For most of us, it has been 307 days since the Russians invaded the Ukrainians sparking a war that has resulted in much bloodshed and devastation. However, the Ukrainians have been at war with the Russians since 21 March 2014, when the Russian special forces seized Crimea. In these past 307 days, there has been much controversy, anger, and most significantly tension. In today's edition of DND, we will be breaking down the origins of the war, the significance of Ukraine to the Superpowers, key incidents that have taken place since the war started, and most importantly, how this latest bloody chapter in human history can draw to a close.
Before we get into the actual war, it would be useful to see why this conflict actually started. The official reason for the Russian invasion of Ukraine is to "demilitarise" and "denazify" it. Before we dissect this reason further, it is important to note that there is a neo-nazi militia in Ukraine known as the Azov battalion. However, it only consists of a maximum of 2,500 people - a fraction of Ukraine's population. Yet, this battalion is the core of Russia's propaganda about Ukraine being under Nazi control. Hence, it is important to make clear now that, while there are neo-nazis in Ukraine, they are a small minority with limited influence. Such individuals exist in every society. They are not justifications for war since the international threat they pose is tiny. It is a matter of a country's own internal affairs. For the record, the Ukrainians were already dealing with it as the Ministry of Interior (Home Affairs), reorganised them into a detachment under the national guard, to keep them under their control whilst making good use of them.
This brings us back to the second reason for Russia's invasion, they wanted to demilitarise Ukraine. In other words, to disarm the country. The only reason one would do that is if the country was a threat. This is where it gets slightly muddy. The overarching cause for Russia's offensives (even those way back in 2014) was that Ukraine was drifting away from Russia's sphere of influence and becoming increasingly westernised. In other words, Ukraine was buddying up with Russia's mortal enemies. There are 3 main reasons for Russia to want Ukraine in its sphere of influence or more specifically away from its nemesis's influence. They are Putin's desire for a Russian Empire, the strategic importance of Ukraine, and the resources in Ukraine.
Firstly, Putin's desire for a Russian Empire. As with any authoritarian, he is looking to leave behind a great legacy. For the Chinese, Xi wants the Chinese empire. For Putin, he seeks to minimally re-establish the USSR. He has never disguised his bitter feelings about the disintegration of the USSR. Upon becoming President of Russia more than 20 years ago, Vladimir Putin publicly declared his intention to restore Russia as a great power. In his annual State of the Nation address to Parliament in 2005, he said, “Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the 20th century.” Putin, like many of the Russian Elite, had never been satisfied with the dissolution of the Russian empire and hence, had never really accepted the unilateral independence declared by the USSR's satellite states. However, while Putin was not yet ready to declare war on Ukraine, he did try twice in 2004 and 2010 to install a pro-soviet leader in Ukraine only for them to have been ejected by street protests in Ukraine. But this desire to leave a legacy behind is only a small reason for Putin's interest in Ukraine.
The bulk of the reason lies in the strategic importance of Ukraine as well as the riches it could offer Russia. Ukraine is right on the border of Russia. Hence, any assault on Russia that comes from Ukraine would occur before Russia could even do anything about it. On top of that, if one were to build missile silos in Ukraine, those missiles could target deeper into Russia than any of the countries that were not on Russia's border. Hence, it is this range and speed boost that is offered to any enemies of Russia who have influence over Ukraine. This was the very reason why Stalin created the Iron Curtain in World War 2. It was meant to provide a buffer for the USSR. Hence, Russia is wary of influence over Ukraine particularly by its enemies as it would put them at a significant disadvantage. As for the resources, it's simple, Ukraine has fuel. Lots of it. Excluding Russia’s gas reserves in Asia, Ukraine today holds the second biggest known gas reserves in Europe. As of late 2019, known Ukrainian reserves amounted to 1.09 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. This is only what is known so far there has yet to be active exploration that might yield undiscovered energy fields. If Russia does gain control over Ukraine, it would have control over the energy markets, giving them even greater leverage over countries. Leverage that could wreck a country's economy. An example like last September when Russia shut off the main gas pipeline to France and Germany for 3 days causing fuel prices to skyrocket in the country ahead of peak demand in winter.
But these are all reasons why Russia has deeply vested interests in Ukraine but does not so much explain why they took the severe escalation of invading Ukraine. The reason for this invasion is a bit more brain-melting. So let's take this step by step. Invading a country has serious repercussions. Domestically and Internationally. Domestically, because you have to justify to your people why you are sending them out to kill and be killed as well as because you have to control your resources better. Internationally, since war is a powder keg and in our now globalized and inter-connected world, literally every nation has an ally. Hence, the war could spiral into a massive conflict that could end up destabilizing and destroying your own country (like Germany and Japan in World War 2 and Germany in world war 1).
Hence, the ideal conflict would have to be on a small scale and needs to end quickly with minimal interference. Russia believed that all those conditions were met when they invaded Ukraine at the start of last year. They thought that they could fight a series of localized battles and cripple Ukraine. They did this by starting a massive military build-up from (March-April) 2021 along the Russo-Ukrainian Border and another build-up from October 2021 to February 2021 (in Russia and Belarus). On 21 February, Putin announced that the Russian government would diplomatically recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics. The same evening, Putin directed that Russian troops deploy into Donbas, in what Russia referred to as a "peacekeeping mission". Hence, on the map, one can see that Putin was attempting to divide Ukraine's manpower and force them to fight individually.
As for the interference portion, he already knew that Britain, France, and Germany would be in no hurry to impose heavy sanctions or commit arms and manpower against him since he held the leverage over their fuel. Hence, the concern was the Americans. However, the American behavior in Afghanistan was more than enough proof that there would be limited intervention on the part of the Americans. This was assured to him when he witnessed the hasty and cowardly American pull-out of Afghanistan where Biden caved to the Taliban's demands against his senior military advisors' requests. He witnessed how Biden rushed to meet the deadline of troop evacuation and ended up leaving US citizens behind and he realized that the US was unwilling to engage in protracted proxy battles meaning that interference from the west would be minimal. Hence, he began his invasion.
Now, the invasion went quite well for Putin initially. He managed to gain control of most of the Donbas region but it began to slow with him gaining most of the southern part of Ukraine by August 2022. The key reason for this is nothing more than the Ukrainian people and their leader Volodymyr Zelensky. Now, do not get me wrong, Zelensky is no savior, there are currently accusations of corruption and nepotism leveled against him. He might have done these things. He might not have. The key point to remember is that he did not abdicate his country during the war. He instead chose to fight with them and he inspired his citizens to do the same. He made excellent use of social media to connect with his people and global leaders and was able to secure funds and weapons from other countries that would boost his counter-offensive. Ukraine on its own did not have the military might fend off the soldiers, however, just as in the Vietnam war, the citizens stepped up to make up the surplus. Hence, rather than being hindrances in need of protection, they contributed to the manpower that enabled the Ukrainians to launch proper counter-offensives, this was what galvanized the West to place their chips on Ukraine, giving them the arms needed to retake their territory and hence resulting in Russia only having 16% of it under control as of 7 January 2023.
Now, before we can to the part about how the conflict will end, it is important to talk about the final party's interests here, in other words, what does Ukraine want? Well, obviously, they want the war to end. They are willing to do so by any means necessary. An example is on 15 November 2022 there was a missile strike in Poland killing 2 people. Immediately, they blamed the Russians for it. Since Poland is a member of NATO, if Russia actually did hit Poland with a missile, this would be grounded with NATO going to war. The missile was Russian-produced as well and came at the moment when Ukraine's cities and energy facilities were under bombardment. For the next 2 nights, Zelensky claimed that missile was an attack from Russia that infringed on the collective security of the world and called for escalation. However, western officials later concluded that the missile might actually have been a malfunctioning Ukraine counter-missile. Hence, just because the Ukrainians are clearly the victims and the "good guys" in the conflict, we still need to verify and tread cautiously as NATO becoming involved would most likely be a World war 3 scenario.
Not to mention, that they want to join NATO. Why do they want to join NATO? Mainly, because of the strong deterrence that it would give to any other nations that dare to invade them. NATO's entire deal rests on the promise of collective security. Basically, if someone attacks a member of the organisation, then it is the equivalent of all members of the organisation being attacked by that aggressor. Hence, resulting in them all counter-attacking together. The reason why Ukraine has never been allowed into NATO is that the NATO members were worried about aggravating Russia (since becoming a NATO member would mean that the Western powers would be able to build their military bases and station troops on the border of Russia). However, the Ukrainians were also never exclusively denied membership to NATO since the possibility of them entering NATO was the only thing that was deterring the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. In other words, the door to NATO was left open but they just kept stopping Ukraine from entering it. This is where the problem lies. Ambiguity is like gambling, rather than making things clear, making the situation ambiguous like making Russia draw its own assumptions about Ukraine's relationship with the West. As long as Russia assumes that the West will protect Ukraine, it does not invade. However,the moment it believes that there will be minimum interference, it strikes.
Now, how can this conflict end? The best-case scenario is that the Ukrainians with their available manpower and arms are able to fend off all the Russians. However, The Russian-Ukraine conflict is not going to end with both sides being happy. For this to end, both must compromise. Yes, Ukraine should not have to compromise anything, since it is an innocent country that was attacked by the Russians. However, Ukraine does appear to be completely repelling the Russian invasion. This will leave Putin greatly embarrassed and Russia even more discredited as a world power. Putin hence will take steps to ensure that he does not lose Ukraine by pouring in more soldiers and more weapons. It will become the next Korean war where there will be massive bloodshed but a stalemate all the same. Contrary, to popular fear, Russia will not use nuclear missiles because Putin for all his threats is not a moron. As long as his own personal well-being is not threatened, there is no need to fear a missile. Only massive bloodshed. Now, the question is, how will this offramp be set up? Putin will never take talks from Zelensky as that would signal that he is losing as he has to talk to the leader of a country who he sees as below him. At the moment, the tensions are too high, there is too much anti-Russian rhetoric from the countries. The US needs to tamp down its rhetoric and focus on being a neutral party. The US also has leverage over Ukraine as it is supplying most of its weapons and gears. It needs to tone down the aggressive posturing so that it gives Putin an incentive to come to the table and hash out a deal. Putin did not intend for the Ukrainian war to drag out for so long and now he needs an offramp too. He just cannot admit it without looking weak. Hence, bloodshed.
At the end of the day, there are 2 main takeaways one for international policy and one for domestic policy. The takeaway for an international policy is the importance of clarity. It may seem smart for your foreign policy to be ambiguous but in the long run, you are unable to control other countries' perceptions. This perception is shaped by environmental factors that can be affected by anything and everything. Hence, our external appearance could shift rapidly without us even knowing. As for domestic policy, it refers to the importance of self-sufficiency. If the Ukrainians had lost within the first week. Its allies would have never come to its aid. So yeah, you can have all the partnerships in the world, just make sure you are competent first. When the hard times come, the first and last line of defence will always be you.
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