The Ukraine -Russia war has a long past. Ukraine was a place of controversies and with the presence of Russia, Ukrainian life was and is very eventful. A bit of history will help a lot on to understand current events. It all started when Russia and Ukraine was part of Soviet Union a republic and the largest communist country in the world. Ukraine gained independence in 1991 with the dissolution of USSR, after the Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to decentralize power. Gorbachev was the one to end cold war with his close associations with US president Ronald Reagan. However Vladimir Putin the present president of Russia, on behest of that prestigious Kremlin past, still considers Ukraine, Russian, and Belarusian peoples as one. In reality, these are the three countries that initially signed for the formation of the USSR. Putin once described fall of USSR as the biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. It is an indisputable fact that Vladimir Putin didn't attend Gorbachev's funeral in 2022.Russia always had a clear influence in Ukraine politics. That was the reason for the rise of Russian-speaking and Russia-backed Ukrainian parliamentars like Viktor 'Yanukovych'.
Yanukovych was elected as Ukraine's prime minister in 2002.In Ukraine , Prime ministers have less power compared to presidents.So in 2004 Yanukovych contested the presidential elections against Viktor Yushchenko.
The controversies arosed after the result of that election lead to the outbreak of a people’s revolution called the 'Orange revolution’.
As a result of the revolt, a revote was ordered by the Supreme court. The revote in 2005 saw Yushchenko winning by a clear majority and he was elected as the president of Ukraine.Yushchenko was poisoned with Dioxin a chemical found in Orange while he was contesting for the election.Many theories about who was behind it circulated, with most of them claiming Kremlin involvement due to their rumored history of poisoning enemies. This is what Yushchenko said about Putin in a recent interview.
"President Putin I used to know, he’s not there anymore. He’s gone. And when I look at this man, in Russia, who is the furor in the Russian Reich, who is occupying and is waging war number seven in the Eastern Europe, starting with Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Transnistria, Donbas, all of that, Russia was all — behind all of that. All the wars in Eastern Europe in the last 30 years were organized by Putin. That is the world’s problem. So, this image of evil, that’s not just something Ukraine invented."
Yanukovych with the Russian backing became Ukraine’s president in 2010 .
This in turn led to another revolution by people in 2014 called 'Maidan Revolution' to expel Yanukovych and his Russian allies from power. There were also other important incidents occurred during 2014. Crimea a peninsula in Ukraine, was annexed by Russia.
In Crimea, a place built by Russian Empress 'Catherine', 95% of people who had taken part in referendum had voted for "reunification" with Russia.'Mejlis' a representative body of Crimean Tatars, who opposed referendum on joining Russia, has been ruled as an "extremist organization" and banned.
European Union's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini concluded that "the rights of the 'Crimean Tatars' have been gravely violated".
Moscow has denied these accusations.A riot occurred in Donbas ,a province in eastern Ukraine, by Russian separatist group. The European Union intervened and 'Minsk agreements' was signed in order to bring back peace in Ukraine.In 2015, Ukraine nationalist, businessman, and former minister Petro Poroshenko was elected as president..
In 2019 The Television and comedian actor Vladimir 'Zelensky' won the Ukraine’s presidential election by a landslide by beating 'Poroshenko'.A whistleblower accused Donald Trump, who was in power at the time, of asking Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden's role in corruption before paying a promised $2 billion in aid to Ukraine. This resulted in the first impeachment proceedings against President Trump.This if true was considered as an attempt by Trump to tarnish the image of Joe Biden before the US elections, in which Biden was Trump's main opponent.
The ongoing war has clearly split world into two camps. The west came out of the initial shock and the support poured in for Ukraine. The war is still in full flow even after 2 years causing a lot of damage to the present world.
The total expenditure of Ukraine and Russian war till date is established to be around 500 billion dollars.The total cost to the world including how it impacted the growth and slowdowned other economies in next 5 year will come to 2.8 trillion dollars. This amount can be easily understood with the below tables.
The alarming fact is that Russia is ranked as the 'numero one' corrupt country in Europe and Ukraine ranked as the second. According to Russia the US aid to Ukraine is 49 billion and EU aid is 69 billion and from Germany it is 20 billion, all in dollars. The recent aid from Canada amounts to dollars 1.5 billion.
The war has clearly divided the world into two camps. The West has rallied to support Ukraine, but the war continues even after two years, causing significant damage.He also fired a few other members in defence ministry,before going in pursuit of financial support from US and Canada. Corruption was accused in contracts in food supplied to soldiers and contracts for weapon supply . 
The importance of this war's influence on the US election and vice-versa is another important thing to watch out. There had been rumors about Russian intervention in the US election which Trump won in 2016.The coming US election will be one to watch out, due to the roles Artificial Intelligence and international issues going to play. Trump, in a recent interview, said that he would end this war in a day if he were reelected.
These were his exact words "I know Zelensky very well, and I know Putin very well, even better. And I had a good relationship, very good with both of them. I would tell Zelensky, no more. You got to make a deal. I would tell Putin, if you don't make a deal, we're going to give him a lot. We're going to [give Ukraine] more than they ever got if we have to. I will have the deal done in one day. One day".The frustrated Zelensky's replied by urging Trump " He can publicly share his idea now, not to waste time, not to lose people, and say, My formula is to stop the war and stop all this tragedy and stop Russian aggression".
Earlier Trump made it a bit clear when he said, "We don't have ammunition for ourselves. We're giving away so much" .
From the words of Trump and his allies it is clear that there won't be more support for Ukraine if he comes to power. Ukraine will be forced to rely on its European allies.Russia has totally banned it's energy supply to Europe now.The allies including Germany is facing the heat of economic degrowth due to rising energy price.
The west specially USA was always cautious against Europe being used as Russian energy market. So this war in a way helped them with Russia finding new markets in Asia. However If you think this will help Europe to go green, there are not signs of good news yet. United Kingdom has already stepped out of implementation of net ‘0’ carbon policy. UK Interior Minister Suella Braverman, said that Britain needed to take a practical approach to achieving net zero because it could not "save the planet by bankrupting the British people".With election around the corner there is no way for Sunak to go against Britain’s landlords and car owners who rely upon traditional fossil fuels such as gas to heat homes and petrol and diesel to cruise .The out cry of environmentalist including the one that of 'Greta Thunberg against energy firm Rosebank will probably be falling in deaf Tory ears. The war now has turned into a 'proxy war' between Russia and NATO. This war brought back the relatively insignificant NATO with USSR dissolution in the last century, back to it’s full prime.Russia has support from Belarus ,China, North Korea, Iran and even Turkey. For China it's true that enemy's (i.e. US) enemy becomes a friend .
Russia was rumored to be recruiting for this war from African countries through mercenary Group Wagner founded by recent victim of plain crash, Russian Oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Although Russia declines using Africa for its economic growth unlike other European colonial powers, according to UN report Russian mercenaries were found behind the slaughter of 500 people and the torture and rape of Mali civilians in 2022.“Kenyans are not dogs of war. We value life and our people should not die fighting for a foreign country,” says a Meru assistant chief ,Wilson Mwingirwa .The death of Prighozhin created a vacuum in Wagnor leadership , helped African leaders to oust the missionary group from their soil.Prigozhin with his trained team formed a major threat to Ukraine army in the initial stages. According to recent reports Wagnor group members are asked to report in Ukraine war as trainers or solidiers individually which will be reducing the overall power of them.
The war has already gained traction as a war of food and fuel in Europe. Zelensky has blamed Russia in UN speech for using children as a weapon.He condemned that Russian army is hijacking children and teaching them to be anti Ukrainian. He also blamed Russia for stopping the export of Ukraine grain by banning ships through black sea.
The cheap Ukraine grain import to Poland and Bulgaria lead to the mass protest of farmers in those countries.The import of foreign grain in cheap price is destabilizing agriculture markets in those countries.With 100 million Christians in Russia and 30 million in Ukrain the war is still not a religious one. The Vatican diplomacy has taken enough precautions to condemn this war without blaming Russia.In doing so it always leaves a door open for peaceful negotiation. Pope Francis in his interview said that
"Self defense is not only licit but also an expression of love for the homeland. Someone who does not defend oneself, who does not defend something, does not love it. Those who defend it loves it". Also Vatican don't want this war to be named as a holy war between Catholics and Orthodox.
Pope Francis in his recent interview with press appealed that "Countries should not stand back in their aid of weapons to Ukraine". Pope has never condemned Putin. He has described him as a man of culture. A man who can easily handle English, German along with Russian.The environmental destruction caused due to bombing of Dams and properties in Ukraine will take decades for recovery. The environmental destruction caused by Ukraine war is beyond all human comprehension.The amount of concrete waste piling up in cities are beyond the capacity of recycling programs .
The destruction of natural vegetation and the carbon emissions through weapons are factors which will contribute further to imminent and rising threats of climate change. To end this war now need much more diplomacy , with the election waiting queue for US ,UK Canada,Russia and with active involvement of a profitable arms manufacturing and supply industry ,it is a difficult task to accomplish now if not impossible. Also with Russia considering the possible threat of Ukraine joining NATO once the war is over, finding a diplomatic settlement seems to be difficult at this point.
Ukraine war is the arena where all the modern weapon systems including that of AI controlled drones are being tested.
US has already supplied sophisticated weapons such as Abram tanks, patriot missiles, M777 howitzers, Bayraktar TB2 and Vampire drones are widely used . Russia is also empowering it's arsenal by importing from China and North Korea. The train visit of Kim Jong Un in Russia was the talk of the town before few weeks.After the meeting North Korea has declared it's full backing to Russia in the war against west. Sometimes ones enemy, make thou powerful and immortal.
After the blood bath , they have every right to protect their homes and mother land. And if Zelensky is traveling the world requesting for the aid, he is justified with that right to protect his country. He needs as much help as he can get to sustain in this war of David and Goliath.Russia and it's media are picturing this as a war against neo nazis and accuses that Ukraine is a playing a victims card. The strategy may be of building a community of like minded , favored people and promising an improved life style with lower fuel prices, then bringing in referendums and annexation. The ideology of 'with me or against me' and destroying or displacing those against seems to be slowly getting into practice .However there are reasons to believe that this war is weakening Russian influence as well across the world, as being seen in recent Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict, with Russian peace keeping force not doing much to bring peace.
For US this may be a war of sentiments and weapon aids against it’s former adversary’, with out the expense of losing American lives. Even though it has left nothing for Ukraine in present budget,the aids may follow if Biden returns to power.However what makes it worried will be the unity of it's potential opponents such as China, Russia and North Korea as the aftermath of this war.
Inspite of all the 'taking sides' by countries, it's important to acknowledge that there will be no real winners in this long and cruel war.Russia and Ukraine has their own reasons fighting it.The total number of of people badly injured or killed in Ukraine-Russia war is officially estimated around 500,000.
A war is a cruel power game of blood ,played by rulers for safeguarding and broadening their support and hence their existence. However we know that there is a losing side , one that of people and one that of humanity. Only time will tell how this war is going to end. The world and the UN should take precautions to prevent it from escalating into a nuclear conflict, averting annihilation and abyss.
Meanwhile there are rumours that Russia is paying hefty amounts to Russian widows of Ukraine war to prevent them from public staging against Putin's regime.
US President Joe Biden during a recent speech in Warsaw said
"For God's sake this man(Vladimir Putin) cannot remain in power". However Russia replied it as a matter for Russians to decide.
Let us hope that there will be a peace treaty soon.A collaborative effort of world leaderships only can bring peace in Ukraine.Let us not forget the below words of wisdom.
"I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. "- Anne Frank,wrote in her Diary.
"If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." - Nelson Mandela
"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." - Mahatma Gandhi
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