The Situation in Ukraine
In a move that has rocked the world, Russia has launched a full military invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February, with land, sea, and air forces attacking in unison.
The east, north, and south of the Eastern European nation were subject to incursions by armoured columns and missile strikes, and Russian troops have been reported to have landed in the port cities of Odessa and Mariupol.
There have already been reports of Ukrainian fatalities, but also of casualties on the Russian side as the people of Ukraine fight back against their invaders.
Ukraine will surely fight hard against this invasion, its military being significantly larger and stronger than it was in 2014, and resolve amongst the Ukrainian people is reportedly high. They have had long to prepare for this invasion, and their spirits will not break easily.
Despite this, Russia is still a military superpower, and Ukraine has a long, gruelling fight ahead of it, even if Western allies do all they can to help without intervening directly.
The International Response
Needless to say, the response from the international community has been overwhelmingly negative, with all nations, leaders, and organisations who value freedom and rule of law condemning Vladimir Putin’s disregard for human life, and imposing heavy economic sanctions upon his regime.
The US, UK, EU, and a litany of other nations and non-state actors have placed sanctions upon dozens of large, state-owned Russian banks, as well as private companies that manufacture and supply military equipment and infrastructure to Russia.
Sanctions have also been made against individuals, in particular hundreds of high-net worth individuals with significant influence over the Russian state (Putin’s ‘oligarchs’), as well as Duma members who voted to recognise the two breakaway states of Luhansk and Donetsk, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, several other high-ranking Russian politicians, and Vladimir Putin himself.
As well as these measures, the UK and EU have banned all Russian aircraft from its airspace, and Russian firms have been restricted from accessing Western financial markets to raise funds.
It is predicted that these measures, no matter the defensive economic policy Putin implements, will devastate the Russian economy.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a blatantly illegal move, and the International Criminal Court in the Hague has already begun an investigation into the causes and motivations behind this ongoing conflict.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg released a statement on the day of the invasion outlining the illegality of the event, saying; “Russia has chosen the path of aggression against a sovereign and independent country. This is a grave breach of international law, and a serious threat to Euro-Atlantic security. I call on Russia to cease its military action immediately and respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was also harshly critical, but conveyed that there is still hope for diplomacy to win out. “We are seeing Russian military operations inside the sovereign territory of Ukraine on a scale that Europe has not seen in decades. I have been clear that such unilateral measures conflict directly with the United Nations Charter. It is wrong, it is unacceptable, but it is not irreversible.”
One Man to Blame
The aggression Putin has imposed upon Ukraine until this moment has not had the effect he desired, namely to scare and bully them into taking a more Russia-friendly stance. Indeed, the opposite has happened.
After the people of Ukraine exercised their democratic rights by ousting what they saw as a dictatorial leader in 2014, a leader that would have, in all probability, made Ukraine a Russian satellite state, Putin saw fit to take matters into his own hands.
His illegal annexation of Crimea shortly thereafter did little to deter Ukraine, and Russian interference in the Donbas region was similarly ineffective. Ukraine chose to continue its anti-Russia tendencies when in 2019 they elected Volodymyr Zelensky, who has been a steadfast critic of Putin, and a staunch defender of the sovereignty of his nation.
At every step, he and the wider Ukrainian government have sought a peaceful, diplomatic solution to this crisis Putin has needlessly escalated, a route that Putin and his puppet government have recklessly and thoughtlessly avoided.
I will be very clear in saying that there is no one to blame for this war but Putin himself. He has had every opportunity to reverse his aggression and avoid war and death, but he knew from the very beginning what his course of action would be. He is an evil that must be fought hard, politically, diplomatically, economically, and militarily.
Fear of Freedom
Putin sees the westernisation of Ukraine as a major threat to his leadership for a simple reason; it is now a far freer nation than it was a decade ago.
I must be clear that westernisation does not always lead to democratisation, and democratisation does not always lead to freedom. Russia is an example of this; a nation that ostensibly westernised and democratised after the fall of the Soviet Union, but now is one of the most aggressive and most infamous dictatorships in the world.
Ukraine is the opposite; a nation that has shunned authoritarianism, accepted the Western model of democracy, and is making itself freer and fairer for it.
Make no mistake, Ukraine still has its own challenges to overcome; it still faces some of the highest levels of poverty in Europe, as well as a corruption problem that the persistent President Zelensky has yet to rectify. However, Zelensky was elected on an anti-corruption platform, and under his leadership, it is most certainly on the path to rectification.
This is precisely what scares Putin and his oligarch benefactors so intensely. If one of their sovereign neighbours, a nation that once laboured under the dictatorial umbrella of the Soviet Union which Putin so idolises, can become wealthy, happy, and free under the Western model of nationhood, and if rampant corruption of the type Russia endures can (slowly but surely) be eradicated, then his grip on power over Russia will undoubtedly be threatened.
Under all his masculine bravado and bloodthirsty warmongering, I believe he is frightened of the one thing dictators are always, always frightened of; losing power, and the consequences that come with it. The consequences for Putin, however this ongoing military conflict unfolds, must be as severe as we in the West can impose.
Now is the time for the harshest and most austere sanctions to be placed against Russia. Whatever the West has in reserve, now is the time for all to be unleashed in full.
We must do everything in our power to impoverish Putin, we must squeeze his oligarchs as tightly as possible, we must ensure that not a single ruble can be raised on Western financial markets, and that for as long as Putin is in power, his Russia will be an outcast of the international community.
We must decimate Russia’s ability to wage war, this is now our best chance to help Ukraine in its brave and selfless struggle against oppression.
If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, and if a Kremlin-controlled puppet government is installed in Kyiv in the disastrous event of Ukrainian military defeat, it sets perhaps the most dangerous precedent we will see in the twenty-first century world order.
Do not forget that China, a nation that is responsible for its own horrendous and egregious genocides and human rights violations is currently aligned with Putin’s Russia. If Putin succeeds, and is seen to succeed in Ukraine, then China may become emboldened to pursue its own destructive foreign policy agendas, which is a price the world can ill afford.
While it is true that cutting Russia out of our financial diet will have an adverse effect on Western economies, especially the absence of Russian natural gas in the midst of an ongoing energy crisis, it is most assuredly worth the cost. Human lives are priceless, but Ukrainian lives, and indeed Russian lives, are being lost as you read this article, for nothing more than a single man’s desire to conquer. He is an enemy of freedom, plain and simple, and there is no place in the world for people like him anymore.
stay safe
/e
