Fallouts Of Russia-Ukraine War

Against the prediction of many strategic experts, the Russia and Ukraine war entered its third year on 24 February, 2024 without any sign of de-escalation. The news about the leaked conversation among the German air force officials on supplying Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and helping it to identify vital Russian targets shows that outside forces are still eager to keep the fire of conflict burning.

The two years of war has brought unprecedented devastation to Ukraine, which has lost more than 20 per cent of its territory to Russia, more than 400,000 army personnel have been killed or injured and a million people have been displaced. Strangely, both the warring parties have not yet expressed their preparedness for a peace deal, knowing full well that the way out from this impasse in not continued fighting but negotiation.

Rump state 

With the destruction of its defense industrial base and export trade infrastructures in the attack by Russian forces, Ukraine has been left entirely dependent on Western powers for the supply of not only ammunitions but also essential day to day commodities.  The western support, instead of bolstering its internal capacity, has only changed the conflict into a grinding war of attrition. Douglas Macgregor, a strategic policy analyst of USA, has stated that Ukraine has already lost the physical and moral capacity to continue war against Russia.  According to him, if this unequal war continues for another year, Ukraine is likely to lose 40 per cent of its territory and turn into a ’rump state’. 

As the conflagration of war consumes Ukraine, the international media portals are churning out a parallel war of narratives.  There are no similar stories on the situation of war and its trajectory. The mainline western media argue that the war was the result of the diabolical design of Vladimir Putin to recreate the Soviet Union. According to this line of thinking, Putin was a KGB officer in the days of Soviet Union and he still harbours the desire to annex territories which were once under the Soviet Union. 

There are others who dismiss this view and say that invasion on Ukraine was a Russian response to the breach of 1993 agreement which NATO had undertaken with Russia committing not move even an inch to the east of German border.  Awarding NATO membership to Finland, Moldova, Estonia, Poland  and finally to Ukraine was the proverbial last straw for Russia  because it had made it clear that extending NATO to the east of Germany would present an existential threat to Russia’s security. 

From the point of view of strategic threat perception, Ukraine’s decision to join NATO is as inconceivable for Russia as is Mexico’s decision to join military alliance with Russia to the United States.  According to Douglas Macgregor,  Russia not only does not have any imperial ambition, it does not want to  burden itself by occupying Ukraine whose people have a strong  sense of  identity,  own cultural foundation and language which is different  from those of the Russians. 

According to an expert of Russian affairs, Russia’s strategic objective of Ukraine war was to occupy eastern Donbas region, where there is predominance of Russian speaking people for the purpose of creating a buffer region against NATO incursion.  Russia has achieved its goal after occupying Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Bakhmut, Marianka and recently Avdiivka.  In addition to these territories Russia had already occupied Crimea in 2014. Crimea provides Russia an access to Black Sea which is the only sea-lane for Russia remaining unfrozen all the year round. It is a key transport route for the international trade and maritime defense for Russia. 

As a rapidly rising economic power and the strategic force with largest inventory of nuclear arsenal, Russia is out to demarcate its sphere of influence. Countries which border big powers like Russia and the USA can hardly survive by challenging their security interests.  There is little to gain for small neighbours of superpowers by antagonising them. They will only deprive themselves of the possibility of benefitting from the economic prosperity of their large neighbours and run the risk of living under perpetual hostility. 

According to Professor John Mearsheimer, there would be no war between Russia and Ukraine if the later had pledged neutrality and opted out of effort for obtaining NATO membership.  Ukraine made grievous mistake by agreeing to fight a proxy war which has benefited western powers at the cost of its devastation. The war has wiped out many vibrant cities, killed hundreds of thousands of people and a possible nuclear war is menacing extermination of human civilization. 

The Ukrainia n people have suffered an incalculable devastation during the violent hostility but there is always a possibility of bringing issues up for discussion on the table.  It is always good to lose something by embracing negotiated settlement than losing everything by pursuing the course of war.  In the words of war historian Hein Goemans, ‘no war ends in total victory or total defeat. Some sort of negotiated settlement must be resorted to eventually’.

Multi-polarity 

 In today’ s world marked by multi-polar reality, path to lasting peace and coexistence lies in being aware of sensitivities and according safe space for other global powers as well. At present, Russia is fighting a fierce war against entire western world though Ukraine is the seen as its direct adversary. If big powers continue to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine to prolong this conflict, Russia might run out of patience and take out tactical nuclear weapons scripting a dire chapter in the history of humanity.

Finally, to quote Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, ‘Pushing powerful adversaries to the brink is risky as desperate situation may lead to unexpected and potentially disastrous consequences.’  This is a reminder which the global powers, supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine and Russia, which looks determined to push to the very edge of the cliff to achieve victory, would do well to contemplate and plan their forward steps prudentially to the shared future of humanity.

(Dr. Bharadwaj is former ambassador and former chairperson of Gorkhapatra Corporation. Bharadwajnarad@gmail.com)