government of India had taken a high-level meeting to study the new threat. In all, we are looking at a very volatile and uncertain future at the moment, confounded by the Ukraine war and an obstinately resurging two-year-old pandemic. The crude oil prices had come down to around $100 a barrel on the hopes of a truce between Russia and Ukraine; but now the uncertainty is bound to come back. All the growth rates as far as the starting-to-revive economies are being concerned are set to be revised downwards at any time. 

Two Weeks Of Ukraine Invasion, The Sumy Rescue And Cricket Tragedies!

Russian President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has entered Day 14 leaving a trail of devastation and loss of lives across the country. We pointed out earlier that the war was totally unnecessary, and now it seems abundantly clear that it was in the interest of the West that Russia did invade Ukraine so that the latter’s strategic presence in Europe could be checked, if not eliminated. The surprising resistance by Ukraine is mainly thanks to the baits by the West in terms of entry into the European Union and a membership in NATO. Russia also made a mistake by not anticipating the support to be extended to Ukraine by the US, most European nations and other strategic allies to fight the war. The main objective of the Western allies seems to be the justification to impose the economic sanctions to isolate Russia in a bid to force it to submit. But unfortunately, they’ve decided to ignite a dormant volcano instead by ignoring its demands, also as strategic as theirs, and by abandoning the universally accepted method called international diplomacy.

 

President Biden has been maintaining that ‘Putin cannot defeat Ukraine’ which means that he along with his allies expect a protracted war so that at the end an isolated and economically bleeding Russia calls it a day. However, the Biden allies have conveniently forgot that by isolating Russia, a major supplier of natural gas, petroleum and weapons, they have nearly plunged the world into an economic crisis—a global economy just recovering from the Pandemic. Crude oil prices have touched almost $140 a barrel and with the US decision to ban all Russian oil imports can further accentuate the oil fire. Among other countries it could hit India in the most severe way because India has already been suffering from insufficient consumer demand to boost the economy. With the assembly elections over it’s to be seen how long the government can fend off the inevitable price increase in petrol an diesel.

 

President Zelensky has let the cat loose. First, he demanded NATO to declare No-fly zone in Ukraine; NATO refused, obviously because it would mean a war between Russia and America, possibly a Third World War which could be nuclear if Putin’s threats are taken seriously. Then, Zelensky wanted more arms, weapons and fighter aircrafts from NATO, in a way, directly asking NATO to involve itself in the war and to protect Ukraine. Thwarted on all requests, the Ukrainian President is now crying hoarse calling it a betrayal by the West and that he would give up his on his promised NATO membership. And, that’s exactly what Russia wants. Putin has been saying clearly that he would instantly end the war if Ukraine gives up on its aspirations to join the EU and the NATO. Well, at the same time the rights of a sovereign nation to do what its citizens desire cannot be repressed, whatever be the strategic interests of whatever power blocks.

 

In the meantime, a humanitarian crisis with unbearable consequences had been developing in the Ukrainian city of Sumy where around 700 Indian students were trapped in the bunkers as food, water and other amenities were drying out. As the attacks outside intensified they were even frightened to switch on the electricity at those endless nights. There seemed to be no way out to evacuate them as it was extremely dangerous to venture out in the missile-raining streets. We must commend the efforts of the Government of India by not giving up and resorting to the much-forgotten diplomacy. A tripartite diplomatic mediation between Russia, Ukraine and India resulted in Russia agreeing to declare ceasefire in four cities to ease the process of civil evacuation. Yesterday, the Sumy students were moved out to Poltava by road, then moved to Western Ukraine by trains and finally to be airlifted to India. We must congratulate the die-hard efforts the Indian Air Force, the officials of the Ministry of External Affairs and of course, the pilots and staff of Air India (now operated by the Tata group).

 

Moving to other fields of world affairs we must mention the double-tragedy suffered by Australian Cricket losing two of their veteran cricketers—wicket-keeper batsman Rodney Marsh (74) and the legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne (just 52)—within 24 hours on 4^thMarch 2022. Shane Warne, undoubtedly the best-ever leg-spinner in world cricket with his 708 Test wickets (the first to reach that mark), has been fully active in cricket even after his retirement in 2007. He played for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL apart from his other international assignments. We have been aware of him all the time as he never failed to comment on the performances of Team India in its international matches. Warne, fondly called Warnie by his pals, reportedly got three months of leave from Fox Sports for whom he had been working, and went to Thailand to start his much-deserved holidays along with his friends. Tragically, the very next day he was found unresponsive in his room. His friends did CPR on him and then it was done repeatedly at the hospital, but the legend could not be revived.   

 

It is indeed hard to put away Shane Warne from our cricket-loving minds. When he dominated the Indian batsmen, prominently Sachin Tendulkar, we admired him, and when he was hit all around and out of the park by Tendulkar, we loved his open admiration and wonderment at the living legend’s prowess. This had been typical of the essence of Warne’s personality who lived his life on his own terms and was not bogged down by the few controversies thus created. And we really feel great talking about the times of the greats. Shane Warne has been bestowed the 4^thplace in the list of Wisden Cricketers of the century along with the greats of Donald Bradman, Garfield Sobers, Jack Hobbs and Vivian Richards.

 

Earlier on 4^thMarch Rodney Marsh passed away—a cricketing great who excelled during 1971-1984 as a wicket-keeper batsman and created history of achieving a record 355 Test catches behind the stumps, mostly combining with the lethal fast bowling legend Dennis Lily. Of course, we could not watch his antics on the field as in those times our only means of tuning in to cricket had been the radio commentary. Interestingly, both of Marsh and Warne had had very ordinary debuts. And more disconcertingly, Shane Warne had twitted his condolences to Rodney Marsh’s demise, not knowing his own destiny. We cannot still believe Warnie is no more.

 

Meanwhile, India made mincemeat of a listless Sri Lanka in the first Test at Mohali winning by an innings and 222 runs. The highlight of the test match is the tremendous comeback of Ravindra Jadeja into the Test team after months of nursing an injury—he made a historic 175 not out in India’s defining first inning total of 574 and went on to take 9 wickets in the Sri Lanka two innings with a fifer in the first innings. Now, Jadeja could justifiably be termed as one of the greatest all-rounders in world cricket. Earlier, India swept the 3-match T20I Series 3-0 where Jadeja also figured prominently. 

(We acknowledge wikipedia.org, alzazeera.com and google maps for the images.)

Ukraine Invasion: Who Is Winning This Barbaric War? Putin Or Biden?

The horrors of this totally unnecessary war have been visible, palpable and real across the television screens, mobile screens and the internet, SOS videos, official release of images and so on. It has reached the 6^th day today in spite of the perplexing Putin offer of dialogues with Ukraine amid flying missiles, the starter of which has in fact been realized in Belarus yesterday, and as feared nothing coming out of it. Only the destruction and despair of the Ukrainians along with fellow global citizens have increased manifold. Now India too is plunged in despair with its young medical student Naveen Shekharappa dying in Russian shelling in the worst affected city of Kharkiv. Around 3500 Indian students are still reported to be stuck in that devastated city and in all, around 16000 students are still undergoing the claustrophobic terror inside the bunkers—hungry, thirsty and crowded like herds of animals.

 

India, preoccupied with elections like last year when the COVID-19 second wave created havoc, realized the urgency of evacuating its citizens quite a bit late. No doubt, it had been issuing advisories since a few days before the invasion started, but failed to connect with the Ukraine universities or educational institutions to request allowing the Indian students leave the country. The students, therefore, could not risk their careers as there were no online classes, and a fatal delay was thus caused. Then Operation Ganga started; but the helpless students were asked to travel hundreds of kilometres to any of the borders of Poland, 

Hungary, Romania or Slovakia on their own so as to be airlifted thereafter. Today the Government of India has issued an emergency alert to the Indian citizens to leave Ukraine by any means—bus, trains or whatever. Naveen died on his way to the Kharkiv railway station where in fact no trains were running.

 

Operation Ganga has rescued about 8000 students so far, but around 15000 are still huddled up there as the war goes on intensifying. To make matter worse, the Government has been trying to score brownie points for the assembly elections by chest-thumping and boasting about the great evacuation efforts and the involvement of four cabinet ministers since yesterday. And what about the so-called great Indian democratic diplomacy? Well, the country has only been abstaining from voting in the UNSC twice and once in the UNHRC lest big brother Russia gets hurt. The country has been unable to take an international stand despite its Prime Minister talking to President Zelensky while holing meet after high-level national meets. Why not now ask your big brother to allow the Indians cross over to Russia which is much nearer?

 

President Biden had indeed been sure about a Russian invasion days before the actual war broke out and had been issuing warnings all around. However, it’s not clear if his ‘fears’ had been based on intelligence reports or on the ‘sanctions yearning’ as displayed by him and his allies all throughout. I read one report of the western mainstream media that said if Putin did not attack Ukraine now it’d mean he was weak and scared to do so. That there were incentives or instigations for a war is a fact beyond doubt.

 

Now the US, most European nations, Australia and some other countries along with the NATO are sending emergency help to Ukraine in terms of money, military forces and high-definition weapons. They, the US, UK and Germany in particular, have imposed possibly the most suffocating economic sanctions ever on Russia or on any country in history, almost isolating them from the world. Nobody has in mind that diplomacy can still persuade a desperate Putin who is facing protests from his own Russian citizens and his international image getting a huge hit.

 

Thus, put under pressure from all sides, President Putin has issued an alert for readying all his nuclear arsenal housed in his own country and Belarus. He must have made a miscalculation too as he thought Ukraine would be conquered in a maximum two days. He did not expect or was not hoping for a terrific resistance effort of Ukraine from its very grassroot levels. We have been shown visuals of Ukraine leaders and general citizens taking up guns for the defense of their dear country. The superpower alliance did not see or did not want to realize that sanctions of this nature would only make Putin more dangerously desperate. They have also seemed to have forgotten the ominous warnings issued by Putin at the start of the invasion.

 

So, who’s winning this war? Obviously, all the losers only. Putin could be the biggest loser, and the superpower alliance elated and obsessed with sanctions cum strategic power controls would only create a global economic crisis later on, if not a full-scale global war. A domestic crisis is already brewing in Russia itself with its Ruble crashing, its central bank increasing interest rates to an unprecedented 20% and the suffering citizens queuing up before banks like we Indians did during the demonetization, apart from worrying about internet and mobile services cum payments. As a global unit we must know that a Russian economic crisis would soon engulf the whole world.

 

We still hope for an immediate end to the war, and saving the lives of many—be it Ukrainians or Indians or Russians or just any global citizens. We also mourn the unnecessary end to the life of a promising Naveen and share the pain with his family and kin.

Ukraine Crisis: World Rulers Are Still Driven By Primitive Instincts!

According to Sigmund Freud’s theory of ‘Id, Ego and Superego’ the Id trait of a personality was present in the first primitive humans, but not as a part of the brain; in fact, the Freudian tripartite components had nothing to do with the grey cells. The Id trait includes the basic survival, sexual and aggressive instincts/impulses, and it acts unconsciously. Over the centuries the primitive humans started living in communities and societies, and at that time the Ego trait became important as a conscious part of a personality able to distinguish between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ acts in terms of good or harm such acts could cause to the others. With more maturity the Superego trait had emerged as the ethical ‘conscience’ of human beings, always sending correcting messages to Ego whenever the Id trait overpowered it. Freud indicated that any imbalances in these three traits are bound to lead to personality disorders, like if the Id impulses totally dominate the personality that human being turns overtly aggressive, greedy and even into a criminal. The ideal condition, according him, is when Ego effectively mediates between Id and Superego.

 

It’s the ‘imbalances’ part that we are interested in. The inherent greed and aggression components contained in the Id drove human beings progressing from local lordship to regional lords/fiefdoms or small kings or bigger kings and to the emperors. This progression had been based essentially on human’s craze or greed for power manifested in plain greed for land, forests, water sources, livestock and even women of the conquered lands. There is no dearth of expansionist invaders from the times of Alexander the Great to the murderous invaders of the Turks, Muslims, Persians and others. Along this trail of history planet earth has seen thousands of bloody skirmishes, battles and wars, all of which were naturally driven by the overpowering Id component.

 

From Ego there developed monsters like egoist or egotists and super egoists who had demonstrated no ‘guilt’ complexes as explained by Freud in any immoral or inhuman eventuality. Feelings of supremacy also grew in some communities or races who considered theirs as the best, and therefore, wanted to dominate the lesser humans. The planet earth had witnessed devastating ‘supremacy nationalism’ of the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarians, the Italians and the Germans which led to World War-1 and World War-2 during which millions of soldiers and civilians perished and which in a way led to the murderous Spanish Flu during the first world war that also took a toll in millions.

 

It was hoped that with the tremendous growth and progress of human civilization in terms of technology, scientific exploration, socio-economic, the intelligentsia and benevolent leaders in mostly the emerging of democracies, the world had learned enough lessons from the horrific world wars. But no, the ‘greed for power’ factor as basic imbalances in the personality theory continued unabated. The wars between the two clear superpowers only became secret or undercover that is to say, cold. One of the superpowers, USSR, dissolved itself in 1991 and the other superpower, the US with its western allies, became all powerful which was not at all welcome for the other ‘powers’ like Russian, China and others. Cold war ended, but ‘operations’ continued. Aggressive nationalism again grew for strategic alliances and presence, military bases or deployment of forces and military operations as was thought to be very necessary.  

 

The strength of having nuclear weapons seemed to increase the craze for power more. It was like some diseased persons looking greedily at the stocks of mouth-watering food or piles of money, but not able to devour or use them. The temptations remained permanently. The super imbalances in the Superego kept up the threats of a nuclear war anytime anywhere. The hapless but peace-loving global citizens continued to live in morbid fear, not knowing when and what their monstrously ‘imbalanced’ rulers would do next. Trade and business flourished in manufacturing a wide range of weaponry and the consequent export or import of those to like-minded allied countries or ‘friends’.

 

Apparently, the age-defining spread of higher education and digital literacy had no positive impact on the rulers who continued to suffer from the imbalances, totally neutralizing the Freudian Superego personality trait from generating some ‘conscience’ in them. They still greed for more and more power; want more arsenals of weaponry, preferably nuclear and want to damage that of others; they try to activate a fear psychosis among their subjects saying that their national security is threatened; they want to destroy any indication of a possible growth of patriotism or nationalism in some countries they don’t prefer; they eagerly wait for a demonstration of their supremacy, even not caring if it could involve use of nuclear weapons; and the supposedly benevolent rulers of the democracies or milder dictatorships land up with no choices depending on who happen to be their ‘friends’ or ‘allies’.

 

The COVID-19 Pandemic did indeed make the world a much more closely-knit entity with a common objective of its eradication. However, even before the pandemic officially ended the same old habits started anew. No hope then for humankind? Well, we don’t know. We, the global citizens, have changed ourselves for friendship and everlasting peace; but still, it’s the toughest ask to try change the mindset of our rulers. Hope, in some miraculous way, the Ukraine invasion gets stopped and all kinds of wars/battles/rivalries in future get stopped too, to save our little world.

(Images Source: simplypsychology.org )

Pray For The Citizens Of Ukraine As The Lust For Global Strategic Supremacy Leads To Russia’s Invasion!

Notwithstanding the complications and the stakes involved in the Ukraine crisis it is just incredible that in an ultra-modern age where the globe becomes one community, international diplomacy should fail so miserably to prevent a war that could have grave multidimensional impact. Again and again, the lust for the superpower status and strategic presence cum military bases has been driving the US and Russia with or without China launch military assaults, occupations, invasions and wars since the era of the cold war ended. With the same aggressive intent and lust Russia has invaded Ukraine just hours ago. President Vladimir Putin calls it a military intervention or operation that has become inevitable after the nationalist ambitions of the Ukrainians and Ukraine’s drive to integrate itself with the European Union and the NATO have threatened Russia’s national security. Putin’s justification has extended to his chilling warning that should any other country interfere in its ‘necessary’ war Russia will act immediately which may lead to consequences the world has never witnessed before.

 

President Joe Biden who seemingly knew the inevitability of a Russian invasion many days before and his western allies have, as expected, rather grabbed this opportunity to threaten severe economic sanctions as if they were waiting for just that. Most of these countries are extremely vocal saying the sanctions would be such as to hurt Russia extremely dearly and almost isolate it from the global network of trade and commerce; of course, they admit that these sanctions would hurt them too as is unavoidable in a closely-knit global unit. But why take only economic sanctions as the ultimate weapon leaving the Ukrainians to their fate? Why did they not try harder enough for a diplomatic solution earlier? The NATO reportedly is to mobilize its forces in the neighboring European countries; but they have to be wary of Putin’s threats to not allow this invasion snowball into a global war.  

 

We condemn the invasion. We want Russia’s aggression be stopped immediately come what may while we fail to understand who is going to accomplish that as we cannot justify the actions of any of the superpowers or powers of the Planet Earth with overwhelming stakes in Ukraine. There are reports of explosions and Russian shelling in capital Kyiv and several other cities. Ukraine claims it has brought down five Russian aircrafts while Russia says that it has completely destroyed Ukraine’s air defense systems. India’s efforts in bringing back the Indians have stopped as airports in Ukraine are shut now. Around 40 Ukrainian soldiers and 10 civilians are officially reported as killed so far among many more injured.

 

The panicky citizens of Ukraine are desperately calling upon the United Nations to stop the Russian advances. Huge traffic jams are seen in Kyiv as many of the residents try to flee the city to other possibly safer places. Sounds of bombings and shelling can be heard on the TV news channels across the globe. But a safer haven seems to an illusion. Russian troops had reportedly taken military action in eastern Ukraine days back where it has been supporting the separatists since the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Putin had already recognized two separate nations in that region and it is very clear that he wants the whole of Ukraine to be brought under its direct control for the so-called safeguarding of national security. Of course, many pro-Russia inhabitants of the eastern region have reached the safety by crossing over to Russia.

 

President Volodymyr Zelensky, a politician, actor and a comedian who was elected as Ukraine’s sixth President by the nationalist supporters in 2019, has in the meantime made it very clear that Ukraine is going to fight the Russian attack with all its might. This apparently means a fight to the finish just for the simple but painful fact that Ukraine is no comparison to Russia’s military power. Zelensky has declared martial law in the nation and has allowed all the citizens to arm themselves with guns for defense. This looks very ominous notwithstanding his patriotic feelings and that he expects arms, ammunition and forces from the western European allies. The Russian President calls the independent-minded patriotic Ukrainians as ‘neo-Nazis’ and this further accentuates the frightening reality.

 

Should this uncalled-for war be allowed to run its full course thousands of innocents on both sides are likely to perish apart from causing irreparable damage to the infrastructure of Ukraine. And then, the global citizens are also set to suffer in the disastrous economic aftermath. The crude oil prices have already climbed to unprecedented levels in recent times, and the stock markets in India and elsewhere ae already having a red run. Severe economic sanctions are going to provide no relief, but bring on more misery in terms of trade and prices in the global economy that has just started recovering from the pandemic.

 

The global citizens must rise to the occasion and create enough pressure on the main stakeholders to stop this war. As Russian troops are infiltrating into more and more cities and territories of Ukraine, we all pray for the safety of the Ukrainians. Stop this war!

 

(Note: ‘Reading’ readers of this site must be wondering how this fella has gone down on his pledge so fast! Well, if international cricketers can retire/resign and re-join at will why not his humble human being on this earth! Anyway, the story about that later, not in this grave and ominous time of war.) 

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.