Putin has a point but should have resisted
Posted on March 6th, 2022

Chanaka Bandarage

Some say Putin triggered the war unprovoked

This statement is questionable.  The dispute in Donbass has lasted for 8 years, the West was unconcerned.

Putin insisted that Minsk Accord must be implemented.  But, the West did not take him seriously.

Putin repeatedly stated to the world leaders (western) that his main concern is that Ukraine was trying to join NATO. Given the strong animosity that has emerged between Russia and Ukraine since 2014, Putin feared that with NATO’s help Ukraine will re-acquire nuclear weapons. For him, it amounts to planting nuclear weapons in his own (Russia’s) backyard.

Also, in the last 8 years about 14,000 people had died in Donbass region (Donetsk and Luhansk).  They are Russian speaking Ukrainian people. Unlike the people in the west of Ukraine, these people live in 3rd world type conditions. According to the British Vlogger Bald and Bankrupt ‘they are desolate areas’.

Russia shares borders with Finland (land) and Sweden (maritime). They are highly developed, modern nations. But they do not have a desire to join NATO.  Because Russia is a nuclear country, these two countries have realised the importance of remaining neutral.

But since 2014, Ukraine (Europe’s 2nd largest country after Russia) has shown a great desire to move away from Russia and join EU.

Thus, it is reasonable to argue that Putin has strong concerns about the security of his country.  Basically, he has the right to protect his country.

A smart, rational man –  Putin always thinks ahead. He was thinking about Russia’s future.  He knows that NATO loves to expand.  This means pushing him to an extreme corner. Putin does not want his head (Russia) to hit a brick wall.

On 21 February 2022 Putin recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as Independent People’s Republics.  It was first believed that he will send his military only to those two regions, to strengthen them.  

But, on 24 February 2022, surprisingly Russia began a full scale attack on Ukraine.  He sent military with the intention of capturing the whole of Ukraine, including Kiev.  It is believed that the invasion is the largest conventional military attack in Europe since end of the World War 2.

Putin may have believed that such an invasion was necessary to capture the Russian speaking parts of Eastern Ukraine. 

If Eastern Ukraine is in his hands, it will be a fine buffer for Russia.

It is obvious that Putin wants to capture the port cities in the Balkans (eg: Mariupol, Kherson), so that Crimea could be strengthened.  He seems wanting Kharkiv (Ukraine’s 2nd largest city) also. It is in North Eastern Ukraine.

Is Putin justified in starting an attack on Ukraine on 24 February 2022?  The writer states No.

The writer states it was a disproportionate response on Russia’s part to the problems at hand.  In Sinhala we have a saying ‘ඉවසලා ඉවසලා බැරිම තැන, එතනයි ඉවසිය යුතුම තැන’.

In his inner circle, there was nobody bold enough to tell Putin that he was embarking on a stupid, most dangerous course of action. The saying: ‘It is very lonely at the top’.

We live in the 21st century, not the 18th or 19th.  Conventional warfare should not be the way to resolve conflicts (the writer notes the Iraq, Libyan and other similar wars).

The writer is happy if all nuclear arsenal are abolished and banned from the world.

Given that Russia is a big nuclear power country, the writer believes that it has a greater responsibility to avert a war of this magnitude. 

Where and when will this end, nobody knows. Is this the beginning of the World War 3. Let us hope not.

One thing is certain – after the end of the war, Russia’s problems with Ukraine will be more than they were before.

The western leaders – especially France and Germany should have done more to avert this situation (Russia attacking Ukraine).

This is why on 3 March 2022 Sergei Lavrov stated ‘they heard us but did not listen’.

An observation –

In the 2020 Belarus presidential election, Lukashenko won again with official results giving him 80% of the vote, leading to mass protests.  Numerous countries did not recognize the result and the EU imposed sanctions on Belarus.

Thanks to Russia, Lukashenko was able to resist the Revolution. He is very secure now.

Why did not Putin offer the same support to Yanukovych in 2014? He passively allowed Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution to proceed undeterred. This may be due to the fact that the Moscow Winter Olympics was happening at the same time (February 2014).  Putin knew if he intervened in Ukraine at that time, western nations would have boycotted the Olympics. Then, it will be a tremendous blow to Russia’s image and prestige. Is Putin regretting now that he did not intervene in 2014?

(In 2012/13 the Sri Lankan government had a golden opportunity to scrap all the 9 provincial councils (scrap the 13th Amendment) by holding an island-wide referendum.  The provincial councils are not only a white elephant, they are serious threat to the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.  But Sri Lanka was keener to hold the CHOGM conference. It feared that if a referendum was held at that time the western nations would boycott CHOGM.

Sri Lanka is well served under a strong central government. Sri Lanka is not India, we are tiny (Tamilnadu has a population more than 3 times of Sri Lanka). And Tamil people (majority of them are good) understand that Sri Lanka does not need this type of an additional administrative layer.  Such mechanisms are artificial; also very expensive to maintain. There are some Tamil political leaders who make unreasonable demands. They do not love Sri Lanka).

True, later Putin went ahead and annexed Crimea.  It was like teaching the West a lesson.  But his actions boomeranged on him.  Russia was subjected to strict economic sanctions and was isolated by the western world and their allies. Russia was excluded from G8.  The political forum name reverted to G7.

After Trump came to power Russia somewhat recovered and despite the sanctions became prosperous again.  Unfortunately with this latest action, Russia will be very badly economically hit. Such a fine country, it is now viewed as a pariah state by majority of the world. This is a sad and unfortunate development.

Let us hope that this vicious war will end very soon.

.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

 

 


Copyright © 2024 LankaWeb.com. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Wordpress