The Anatomy of Russia 's Ukraine Gambit 🇺🇦 🇷🇺
The spillover effect of the war can be felt across the globe. The military conflict between Russia and Ukraine has led to disruptions in global commodity supply chain. It should be noted that in 2020 Russia produced about 12% of world's oil and 16% of world's natural gas. On the other hand , Ukraine supplied 12% of global wheat exports and 13% of global corn exports. Disruptions in such significant commodity supplies would affect global commodity prices. A drop in supply of those essential commodities would negatively impact the global economy, which is still recovering from the pandemic. The International Monetary Fund has already issued a warning of the serious global impact of the war, which includes a surge in energy and commodity prices.
Now, the war has entered several weeks and we can see destruction across Ukraine, caused by the Russian military. The conflagration included indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets. On March 9, a children's hospital and it's maternity ward in Mariupol were bombed. A theatre and an art school sheltering civilians were blown up.
On March 18, Russia claimed to have used a hypersonic weapon in western Ukraine. This incident marked the first time a country have used a hypersonic missile in a Combat. The belligerent Russian forces didn't stop here.
Bucha, a town in Ukraine about 25 kms from the capital city kyiv, witnessed the most cold blooded holocaust since World War 2. The Russian forces are believed to have massacred people by ruthlessly killing them. The Ukrainian officials found more than 400 dead bodies, some with their hands bound, flesh burned and shot in the back of their heads.
Refering to Bucha massacre, Ukrainian President accused the Russian troops of committing the most terrible war crimes, since the World War 2 in an address to United Nations Security Council.
People in Ukraine suffered huge losses which cannot be expressed in words. Children lost their parents and vice versa, houses which people lived for decades, schools, colleges, hospitals were all destroyed and most importantly, people's lives would never be the same as they had before the war.
When Ukraine became independent in 1991, it largely adopted a neutral foreign policy between the Western powers and Russia. But the NATO's offer of membership to Ukraine in 2008, started changing the equations between Moscow and Kyiv. After the regime of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was brought down in 2014 protests and a pro west government was established in kyiv, Moscow started to flex its muscles.
In 2014, Russian forces annexed the Crimean peninsula which have resulted in severe economic sanctions against it and was thrown out of G8 by the Western nations, thus becoming G7. Various diplomatic dialogues were held, but all were fizzled out.
Then the second major development came was the armed conflict between the Russian backed separatists and the Ukrainian military which started in Eastern Ukrainian Donbas region, which took lives of approximately 14,000 people. The fierce battle resulted in the occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region by the Russian proxy militas. However, many agreements were signed like the Minsk Agreement 1 and Minsk Agreement 2 to find a peaceful solution for the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, but none could bore fruits. Also, Normandy format was created in 2014 to find a peaceful resolution for the Donbas conflict and following the Russian annexation of Crimea.
Now, after having a curosy glance in those developments, everything boils down to the reasons that let the Russian bear attack a former Soviet nation, like never before. Let me enumerate the cardinal reasons.
• East wide Expansion of NATO
NATO emerged on April 4, 1949 and it's main agenda was to deter Soviet expansionism. Even after Soviet union was dissolved, NATO was emboldened by the circumstances and optimism by the global balance that was tipping in its favour. Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined the alliance in 1999. But it didn't end here, in 2004 Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia joined the organisation. In 2009, Albania and Croatia signed on, in 2017 Montenegro entered the bloc and in 2020 North Macedonia. Also NATO paved the way for Ukraine and Georgia to joined the alliance. In fact a key demand of Russia to end the Ukrainian conflict was to deny the NATO membership to Ukraine and other ex Soviet countries like Georgia. It also demanded that NATO should roll back from deployment of troops and weapons in Central and eastern Europe.
• Russian Demography
The population of Russia is shrinking and lack of adequate man power could exacerbate the problems for Russia down the line.There's not sufficient immigrates due to economic and harsh climatic conditions in the country. So Russia wants to absorb Ukrainian population into it, according to some analysts.
• Russian Economy
Russia was Ukraine's biggest trading partner and both the economies were entangled till 2014. After that, the lack of investment from Ukrainian firms started hitting the Russian Economy.
• Russian Politics
President Vladimir Putin's approval ratings went down as the country saw mismanagement and hight COVID deaths. Common people faced severe economic hardships during the pandemic years. Back in 2014, Putin's approval ratings had reached almost 90%, after the Crimean annexation. A new war would distract the public from domestic problems and would boost Putin's popularity among the Russian public.
However, the cynical policies of Russia leaders were lambasted by Western and some other countries and further widened the dichotomy between the Russia and the US, the UK , as well as the EU states.
With the discovery of a series of relentless bombing on Ukrainian cities and the carnage of innocent civilians, financial and economic sanctions had been imposed by the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and other European Union countries on the Russian Economy. Despite the artificial measures to prop up the rouble, its economy is tanking and the annual inflation had jumped to 15.6%. The Russian Central Bank's forex reserves had been frozen and it cannot access loans from multilateral institutions.
The Western bloc had cut off some Russian banks from SWIFT ( Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, an international network for banks worldwide to facilitate smooth transaction globally) Removal of Russian banks from it puts constraints on securing payments including for the exports of oil and natural gas. There has been halt on payment services like MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Paypal on Russia. Western companies like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Apple have boycotted and have stopped giving their services and are leaving the country.
Moreover, major European countries like Germany are dependent on Russia for Gas which is used primarily for hitting house during winters, in industries, in vehicles etc. Gas is supplied to the European nations by many pipelines like Yamal, Blue stream , and the key North Stream 1 and North Stream 2. This two pipelines are extremely important for Germany. The United States had exerted pressure on German officials to stop being dependent on Russian Gas. The EU had decided to reduce drastically its energy dependency and to phase out Russian oil and gas.
Futher, the United States and its allies had taken punitive measures against the Russian leaders and oligarchs by banning their entry into their countries and freezing their bank accounts.
The Russian government has tried to evade western sanctions by adopting measures such as finding an alternative to SWIFT i.e. System for Transfer of Financial messages ( SPFS) . The Kremlin had worked on dedollarization and has encouraged its allies to do the same, where the central banks of these countries would be looking to diversify their US Dollar reserve currency to other currencies or assets like Euro, Chinese Renminbi, Gold etc. Russia and its allies have carried out this move as there is a dominant role of dollar in the global economy and it provides US a disproportionate amount of influence over the other economies.
To summarise, Russia has been trapped in the coils of western sanctions and has carried out some moves to evade them as much as possible.
However, a larger question still looms in front of the whole world is where INDIA, the one of the most important country in the global arena stands.
There's a cardinal reason for this neutrality. India is not a satellite state of any great power, be it US or any other country. Like any other sovereign nation India retains the right to take policies based on its core national interest. India's hard nosed policy of neutrality has showcased its strategic autonomy and kept channels open for both sides ( Western bloc and Russia), which best serves its interest.
India's stance of neutrality and non condemnation is very justifiable because an agressive Russia is a problem for US and the West, not for India. NATO's expansion is Russia's problem and not India's. India's problem is China, and it needs both US/the West and Russia to deal with the China problem. And so for these reasons New Delhi abstained from voting in all resolutions which were tabled against Russia in the United Nations and maintained its obstinate dominant stand even after pressure mounted from the West and its allies.
However, the Russia Ukraine crisis posed several challenges for India. The enumeration of the challenges are listed below
• Evacuation of Indian nationals from the war torn country
A large number of Indian students go for pursuing Medical Studies in Ukraine because its cost is much cheaper than studying in a private medical college in India. So evacuation of its national and ensuring its utmost safety posed a real challenge. The government of India launched Operation Ganga which aimed at bringing all the Indian nationals who were stranded during the war. Under this operation, India brought back more than thousand of its nationals from Ukraine.
• Payment by a Rupee-Rouble mechanism in lieu of US Dollars
India and Russia have been working on streamlining payments through the Rupee-Rouble system circumventing the SWIFT and the dollar route. For two countries, payments by a Rupee-Rouble arrangement is not new, for instance for the $ 5.43 billion deal for S 400 air defence system signed in October 2018, with the looming threat of US sanctions under CAATSA, the two sides had worked out payments through the Rupee-Rouble exchange. But the US and the West have been reiterating to not undermine western sanctions on Russia by opting for payments in national currencies. It possess a real conundrum for New Delhi and which side it takes, remains to be seen.
Moreover the war, doesn't only pose challenges but provides window of opportunities for New Delhi.
Russia and Ukraine are largest exporter of Wheat, which contributes about 25% of total world's wheat exports. Due to disruptions in supply chain, India which is the world's second largest producer of wheat, can supersede their positions ( if WTO allows). Futher, according to some analysts, due to restrictions imposed on Russia by European Union, the supply disruptions to EU states by Moscow are likely to generate greater demand for steal, engineering goods for which India can be an alternate supplier.
In a nutshell, India needs to play its cards meticulously balancing its two important partners.
Now, many strategic communities wonder how the war would shape the future Global order and what lies down the line.
On the other hand, if Russia succeed in the invasion, it would able to install a pro Russian government in Ukraine and the hegemony of EU and US would be considerably damaged. In the Eastern Europe, the legitimacy of US and NATO as credible security partners will be questioned and the smaller countries would come under the ambit of Russian hegemony. The countries which are already in NATO would bolster their militaries and increase their defence budget. The Ukraine crisis would only aggravate the problem of migrant crisis in Europe.
Most importantly, China would be emboldened by the weak actions taken by the West to support Ukraine against the Russian might and would be more aggressive or can invade Taiwan in the near future.
The crying need of today is for a peace plan which even if it does not fully satisfy the requirements of ethier Russia or Ukraine and obliquely that of US and the West, will at least ensure a cessation of hostilities and prevent the conflict from becoming further enlarged, involving more countries. To break the cycle of conflicts and end the deaths of innocent civilians is the most vital need at this juncture.
Moreover, countries such as India can go for shuttle diplomacy, involving all the stakeholders of the war. Nations such as Sweden and Finland should refrain from making decisions of joining NATO, which would only escalate the war and open another front for Russian invasion.
India, UAE and other neutral countries should reach a modus vivendi by involving all the concerned parties through diplomacy and dialogues which would cease the hostilities and the ravages of the dreadful war.
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