The justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February will long be debated. Every big power has fears of being surrounded. On its historically vulnerable western front, Russia had one supportive neighbour, six North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) adversaries, and two who are ambiguously inclined, while Ukraine’s relations with the European Union (EU) and NATO were always a matter of contention. After the Putin-Biden Geneva encounter in mid-2021, the high intensity of interactions between NATO members and Russia raised hopes of a detente, but Russian President Vladimir Putin chose invasion over negotiation, ignoring the degraded and inexperienced state of his armed forces, Ukraine’s military being the biggest in Europe with 2,00,000 men, 6,00,000 reserves, 1,000 tanks and 130 aircraft, Ukraine’s willingness to resist, and NATO’s determination to punish Russia.
The West’s hypocritical sanctions
Ukraine has been massively assisted by NATO weaponry, training, communications, satellite and human intelligence, reconnaissance, information processing systems and total control over the global media. While the World Bank is slow to help devastated war-torn nations such as Yemen and Afghanistan, it rushed $4.5 billion to Ukraine, while the International Monetary Fund came up with $1.4 billion. The West fails to understand how hypocritical its sanctions appear. For example, the United States exerted much effort persuading India and others to boycott Iranian and Venezuelan oil, only to try to get those shipments back on the market after its opposition shifted to Russia.
