The bombarding of Ukraine by the Russian troops of President Vladimir Putin has resulted in divided opinions of the global public. There are many accusations and counter-accusations thrown back and forth between the belligerents and their respective backers from both sides.
In solidarity with Ukraine is the European Union, the USA and its NATO backed allies while on the opposing side is the non-compromising Russia and its supporters such as South Africa, India, Belarus and Eritrea.
The support shown by India to Russia has been demonstrated through various ways such as #istandwithPutin and #istandwithrussia as well as other social media fora and most importantly the government of India has consistently shown its unwillingness to cut its strong ties with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.
In the African continent where the majority of states have maintained some silence, it was South African president Cyril Ramaphosa who recently put the blame on NATO expansion into Eastern Europe as the root cause of the conflict and that if that expansion was avoided in the first place the situation would have been totally very different. He has vowed to resist any call to condemn the actions of Russia.
The West strongly views the invasion by Russia as a serious violation of the sovereign rights of Ukraine and total disrespect for Ukraine to exercise its independence in determining its own destination by joining NATO and the European Union. This liberal viewpoint has been aggressively countered via a realist school of thought by Russia, which views the ambition of Ukraine to join NATO as a serious threat to both its strategic interests and national security.
In fact for many years since the Cold War ended, the Russians have always viewed the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe with ultra skepticism as far as their national security is concerned. Putin views the ambitious project by Ukraine to join NATO as great danger to Russia’s national security interests in the sense that Russia will have to live with the horrifying reality of having its borders surrounded by NATO missile defense shields. Ukraine is a strategic buffer zone between Russia and NATO countries.
Joining NATO is the last thing Putin wants to see happening hence his non-compromising stance and continued bombardment of Ukraine. His ultimate aim is to stop Ukraine from this ambition of being part and parcel of NATO with everything at his disposal even if it risks his country’s economy as many sanctions have been imposed on his country. The country also suffered a serious diplomatic defeat inside the UN General Assembly a few weeks ago when the majority of the UN Generally Assembly voted against the invasion.
At the centre of this conflict is the growing humanitarian crisis inside Ukraine, which shall form a cornerstone of this piece. Since the war started more than two million refugees have fled Ukraine to several European countries and more than half of those refugees having arrived in neighbouring Poland. The UN Refugee Agency has warned that this number may reach more than four million in the next coming days. In addition, the United Nations is preparing for up to seven million internally displaced persons and as many as seven million refugees, which would be the largest war-related mass migration since the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. As a result of Russia’s invasion due to the geopolitical miscalculations of the USA and its NATO allies, Ukraine is now on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.
It must be noted that the crisis that is going on in Ukraine today happened due to the complexities of geopolitics and these call for the crisis to be solved by those actors involved especially the US and NATO. The humanitarian crisis needs a sober reflection from those who caused it in the first place on the role they played, take their due responsibilities, as well as engaging in actions that will de-escalate the tensions, solve the problem and substitute all the blame shift that is currently going on. This is the moment in which the international community (individual countries as well as through multilateralism) should rise to the occasion and save the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding before our eyes in Ukraine.
A good example of such humanitarian gestures has been shown by influential countries such as China who has made a donation of two batches of humanitarian assistance aid in excess of 15 million Yuan ($2.4m) to Ukraine. The Chinese government has reaffirmed a “four musts” stance on Ukraine some few days ago where it maintains the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries must be respected, the purposes and that principles of the UN Charter must be fully observed, the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be taken serious and that all efforts that are conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis must be settled. China has taken steps in humanitarian gestures by providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine as China strongly views humanitarian aid such as food, baby formula, sleeping bags, mats, blankets as very important to protect and save the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Ukraine.
Furthermore Chinese president Xi Jinping has maintained close communications with different stakeholders on the importance of the facilitation of a peaceful dialogue to end the conflict that has caused a serious humanitarian problem. This is a clear demonstration of good leadership that is not only committed to peaceful solutions to global security challenges but goes out of the way to provide the much needed aid to the victims of this conflict.
The last thing that the people of Ukraine need is lethal weapons as this might further complicate the already volatile situation. It is unfortunate that the USA, in mid March, has declared to give close to $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine, which brought the total US security assistance to the country to more than $1billion in a week. Questions that need to be asked are whether that hefty security assistance will bring security, peace and stability to Ukraine or contribute further to the humanitarian disaster? Furthermore countries such as the US should ask themselves whether the victims of the conflict in Ukraine need more food, medical and other related life saving aid or heavy artillery in their country. These simple questions require simple common sense that commitment should be channelled towards humanitarian assistance more than military assistance that would worsen the already worse situation.
Most importantly as a way of resolving this conflict, the international community must work hard to ensure that the purposes and those guiding principles of the UN Charter must be upheld, as well as the respect and protection of the sovereign and territorial integrity of all member states in the world. There must be adherence to those principles of united security but at the same time those security concerns of others, which are legitimate must be accommodated. Last but not least, disputes in the world must be settled via negotiated peaceful means that should be maintained through dialogue and negotiation. It can be adopted by members of the international community on Ukraine. It will help in the long-term peace and stability in Eastern Europe and most importantly put in place balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture.
