Ukraine war spilling beyond its borders

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now entered its 217th day. Russian troops are present in Ukrainian territory. Its missiles are raining down on Ukraine and the main victims are the civilians, including women and children.

Whatever the reason, the entry of foreign troops from one country into the territories of another sovereign state cannot be condoned or justified. 

The background to the Russo-Ukraine conflict lies in Russia’s fear of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) expansionist intentions into areas/territories of what was earlier the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and the encirclement of Russia. 

The ongoing war between Russia, Ukraine and the West is fuelled by a number of causes among them being the chicanery of NATO countries in breaking verbal agreements and promises made at the end of the cold war in 1989-1990. The main among these being that NATO would not expand to the east.

Russia’s president is visibly annoyed that France, Germany and the US -- co-signees to the Minsk Agreement -- which were designed to give Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk autonomy, are not pressing the Ukraine regime to honour the terms of the accord. Russia sees it as one more example of the West’s duplicity and its continued efforts to encircle Russia via the expansion of NATO. 

The Russian president is especially furious at the US for ignoring Russia’s security concerns about NATO’s expansion and deployment of offensive missiles close to Russia’s borders. Russia sees Ukraine’s rejection of the terms of the Minsk Accord as a continuation of NATO’s non implementation of verbal commitments made by the US Secretary of State James Baker under President George HW Bush, on September 12, 1990 setting out how NATO troops could operate in the territory of the former East Germany.

The failure to live up to promises made in discussions with the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, where Baker promised NATO would not expand to the east, if Russia accepted Germany’s unification. 

The following day, the then West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, also told Gorbachev “Naturally NATO could not expand its territory to the current territory of the GDR”. This promise the ‘Guardian’, reported was repeated in a speech by the NATO Secretary General on May 17.  In his memoirs, Gorbachev himself described these assurances as the moment that cleared the way for compromise on German reunification.

Again in March 1991, British Premier John Major, when asked by the Soviet Defence Minister, Marshal Dmitry Yazov, about Eastern Europe’s interest in joining NATO. Major, according to the diaries of the British Ambassador to Moscow, Rodrick Braithwaite, assured him “nothing of that sort will ever happen”.

In the aftermath of the reunification of Germany, NATO did expand into countries which were part of the original Soviet Union. While the Russian president probably has every justification for suspecting NATO of trying to encircle his country, it is not a justification for his invasion of Ukraine and attempting to annex the country in much the same way as Israel has captured large sections of Palestine.

The net result has been the whole of the Middle East has turned into a powder keg which could turn into a giant fireball enveloping neighbouring Europe, unless the occupation of Palestine is ended with justice to the Palestinians sooner, rather than later.

Closer home, we have the experience of India sending its troops (Indian Peace Keeping Force) to ‘protect’ innocent Tamil civilians who were trapped in clashes between government troops and armed rebels. Ultimately India’s effort ended with the peacekeepers turning their weapons on the militants, leading to large numbers of Tamil civilians being killed, wounded and even larger numbers being displaced. 

In the south of the country, the presence of foreign troops on Lankan soil gave birth to an armed uprising against the government which was ultimately brutally crushed.

The US sent thousands of troops into South Vietnam to ‘protect democracy’. The US adventure ended with as many as 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilian deaths. 

In like manner, the then USSR sent troops into Afghanistan ‘at the request’ of the then Afghan regime. The adventure ended when the USSR returned with a bloody nose.  Invasions by any other name do not end conflicts. Experience shows they only worsen already bad situations leading to thousands of civilian casualties. 

Already there are signs the war in Ukraine is spilling beyond its borders. Media report that the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines carrying gas from Russia via Baltic Sea creating conditions for a worsening conflict.