Ukraine crisis: The world according to Vladimir Putin
India Today
The west and the rest of world appear to be wondering why Vladimir Putin is doing what he has been doing to challenge the geostrategic balance of powers. To understand this mystery, one has to see who Putin is, what kind of Russia he inherited and what the world, particularly the US, did to his country or its sphere of influence.
The Ukraine crisis is the topmost worry of the western world despite Omicron breaking records of Covid-19 cases in several countries, particularly in Europe and America in the four weeks of 2022. Russia has amassed troops on three sides of Ukrainian border, with the western side being guarded by the US-led Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) forces.
There is a serious threat that Russian President Vladimir Putin may order invasion of Ukraine any morning. The US and the UK have warned of “severe consequences” for Russia and Putin. Both countries have threatened to sanction Putin, the person, and not only the government that the 69-year-old Russian leader has been heading in some form or other for more than 21 years.
The Ukraine crisis is not new. It just got revived with escalation in October-November last year. Sample this quote of former Nato supreme commander General Philip Breedlove from March 2014.
“The [Russian] force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizable and very, very ready,” the US Air Force’s general had said back then. Philip Breedlove said Putin’s “Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a partner” while the Nato tried partnering with it for stability in Eurasia.
The arguments of Nato countries are not different seven years since then. Russia has built up deployment along the Ukrainian border that was not seen after the 2014 war in which Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine after the people of the peninsula voted for Russia in a referendum. The threat of another invasion of Ukraine has been looming large ever since.
The west and the rest of world appear to be wondering why Putin is doing what he has been doing to challenge the geostrategic balance of powers. To understand this mystery, one has to see who Vladimir Putin is, what kind of Russia he inherited and what the world, particularly the US, did to his country or its sphere of influence.
When Putin invaded Ukraine to annex Crimea, it was a different world. Barack Obama was the US president. Donald Trump was yet to come on the scene. Xi Jinping was still calibrating his moves for China’s global domination. In India, a Modi wave was pushing a groundswell for majority mandate after 30 years. The seeds of “greatness” were taking roots.
