The situation in the Ukraine and Russia Border looks very grim and more serious than ever in decades. The Russian Juggernaut is ready to roll over Ukraine and annex the entire country and take a step towards rebuilding the USSR. It took Russia just one month to conquer the Crimea or Crimean Peninsula between 20th February and 26th March 2014. But now Russia looks like it wants some more land and using NATO as the main reason to do it. Russia believes Ukraine will join NATO and soon bring the entire military might of 30 states together.
Since March 2021, Russia started building up its troops along the Ukraine borders on the East and South, and as per January 2022, Russia had sent its troops to Belarus armed with Nuclear capabilities to cover the western borders. Currently, Ukraine is surrounded by Russia on three sides.
The United States of America has asked its Embassy personnel in Kyiv to vacate the country immediately amid tensions. This is a general implication coming from the mighty USA that war is inevitable.
Ukraine’s Point of View:
Ukraine stayed under the Communist Occupation for decades (1917-1991). In 1991 during the dissolution of the USSR, like other states, Ukraine also became free and the 2nd largest country in Europe. The things were great for Ukraine up to 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and a large portion of Eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. The incumbent President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has vowed to protect the Ukraine territories. The majority of Ukraine is with the President and the armed forces. Although, Ukraine has a very small military compared to Russia. Ukraine has 200,000 active Army Personnel, and 250,000 are reserved. But since last year, when the Russian military started building up their forces, the young people reaching military age and many from different professions started joining and getting trained with the military. Currently, Ukraine has a large number of trained militia to defend itself from Russian aggression.
Various countries, including the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, opened up their anti-tank weapons cache for Ukraine, and the United States has already sent their support in the form of weapons and ammunition. The USA alone sent USD 200 Million worth of supplies to Ukraine.
While lacking highly trained manpower, Ukraine has 69 fighter jets, 34 Attack Helicopters, 2596 Tanks and 12,303 Armored Personnel Carriers, 2040 Artillery Systems, and 490 Rocket Systems. Therefore, Ukraine can hold itself against the Russian might for a while and dig down until NATO comes to help it.
Russia’s Point of View:
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Russia considers NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a direct threat to its sovereignty. As, on 12th June 2020, Ukraine joined NATO’s enhanced opportunity partner interoperability program to gain NATO membership, Russia became worried due to that and, as a ‘retaliation,’ started the troop buildup in March 2021. But we can’t refute that Russia took Crimea under its control in 2014, which is a de-facto Ukrainian oblast.
But, it was not always this way. There was a NATO-Russia Peace Program in 1994 still in action and formed the NATO-Russia Council in 2002. But the support and co-operations were stopped in 2014 due to Russia’s Annexation of Crimea. But the Council still exists, and the current Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, who is responsible for the ongoing peace talks with NATO in Geneva, supported the co-operation in 2017, and various respectable steps were taken too. But now, all seems to be falling apart in Europe.
For the last few weeks Russian, troops have been coming and going. Once 100,000 Russian troops were sent home, but two weeks ago, they came back, and according to the CIA and the USA, the Russian Troop Buildup is complete, and they are ready to attack. Last week, Russian troops did several emergency drills and war exercises near the Ukrainian border and with Belarus and installed two S-400 Triumf Systems.
Furthermore, Russia has started to move its Baltic Fleet to the Black Sea. As reported by several media portals, at least six ships were seen crossing through the English Channel. Three were warships, and the others were Advanced Landing Crafts for faster troop deployment.
Currently, Russia is focusing on bolstering its capabilities throughout its Ukrainian Borders. Putin wants NATO to guarantee that Ukraine and Georgia, another former member state of the USSR that Russia invaded briefly in 2008, will not join the NATO alliance.
The USA and NATO’s Point of View:
All the USA or NATO and Russia talks are conducted by Foreign Secretary Anthony Blinken and Sergey Lavrov in Geneva. But President Joe Biden is always at a warning mode for Russia. Every day, President Biden is warning Russia to hit them with more international sanctions and disintegrate the Russian Economy. On the other hand, the USA is helping out Ukraine and asking all other NATO and other nations to help them.
The USA is demanding the removal of Russian troops from Ukrainian borders to de-escalate the situation but promising almost nothing in return.
As Russia wants a guarantee that Ukraine won’t become a member of NATO and the USA wants de-escalation without promising anything, all the meetings result in a deadlock.
In 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and other oblasts, France and Germany advocated the cease-fire. Maybe they are needed again to do so. But as the USA is spearheading the dialogue and other NATO members are not showing much interest except supplying more weapons to Ukraine, things are not looking any promising.
Some Other Developments:
On the other hand, Germany looked a little bit supportive of Russia. Last day, Chief of German Navy Admiral Kay-Achim Heino Schönbach said, “Does Russia really want a small and tiny strip of Ukraine soil to integrate into their country? No, this is nonsense. Putin is probably putting pressure because he can do it, and he splits EU opinion. What he really wants is respect,” at a press-meet at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) on Friday during his visit to India. He also said the Crimean Peninsula is ‘gone’ and ‘not coming back. Due to his remarks, there was outrage across NATO and EU, and he has resigned. But if you think deeply, he was right on his earlier point regarding ‘splitting EU Opinion.’
If you look from a different angle, Germany and other EU nations need Russia to solve their energy crisis. Russia can save the EU from these energy issues by providing natural gas resources. But so far, only Germany under the reign of Chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed to more supply from Russia via the Nord Stream II. Currently, Russia replenishes 32% of the natural gas required by Germany.
Apart from Germany, almost entire Europe, including the UK, is dependent on Russia for its natural gas requirements. Russia supplies 30 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe, which is around 35% of the total requirement of the continent.
What are we looking at?:
Well, the Ukraine Crisis certainly has the potential to become a full-fledged military confrontation between Russia and NATO Forces. But it seems like Putin is just looking for some of your screen-time to stay relevant on the world stage and justify Russia’s status of being a super-power.
CIA is waring the NATO that Russia could invade Ukraine anytime in 2022.
The thought of World War III always seems very close, but in this case, India At War believes there is a significant chance of escalation of this situation. But a full-fledged war might take more than just troop buildups.
Furthermore, the war will involve the stockpile of nuclear weapons, which no sincere country will take that step. Not everyone is Pakistan or North Korea. What more could happen is Russia might take some more lands from Ukraine, and the USA will put some more sanctions on Russia. The present global hegemony war is not an option as everybody wants to be rich. If the war breaks out, the weapon manufacturers will book their profits, but the profit margins will be much higher if they can keep the threat of war alive. Like medicines, weapons and ammunition also have an expiry date.
Problems for India:
The escalation of this crisis can get bigger in the upcoming days as per the claims of the USA as they are stating Russia could invade Ukraine anytime. According to the USA, Russia has already put saboteurs inside Ukraine to stage a false-flag attack on Russia itself and legitimize an attack on Ukraine.
If this situation escalates, it will create a huge problem for India due to two ways.
- Being a democratic country, India should support Ukraine and NATO actions. Then India will lose the delicate balance it maintains with Russia and NATO member states. If India supports Russia, it might also get sanctions from NATO members, and if India supports Russia, India will lose the much-needed advanced weapon systems from Russia.
- If the war breaks out, India’s rival China, another Non-Democratic country, will come close. The Sino-Russian partnership that India is trying to break can become stronger as an authoritarian regime always supports another. Then if a war with China breaks out, India might not get the necessary support from Russia as we always got in the past wars.
- India will also suffer economically as India is currently finalizing ‘Free Trade Agreements with the UK and several EU members. The conflict can also create problems for the agreements to pass if India considers supporting Russia.
Besides, a war in Europe won’t take much time to spread in Asia, especially when your neighbor is China and Pakistan.
Conclusion:
Russia, Ukraine, and NATO, including the USA, will be fighting the war mostly in cyberspace as Russia has already started its attacks on Ukraine’s internet services weeks ago. Russia supplies gas to Europe, so no one will try to lose that important commodity in winter. Furthermore, a war between NATO and Russia will certainly trigger the Nuclear Option, which no one with a functioning brain will dare to take. We will see pages after pages of war articles in the newspapers, video bombs on YouTube regarding war, and hours of television debates on the same topic, finally resulting in a prolonged standoff or more US sanctioning on Russia. But India At War will closely monitor this situation and update our reports as the situation unfolds.