REFLECTIONS! The War in Ukraine, and a New World Order?

By Akaninyene Esiere

It is exactly a year, two months, and a week today since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. If the hawks in the Kremlin expected a quick win, they misfired.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an unprovoked assault on the sovereignty of the country, and a proof, if one was needed, of the inherent weakness in the United Nations.

In actual fact, the invasion took place eight years earlier when Vladimir Putin’s government, unchallenged, annexed Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula. An illegality under international law which ought to have been roundly challenged by the international community, Putin merely got a slap on the wrist.

Since he could successfully get away with Crimea’s annexation, an emboldened Putin February 24, 2022 went for the big pie stunning the West and awakening the whole of Europe of imminent dangers next door. Effectively, the world lost the opportunity to prevent the war in Ukraine.

It will be admitted that the invasion was timed to coincide with the period the World was just beginning to crawl out of the devastating effects of COVID-19, a global health and medical earthquake. This on its own caused delays in effective and coordinated response to the aggression. 

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, an entertainer-cum-comedian turned war hero has surprisingly held on against a superpower for well over a year. A lot has been written about the war in Ukraine since it started, but surviving 14 months and counting is an opportunity to revisit it and remind us why it’s not just realpolitik to start a war to make a point.

In a sense, it was the subtle nudging of Ukraine by the West to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the fear by Russia that it might be attacked by its neighbours that led to this war. This was made easier with a pro-West presidency in Kiev. 

The US and its European allies have supported Ukraine to hold on to this time. Had there not been a Western intervention on the side of Ukraine, the war would have been over long before now, and Ukraine would have fallen.

Thankfully, massive help in the form of military soft and hardwares, materials, training and tons of dollars have been ceaselessly funneled into this war by the West with the United States taking the lead. But none of these countries has found the need to put their boots on the ground. So, it goes back to the Ukrainians to bear the brunt of a war they did not bargain for.

But in just over 14 months, have we sat back to count the costs of this war? Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians as well as Russian soldiers have died since the war began. The once beautiful cities and towns of Ukraine have been reduced to rubbles and ghost lands. Many have fled the country, families have been displaced. All that matters to a typical Ukrainian now is survival.

At the moment, there is no end in sight for the war. In fact, the West is already tooling up to provide Ukraine far more support than before including hundreds of Leopard 2 A6 tanks. Even Germany, an otherwise tepid country when it comes to war since after World War II, is providing the tanks too.

This is the latest war tank which Russia does not yet have. Its deployment from the tail end of the second quarter of 2023 could arguably tilt the balance of power in favour of Ukraine. The tanks are both an offensive and preventive force. And if their deployment does not change the course of the war; it will certainly escalate it.

But there are no guarantees that the bellicose Russia will be defeated. As we have seen in the last few weeks, it can also make Vladimir Putin do the unthinkable…reach out to deploy more forces and even the nuclear weapons to prosecute the war.

With the benefit of hindsight, the right thing to do about war is never to start one. Reason being that you cannot determine how far it can go.

The tendency in Nigeria is for us to assume that Ukraine is too far flung a country to concern us at this time. But as we have seen since March 2022 when the effects of the war started having an impact on Nigeria, we are indeed part of the global village where nations’ interests are interwoven.

Until the invasion, most Nigerians did not know of the critical role Ukraine plays in the economy of the country until we started seeing prices of foodstuff, and diesel hit the roof. Prices of bread, a staple on the breakfast tables of many Nigerians, are over the roof. Our generator economy has all but collapsed. Since after the war, some promising companies especially in the retail sector have folded up; foreign companies have returned to their home countries thus increasing unemployment in Nigeria.

A flour mill in my home state that was opened with so much pomp and pageantry has been under lock and key since the war started simply because its raw materials used to come from Ukraine! No one is talking about the loss of jobs and related businesses. And this is not an isolated case.

Energy costs have gone up due to the war. The fuel crisis Nigeria experienced for more than four months around the December period was partially traceable to the war in Ukraine.

Oil and gas (they would rather now want to be called energy) companies are making record profits on the back of soaring oil prices due to the sanctions imposed on Russia for invading Ukraine.

Almost all European countries are increasing their defence budgets despite soaring inflation. European nations that are yet to belong to the European Union and NATO, are scrambling to get in so as to be protected against an expansionist Russia! Finland, which shares boundaries with Russia, could never have thought that it would join this organization established since 1949. Today, it’s the newest member.

Interestingly, no country has volunteered to put their troops on ground to defend Ukraine. They are more interested in giving military and nonmilitary supports which is helping prolong the war. And they are equally waiting in the wings to provide the contractors that will be rebuilding Ukraine; that way, they would have gotten their investments back!

All said and done, Russia is the culprit here; and needs to swallow its pride and withdraw its armed forces from Ukraine. But will a diminutive Putin do so? It’s unlikely, unless there’s an internal uproar in Russia which he would be too happy to vigorously suppress. At the moment, he’s riding on the back of a tiger; coming down might consume him.

The Russian president has been a permanent feature in his country’s history for over two decades, and he still has the mentality of rebuilding the defunct Soviet Union.

A former KGB (Russian secret police) officer, Putin is taciturn, even mercurial, so you cannot second guess him. He once said that the West could not claim to have won the cold war because no wars were actually fought to determine winners. Now he has started one, even if it’s to make a needless point.

The tanks that the West is giving to Ukraine have become a propaganda tool in Putin’s hands: that 80 years after, Russia is facing German tanks again…referencing how Germany under Adolf Hitler attacked Russia, part of what culminated in the world war.

The United States wants Russia to be totally isolated, and for every nation to condemn her as the aggressor. But the White House is not getting all of that. Instead, the medium powers seem to be asserting their independence and even unobtrusively supporting Russia.

India, a medium power (and increasingly inching toward becoming a global powerhouse), is tacitly supporting Russia, and enjoying the sanctions imposed on the country because it is buying oil from Russia at a discount. One might argue that it is in the interests of both countries. India has just surpassed China as the most populous nation on earth and will require cheaper energy anywhere to fuel its economy.

China, without doubt a global powerhouse, is aligned with Russia on the war. Though there is no evidence that it is providing support to Russia at the moment, there is nothing saying that it would not happen if the war were to escalate. Just last week, China did what US ought to have done: starting a mediating role. Chinese President Xi Jinping had an hourlong talk with his Ukrainian counterpart. Having already spoken with the Russian President, the West is upbeat about the possibility of the war ending sooner rather than later. US ought to have talked with Putin long ago.

Brazil, a US ally, has not only refused to condemn Russia, but has even gone ahead to accuse US of stoking the flames. The Brazilian President has spoken the truth that no one in USA wants to hear: “stop encouraging the war and start talking about peace.”

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva can afford to say so because his country is a medium power and No. 1 giant in South America. He has even gone ahead to meet with Russian top diplomat Seigei Lavrov, to the chagrin of the White House.

South Africa, which has all but lost its place as a medium power has surprisingly sided with Russia.

Nigeria’s position on the war? Inconsequential. At the moment, no one, not even our foreign affairs minister can say what our foreign policy is. Typical of the Buhari regime, nothing strategic: Geoffrey Onyeama has failed to walk where Joseph Garba and Bolaji Akinyemi walked. Under him, Nigeria operates a muted diplomacy.

Nevertheless, Putin should not be made to get away with what can be seen simply as war crimes in Ukraine. He’s potentially a danger to world peace.

Esiere is a former journalist!