Russia has stirred the world with its invasion of Ukraine on Thursday – a military blitz that has bewildered the world and left many nations scrambling for efforts to deter the violation of the sovereignty of Ukraine, which entered into its third day on Saturday.
When Russia massed about 100,000 troops around the borders with Ukraine weeks ago, the United States (US) and its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies raised the alarm of the planned invasion but the Russian President Vladimir Putin denied it, accusing the US and its allies of spreading false alarm.
But the world watched in awe as Russia attacked Ukraine on Thursday and the invading Russian forces closed in on Ukraine’s capital yesterday in an apparent encircling movement after a barrage of air attacks on cities and military bases around the country.
Russia had been supporting separatist rebellion in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, a conflict that has killed up to 14,000 people. It rolled troops into Ukraine from the eastern rebel-held areas and from the southern region of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014; and from Belarus to the north.
Russian has come under severe criticisms by countries around the world over what many called “unprovoked and unwarranted” attacks on a sovereign country and a member of the United Nations (UN). Russia has also come under harsh sanctions from the US, the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) with the latest being the threat to remove it from the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), a move that will cut Russia from the financial payment system and could affect its supply of oil and gas to Europe.
Facts are still emerging about how much or little Russian forces have seized or the extent of the casualties but dozens have been killed or wounded.
However, some experts have said that Russia’s claims to invade Ukraine to stop it from joining the NATO alliance and to defend Russia’s national security is factually incorrect and implausible.
NATO has expressed dismay over the attack and said it will deploy more troops to Eastern Europe to deter Russia from attacking any member of the alliance in that region as Putin could develop ambition to seek more territories reminiscent of the actions of Germany’s Adolf Hitler, whose inordinate quest to annex territories led to World War 2 (1939-1945)
This is perhaps the worst moment for the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the beleaguered leader has seen growing signs that Russia aims to topple him.
He told EU leaders in a video link-up from his bunker late on Thursday that it might be the last time they saw him alive.
Nigeria’s international affairs and security expert, Majeed Dahiru, told LEADERSHIP Sunday that Putin is driven by inordinate ambition even as he tasked the US and its NATO allies to act fast to stop the unnecessary attack on Ukraine by immediately admitting Ukraine into NATO and sending substantial forces to defend the country.
He said, “Putin’s Russia is a rogue regime, the attack on Ukraine is unprovoked, unwarranted, and unnecessary and it is not for the sake of the national security of the Russian state but the regime security of Putin who has an ambition to remain in power perpetually.
“The invasion has nothing to do with the national security of Russia because Ukraine is not yet a member of NATO and if it wants to be a member of NATO, it is within its right as a sovereign entity to decide who to associate with for its economic and defense interests.”
He blamed Western powers for delaying the admission of Ukraine into NATO because they wanted to appease Putin.
It appears as suggested in some quarters that the motivating factor for the invasion was not Ukraine’s bid to join NATO but Putin’s ambition to shore up his fading image at home because of the massive resistance against his alleged corrupt quest to perpetuate himself in power.
But Putin insists that the NATO alliance is a threat to his country’s security and the latest military action against Ukraine is to deter the malignant power of the US and its allies from spreading their tentacles in the region. He had also warned of severe consequences for any country that will interfere with his moves in Ukraine.
“This is a time for diplomatic gymnastics and correctness of alignment; this is an evil that has happened. At this point sanctions alone will not deter Russia. Ukraine must be admitted immediately into NATO and NATO must move in their forces to protect that country from being destabilized, disintegrated or even annexed by the rogue regime of Putin,” Majeed said.
He said further that “Russia has proven that it is not about NATO alone but that it is after Ukraine. It does not want Ukraine to be seen to be making the kind of progress it is making in its cooperation with the West. So, this is an existential threat to Ukraine and other countries that seek the path of liberty, democracy and prosperity for its citizens.
“So, NATO will be yielding and creating an alternative power bloc in the world that is evil if it does not intervene to save Ukraine.”
But if the NATO forces send troops to Ukraine, it could change the nature of the conflict and may lead to nuclear threat, which will spell doom for the adversaries and to the rest of the world. At the moment there is no indication that NATO will send troops to Ukraine just as US President Joe Biden has said.
However, the dilemma for Ukraine and NATO members is that Russia may soon overall Ukraine and probably annex it as it did to Crimea in 2014 despite world outrage.
As the world watches the death and destruction in Ukraine and a threatening Russia’s annexation, the US and allies will not deploy troops to Ukraine because that will bring them into direct confrontation with Russia which consequences will be unimaginable.
Senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Abuja, Prof. Sherrif Ghali, said “if the US intervenes with the intention of going to fight Russia in Ukraine, there is going to be Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) because Putin is ready to deploy his nuclear arsenal, which will cause collateral damage in the sense that the US and Russia are two nuclear states.”
“The US will not deploy its men physically because if it does that it is going to be catastrophic; it is going to be more catastrophic than the Second World War,” he said
