Russia Ukraine War

We all are reading and seeing on TV news channels about the war going on between Russia and Ukraine, which started during the middle of last week. Russian President Putin was in denial mode for the last few months on the issue of Russia attacking Ukraine, but in the end on 24^th February  2022, he launched  military operations against Ukraine.

Let us go back to history, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine voted for independence from Russia. Putin deems Ukraine as an artificial creation carved from Russia by enemies. He also described Ukraine as puppet of the west. As Ukraine requested to be part of NATO, it angered Russia who started placing troops near Ukraine border.

This is not the first time that tensions have mounted between Russia and Ukraine. Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed its Crimean peninsula. Rebels backed by President Putin seized large parts of eastern Ukraine. The attack came in when pro-Russian president was disposed. A 2001 poll suggests that nearly half of Ukrainians supported the country’s exit from Soviet Union. Now, over 80% of people support Ukraine’s independence.

Russian leaders claimed that military action was necessary to stop Ukrainian attacks on two breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, which Moscow recognizes as sovereign states. Russia also accused Western Nations of arming Ukraine against Russia.

Other main problem is that Russian under the leadership of Putin is emerging as energy giant, becoming the world’s third largest producer of oil and second largest producer of natural gas. So the Russian leadership feel that they also should have say in the energy market, and secondly Ukraine is also having many natural resources like oil and natural gas, which they also supply to European nations, thus threatening the supremacy of Russia in the energy field.

Now let us see why Ukraine is important, and why it matters to Russia.

Ukraine is having good recoverable reserves of Uranium ores, it also have very good Titanium ore, Manganese ore, Iron ore, Mercury ore reserves. It also have coal reserves, which is ranked 7^th in the world. This is enough for Putin to set an eye on Ukraine.

Secondly Ukraine is an agricultural country- It is 1^st in world in exports of Sunflower & Sunflower oil, 2^nd in the world in Barley production and 4^th in its exports, 9^th place in the world in production of chicken eggs. Ukraine can meet food needs of over 600 million people across world.

Thirdly Ukraine is highly industrialized- it is engaged in Ammonia production (1^st in Europe), natural gas pipeline system ( 2^nd in Europe and 4^th in world), Installed nuclear power plants capacity (3^rd in Europe and 8^th in world), and many more industries.

Can you imagine, if Russia annexes Ukraine, what boost it can give to Russian economy.

There are some other reasons also why Russia went into war with Ukraine.

1 Ukraine has become the bone of contention between Washington & Moscow.

2 Russia wants the West to keep Ukraine and other former Soviet nations out of NATO, halt weapons deployments near Russian borders and roll back forces from Eastern Europe.

3 Ukraine wants to join NATO which has not gone well with Russia.

4 Russia thinks if Ukraine is allowed to join NATO, the group would move closer to Russia’s border.

5 If Ukraine joins NATO, it is eligible to get support from the group’s members in case of external attacks.

6 So Russia believes Ukraine could attempt to take back Crimea if it joins NATO. Putin has expressed his concerns in this regard recently.

7 Hence Russia demands West to stay out of Ukraine as Putin wants to restore Moscow’s influence throughout the post-Soviet space.

8 Moreover, after the collapse of Soviet Union, Russia lost control of 14 former republics including Ukraine.

9 Putin considers this as tragic as both countries shared a single ‘ historic and spiritual space’.

10 The Russian President demands guarantees from the West and Ukraine that it will not join NATO, and that Ukraine demilitarize and become a neutral state.

In my opinion with the Ukrainian issue, Russian President Putin wants to reclaim the lost glory of Russia in the world politics, which it held before the collapse of Soviet Union. But the problem now is that these 14 small countries (which were created after the fall of Soviet Union) wants to keep their independence, and they are reluctant to come under the control of Russia. It wants to show the world that they can control the small countries in their region and care two hoots of the world politics, and that’s why they so desperate to take control of Ukraine.

Let us wait and watch the outcome of this war.

Waiting for your views on this blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

28^th February 2022