After the shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan, Europeans were quite cut up with the US. With the Ukraine crisis, Joe Biden has rallied them behind him
Afghan protesters hold placards and shout slogans against the US during a protest condemning President Joe Biden’s decision, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 12 February. AP/Hussein Malla
As the Ukraine conflict rages on, Russian forces besieged Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Day 4 of the invasion. Fighting is also on from multiple directions in Kyiv. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has claimed that approximately 4,300 Russian troops have been killed in fighting so far (exact number not known) and that Ukrainian forces have destroyed about 146 tanks, 27 aircraft and 26 helicopters of Russia.
Attacking forces no doubt are likely to get more casualties being in the open and Russian forces must have suffered some casualties, but the figures given by Ukraine are inflated. Otherwise with US-NATO backing them, visuals would have flooded the media with so many Russian tanks, aircraft and helicopters shot down. Apparently, the CIA slipped up in not providing some Hollywood war clips to Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine also accused Russia of a missile attack in Kharkiv, which Russia has denied.
After Zelensky’s office indicated that Zelensky “might” be ready to discuss Ukraine’s neutral status as well as the package of guarantees for its security with Russia, Russia’s delegation arrived in Gomel, Belarus, for the talks. But Zelensky said he would not have talks in Gomel or Minsk because Belarus is party to the invasion. This was obviously on Washington’s advice. But the latest news is that Ukraine has agreed to send a team to Belarus for talks. Hopefully better sense prevails and a ceasefire is agreed to.
Russia has experience of the Battle of Stalingrad. So it is naive to think that it will get bogged down with capturing whole cities including Kyiv. Instead, the focus would be to only besiege them and block the avenues of armament that the US-NATO is pouring into Ukraine. Presently, Russian forces appear to be headed for the following, in addition to Kharkiv; Odessa Port, Mykolayiv, Kherson, Mariupol Port, Dnipro, Sunny, Antinov airbase northeast of Kyiv and Kyiv. Although Zelensky has run away from Kyiv, Russia is looking to install a regime that is not sitting in America’s lap. The only alternative is Ukraine agreeing to be neutral, which the US may not permit.
Therefore, the battle will rage on, this being a question of Russia’s security. As for irregular warfare, for which the CIA and MI-6 would be itching, they should remember Russia’s “Little Green Men” during Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The West has successfully thrived on ‘Divide and Rule’. Division of Germany, Koreas and India are examples, or for that matter the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 between Britain and France after World War I. Ukraine’s western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939, when Stalin and Hitler divided the spoils. Crimea, 60 percent of whose population is Russian, became part of Ukraine only in 1954, when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks.
Western Ukraine is largely Catholic and the east largely Russian Orthodox. The US, therefore, patronised Ukraine’s Catholic west, while ignoring the promise not to expand NATO east of Germany.
This is the ‘civil war’ or a mini-civilisation clash that the US engineered to rally the Europeans behind them, which is also witnessed today with anti-Russian protests all over. These protests will keep growing as the conflict continues.
After the shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan, Europeans were quite cut up with the US. Joe Biden has, however, rallied them behind him on three counts. First, the Catholic versus Orthodox Russians; Second, assuring Germany he will ensure an alternative to Russia’s Nord Stream 2 — but Saudi Arabia has turned down Biden’s request for increasing oil production, putting him in a fix. Third, let Ukraine (which is neither EU nor NATO) and Russia kill each other — US-NAO will simply watch the fun and keep supplying arms and fuel to Ukraine.
James Heappey, UK’s parliamentary under-secretary of state for the armed forces, said in Parliament, “We must all in this house be clear that British and NATO troops should not, must not, play an active role in Ukraine. We must all be clear what the risk of miscalculation could be and how existential that could very quickly become if people miscalculate and things escalate unnecessarily.”
The European Union (EU) served a demarche to New Delhi on Friday, hours before the UNSC debated on a US-sponsored anti-Russia resolution, urging India to adopt a firm position on the crisis based on the concept of rule of law. The EU to-date has not said one word against the Chinese aggression in eastern Ladakh during May-June 2020. And, India knows why EU was running seminars on the Maoists insurgency in India and fanning unrest in the Maoist belt. It is time for the EU to get down to mother earth.
Both the US and EU must understand that sanctions can have a blowback, not merely by way of North Korea firing another missile into the Sea of Japan. These would encourage sanctioned nations trading in their own currencies, hastening downfall of the dollar, besides forging bigger Asian solidarity against the West. It should also be remembered that India, which has a 1.4 billion population market, had kicked out Coca Cola in the 1970s. Acting tough can kick the businesses in the teeth including in the defence sector.
With all the muscle flexing of US-NATO, Putin has ordered his Ministry of Defence to transfer the Russian Nuclear Deterrence Forces to a special mode of combat duty. Inviting Doomsday, therefore, remains Biden’s prerogative.
The author is a veteran of the Indian Army. Views expressed are personal.
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