‘New czar’ Putin sets eyes on Ukraine

The war clouds that have gathered over Europe are growing menacingly with every passing hour. A full-fledged war seems imminent in the heart of Europe with the amassing of 150,000 Russian troops on the borders with Ukraine and the continuous shelling by the two forces. While Russian President Putin has been threatening a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its NATO allies are backing tough sanctions against Russia.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned of halting the process of certifying the controversial Nord Stream-2 pipeline that will take Russian gas to Germany by the under-Baltic Sea pipeline. The pipeline was completed only last September and is yet to get operational. It circumvents Ukraine which used to extract a rent for use of its territory. The European Union (EU) has pledged to ‘react with unity, firmness and with determination and solidarity with Ukraine.”

Russian political objectives include an end to NATO expansion and the removal of American nuclear weapons from Europe. The United States and its European partners cannot sit and watch the annexation of Ukraine which would allow Russia direct access to warm waters and lend it power to emerge as an unchallengeable threat.

The West is still grieving over its appeasement of the Russians who annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and began to fuel insurgency and rebellion in two eastern regions of Ukraine, namely Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia has recognized them as independent republics. Ukraine was the storehouse of Russian nuclear warheads till 1990 when the Soviet Union disintegrated into 16 states. Ukraine returned the warheads to Russia in lieu of the guarantees about its security. The promises were violated when Crimea was snatched from Ukraine in 2014.

Europe is in no mood to go to war. Olaf Scholz has just taken over as German Chancellor. France would be holding presidential elections in April. Covid-19 has wrecked several economies. The United Kingdom is reeling under the blues suffered under Brexit. Finally, oil and gas prices are threatening to shoot a hole in the roof. The rest of Europe may see something ominous in the situation but the Russians see in it a golden opportunity to extract a new security structure for themselves. But more than anyhing else, it is Putin’s mighty ego that impels him to set his covetous eyes on Ukraine to boost his sagging fortunes. The illiberalism that lies at the root of Russian leadership seems to be obscuring the dangers of miscalculation. Russia came out badly bruised from the Afghan invasion. The war in the heart of Europe is likely to prove much costlier as NATO would resist expansion of Russian influence with greater ferocity than it did in Afghanistan.