Chiranjib Haldar
The war between Russia and Ukraine is a much wider war. As in the Russian genocide of Ukrainians or Holodomor in the 1930s, the apology for continuing war is made in the name of peace. An old ghost seems to be hovering over Europe. A new polarisation of major powers may be taking shape against the backdrop of current Ukrainian conflict – an anti-American, anti- NATO alliance. For peaceniks, military invasions, conflicts or national belligerence are not any cause célèbre. And for ringside viewers stoic to retaliatory violence, the confrontation between Moscow and Kyiv is seen as a fiery narrative of absolutism versus democracy. The domineering narrative encompassing Moscow’s grandstanding over Ukraine is that of an erstwhile empire bent on asserting its writ over a former constituent or vassal that is desperate to shed off its garb.
For avid watchers of modern armed conflicts, the media is replete with sordid tales of Russian bombardment and Ukrainian resistance. Battle tanks, trenches, casualties and militarised zones are being beamed live into our drawing rooms. Both Russia and Ukraine are caught in a slugfest extraordinaire with no end in sight – kamikaze drones, air defence systems, howitzers and anti-tank missiles. Arsenals seesaw between the aggressor and victim depending on where your empathy lies or like many nations fence sitting under strategic compulsions. Opinion swings between Russia, the expansionist asset grabber guised as martyr against the West and contrarian views comparing Putin to Peter the Great or rejuvenating a Czarist empire.
Over centuries, two aspects of war have always churned like tweedledum and tweedledee through the looking glass. Uniformed soldiers as mincemeat and civilians as sitting ducks are at the receiving end in any confrontation. Iraq, Bosnia, Crimea or Ukraine; many call it a Clausewitzian cycle where escalation and de-escalation are caught in the whirligig of time. Military confrontations, occupation or low intensity warfare – a term favoured by many strategists – follows the same trajectory. Those in olive green being treated as cannon fodder for all armaments and civilians bearing the brunt of collateral damage. It is sheer merchandising of arsenals and a booming war industry raking in the moolah for arms moguls.
What is being projected as an unequal rivalry is as much a battle of narratives and atmospherics as one of critical combat. High decibel polemics and frequent assertion of democratic principles by both Presidents Vladimir Putin and Zelensky are as much part of the Russia-Ukraine imbroglio as the tactical manoeuvres on both sides. Throughout the war, Russia has mustered enough personnel and weaponries to subdue brutal Ukrainian resistance. Whether this quelling has been through mass conscription, mercenaries and imports is a matter of conjecture. And Ukraine says it has halted the Russian juggernaut which some have brushed aside as President Zelensky’s motormouth utterances.
Three interconnected events actually mark the commemoration of the Ukrainian quagmire and the Russian invasion. And each can be a game changer. US President Joe Biden raises a toast with Ukrainian President Zelensky in a show of western solidarity with a nation fighting ‘a brutal and unjust war’. Russian President Putin sharply ups the ante by vowing to pull back from the New START treaty, the last remaining nuke pact with the US. Chinese foreign policy advisor Wang Yi denounces Washington and assures to continue its economic sustenance to Moscow though denying lethal arms.
Heroic resistance to a supposed aggressor usually makes for a swashbuckling saga in these days of live coverage as we stare astonishingly on TV to watch those fighter jets dropping laser-guided bombs. More than the probable outcome, it is pertinent to trace the origins of the Ukrainian imbroglio. Can we trace its roots to a deeper Russian conundrum; an imperial passion to dominate its periphery and those nations who were once part of the mighty USSR. The flip side to this logic is equally imperative. Putin’s military action was a defensive move to create shock absorbers from an ever expanding NATO inching closer to Russian borders. Another narrative doing the rounds, pegs on an existential tussle, a third cataclysm following the Napoleonic and Nazi forays of the 19th century and World War II.
Even as Russia and Ukraine remain bogged down in their gory conflict, the war has produced a clear winner, NATO. NATO has moved 1800 km eastward and is desperate to honeycomb Ukraine. Moscow invaded Ukraine arguing that it fell threatened by the prospects of NATO expansionism closer to its borders. Its aggression has ended up fulfilling exactly that nightmare. Finland is in; Sweden is on the verge of gaining entry into the august alliance. And Ukraine is likely to sail into the European Union and integrate with the west though its ‘rightful place’ in NATO as Chief Jens Stoltenberg defiantly asserted, may take longer. War has a way of turning distant fears into self-fulfilling prophecies. Despite Ukraine’s embrace by the West, without real deterrence, a future of repeated Russian invasions cannot be ruled out.
(The writer is a commentator on politics and society.)
Follow our WhatsApp channel