A photo combination Russian President, Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky
After weeks of high-level diplomacy, looming thunder clouds and intense global hysteria, Russian troops have since entered deep into Ukraine, an independent, sovereign state. A dismal fait accompli and rather ominous recline for global peace and the progressive consolidation of international law. Day after day, Russia, a world power continues to bomb Ukrainian cities and other targets.
Indeed, from Friday, 24th February, 2022, after days of deafening military exercises around the 2,295 kilometres of shared border, Russian troops moved as far as 260 kilometres into the precincts of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine from all directions and other major towns, and have continued advancing. From the north to the east through Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Sumy, and from Crimea in the south, they move, leaving in their trail, indescribable toll of loss of lives and wanton destruction of properties. Typical of military conflicts this nature, optics on not few counter accusations of war crimes have been rife.
FROM EMPIRE TO COMMUNIST DIKTAT
The Russian Empire which had a population of about 125.6 million people, as far back as the census of 1897, was known for its great economic, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. It comprised more than 100 different ethnic nationalities, of which the Russians were majority; i.e., over 40%, while Ukrainians were equally major stakeholders.
In political terms, the Russian Empire which was ruled by Kings known as Czars from the Romanov Dynasty (1613-1917), revelled in absolute and autocratic powers. They were also famously conservative, authoritarian and ultra-nationalistic.
In modern times, the successor state to the Russian Empire, that is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or Soviet Union, as it was more commonly called, its origin in, the “October Revolution of 1917”. At that time, October, 24-25 on Russia’s Julian Calender, but actually November 6-7, in world history, the Bolsheviks, headed by a fiery ideologue and revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and established the world’s first constitutionally declared Socialist nation. Thereafter, a unification of the Russian and Slavic Republics of Ukrainians and Byelorussians as well as the Transcaucasians (Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia) took place. In 1944-1945, in the course of the 2nd World War, iron-fisted Soviet leader, Josef Stalin annexed the Balkan States (Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia) after liberating them from occupation by Nazi Germany.
The nation of Ukraine was therefore a critical part of the founding fabric which made up the erstwhile Soviet Union. Besides, it enjoyed very straddling demographic and linguistic cognancy with Russia. Indeed, after the Russian Federation, two other nations, being Ukraine and Belarus, came next in the line of “original” European stock that made up the Communist state and were part of the centre-point of doctrinaire socialist superstructure.
Ukraine’s privileged standing in the former USSR explains why three of the most prominent and long-serving Soviet leaders were all of its national stock. These are Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) protagonist of the Soviet Missile Crisis of 1962, Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) ruled for 18 years, and Konstantin Cherenkov (1911-1985) remembered to have paved the way for Mikhail Gorbachev’s emergence.
In recent history political reforms known as “perestroika” – openness and “glasnost” – economic reform, became embarked upon by the 8th and last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. By the way, this great man just turned 91 years on March 2, 2022 and lives peacefully in Moscow in the midst of the current war. Ukraine, just like the other 14 former Soviet Republics, therefore pronounced its independence on 24th August 1991. This marked Ukraine’s formal cessation from the stranglehold of Russian over-lordship after several centuries.
PUTIN’S MINDSET
In his days, strongly-willed Stalin entered into an alliance with Western Allied Forces to defeat Nazi Germany during World War II. But then, he was mindful of drawing, very clearly, the easternmost boundaries between the East and the West. As a matter of fact, a town like Berlin, the German capital was divided into three and later two separate parts demarcated by a deafening wall. More than Putin’s mental state, is the factor that Ukraine’s privileged standing and the seeming advantage of geographical contiguity occasioned the unrestrained citing of several critical economic and tactical defence assets of the former USSR in that country. As a matter, at the time of independence in 1991, about 3,000 of the Soviet Unions nuclear warheads were deployed on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine is also of great economic asset to the sub-region as it has among other things, some of Europe’s highest endowment of agricultural and mineral resources covering its entire landmass of 603,548 square kilometres.
Putin will therefore want to keep away Western meddlesome in a place as Ukraine as much as possible. In a repeat of history, as 35th American President, John Kennedy (1917-1963) would not see Soviet missiles in Cuba, about 145 kilometres from its borders, exactly sixty years ago, Putin and his Russian security hawks will not risk allowing Ukraine join NATO or enter some other deeper extraneous military alliances, unrestrainedly. As perceived by Putin and his ilk, the current invasion of their smaller neighbour, Ukraine, is essentially a fight for survival and an act in group self-preservation of its concentric sphere of influence. Indeed, Putin, as a young Communist Party official, perhaps grudgingly, saw his predecessors, Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin dismantle Soviet era structures and the creeping cobweb of western democracy and military structures all around Russia. However, from Georgia (2008), Chechen (1999-2008) Crimea (2014), now to Ukraine, he could not stomach such meddlesomeness directly inside his neighbours next door.
CAN PUTIN WIN THIS WAR?
Russia and some of its allies are equally obtuse and by their own rights, global leaders in fire power. As of now, China, for one, has the largest active men in uniform in the world totalling about 2 million. In terms of fighting force, India, North Korea and Russia count among the five largest armies respectively, each with over one million personnel. With respect to overall military capability and capacity on deployment of weapons, China and Russia only come next to the United States. Russia itself is the world’s numbers one nuclear power with about 6,225 warheads.
Added to these, the exact size and strength of Moscow’s maverick friend, North Korea’s nuclear arsenals are unclear. Many believe that the pariah nation’s testing of nuclear arsenals and show off ballistic capability during this period, keeps both America and its friends Japan and South Korea seriously on high alert.
On the flip side, from the days of its founding in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an American-led military alliance has increased its collective military power. Now boasting a capacity to deploy, in nominal terms, nearly 3.5 million personnel, NATO remains the world’s greatest defence and tactical platform. In terms of individual standing in military ranking, some of its key members such as United States is the world’s no. 1, Germany is number 4 in power rankings, while the United Kingdom is number 5 and France comes up as number six (6). This makes NATO a greatly formidable collective force to reckon with.
According to the leading global watch group, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) as of 2018, military expenditures was at a high mark of about US$1,822 trillion. However, three years later, i.e. 2021, despite the rage of Covid-19, defence spending rose by almost 2.8%. In this, just the Americas alone expended in its aerospace and defence about US$ 550.78 billion in 2021. Two years earlier, in aggregate terms, the military budget of the United States was US$693 billion, the highest in the world. America itself is number two in nuclear capability, holding over 5,550 warheads.
What the above scenario depicts is the counter-balance of belligerent capacity if things generate. None can therefore risk a conjecture on the outcome of a head-on confrontation.
THE RAIN OF SANCTIONS
Additionally, the US and the rest of Europe have imposed unprecedented sanctions of economic, political and diplomatic nature on Russia.
The sanctions which have been mounted cover almost all spheres of the country’s national life. Primarily, the sanctions have been political, which are focused on isolating Putin and top members of his government in their personal and collective capacities. Added to these are visa and emigration restrictions. Several European countries have also expelled hundreds of Russian diplomats. The intention here is to limit the country’s ability to conduct diplomatic relations or enable its operatives carry out intelligence activities at a time when the EU considers itself, to be at war with Russia.
WILL SANCTIONS STOP THE RUSSIAN FURY?
It is however important to properly situate these measures vis-à-vis the actual efficacy of economic, diplomatic and other forms of sanctions. It is important to mention, that despite these far-reaching sanctions, the country has continued to march on and still remains a military and economic powerhouse in the world.
No doubt, the country’s population would feel the pinch of the sanctions but whether these will help immediately stop the bombardment of Ukraine’s 40 million people, of which over 5 million have already fled helplessly to Poland and other neighbouring countries, remains to be seen. As of today, the Russian economy with the world’s fifth largest foreign exchange reserve is a global powerhouse. It is ranked as 11th largest economy in the world with a GDP of $1.71 trillion and huge resource endowment, it leads in many areas. So will Russia immediately feel the pinch and the biters? As a matter of fact, this brings the whole question of sanctions to question as several other countries which have gone through such economic and financial penalties have survived. Sanctions imposed by the US on Cuba started in 1959, while those on Iran were from 1979 and reintroduced in 1987. In the case of Syria, the embargoes started in 1986 and for Venezuela, in 2018. What is curious is that, to a considerable degree, all these countries have continued to survive. Even such countries as Libya, Iran, India, Zimbabwe and erstwhile Apartheid South Africa lived through all manners of sanctions, imposed by bilateral nations, alongside multilateral and regional organisations and remained afloat to a reasonable extent. Even Nigeria following the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995 was severely sanctioned but survived until the country returned to democratic rule.
Sanctions bring hardships of various forms and create a state of autarky as is the case of Russia at present, however issues bordering on implementation, enforcement, imperative of humanitarian intervention and even stark economic realities make it difficult to work sufficiently to achieve the desired effects. For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has already warned that these measures “will have substantial impact on the global economy and financial markets.” The organisation called attention to likely global spiral of inflation and extraordinary uncertainties. Similarly, the UN has cautioned on the likely debilitating impact on food production, supplies and prices. More directly, Europe depends substantially on Russian gas and energy for subsistence. Indeed, new fears are emerging that sanctions would in the long-run, also hurt many western economies and how long they will allow these shocks loom around remains to be seen.
It is therefore most unlikely to expect that sanctions alone will stop Russia from its heavy bombardment of Ukraine.
HOW THE WAR WILL END
So, as risky as this may appear, it is remiss to hazard the guess that the most foreseeable way of bringing respite to the Russian-Ukrainian war will not lie alone in the supply to Ukraine, of armaments and weapons for further escalation. As wrong as Russia is in attacking a sovereign country, it will continue to see itself as embarking on a war of survival. Putin and his political “état-major” also realize that relying on the existing dictates of international law and seeming return to detente, the possibility of actual military intervention from the west is tenuous. Accordingly, Putin may not easily buckle to the unceasing level of propaganda and sanctions against his nation. Unlike past cases of breach of peace in Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria and even North Korea, Putin also realizes that Russia’s Veto Power may, for a long while, keep almost all other parties in a cul-de-sac.
Coming from this perspective, it is more likely that diplomacy, if given the opportunity to take the centre stage, could be the panacea for arriving at sustainable peace. In this effort, it would be more propitious to leave all options open, including the issues raised by both Russia and Ukraine. One particular option which the President of Ukraine has started to canvass, along few other international intermediators, is the fact of Ukraine becoming a neutral state, a kind of buffer between the West and the East.
Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Norway, Malta, Ireland and so on, have at different times in recent global trends, maintained neutrality and played the role of forming broader global alliances towards promoting peace.
More closely home, countries such as Nigeria, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or South Africa who are not in the theatre of the conflict, but of sufficient international respect, could carve out for themselves some form of activist diplomacy. If pursued individually, such efforts may appear lilliputian, so it could be embarked upon as a coalition. This is similar to what the Non Aligned Movement and G77 plus China effectively did and still do on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly. After all, Nigeria for one, has historic relationship with Russia, and lately in a major way with Ukraine, in terms of human educational cooperation and active consular relations. Nigeria could therefore warm its way to becoming part of the global efforts to provide solutions. But think of it, this is in consonance with the declared ascent of Nigeria being the fulcrum of “Concert of Medium Powers” once dreamed about. Whatever it is, let peace reign.
Igali, a former Ambassador is the Pro-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA)
