26 February 2022, NIICE Commentary 7659
Bishal Bhattarai

Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of its neighbor Ukraine on February 24. Ukraine conflict has claimed hundreds of civilians lives, soldiers and forced hundreds of thousands to flee towards Poland and other countries as refugees. President Vladimir Putin warned the West not to intervene in this matter and threatened them to create worst-ever consequences. Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy is in no way of surrender and has been urging every citizen to defend their nation. He has been offering weapons to civilians and calling the world to contribute in defending Ukraine from Russian forces. In this context, this article explores the reason behind the Russia and Ukraine dispute.

Russia’s Interest in Ukraine

Following Truman Doctrine, USA, Canada and several Western nations formed an alliance in late 1940s as a resisting force against the Soviet Union. The primary goal was to contain Soviet geopolitical expansion. The Soviet Union (USSR) and several Eastern European countries formed a similar political and military alliance in the mid 1950s to form the Warsaw Pact which was established as a counter force against NATO. The geopolitical tension between the USA (Western Bloc) and Soviet Union (Eastern Bloc) caused a Cold war which began from the late 1940s to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. After the USSR’s formal split in 1991, Ukraine declared itself an independent country. Through the 1990s, Ukraine emerged as a democratic country but is running through high instability due to the combination of two parallel paths in its political system: A liberal democratic front but influenced and controlled distribution of power and resources by Russian oligarchs. Seemingly there are two flanks in Ukraine: Pro- Russians (Eastern part) and Anti-Russians (Western part). A part of the population including influential politicians and businessmen wants to align with Russia while the other part is against it. Anti-Russians want to stop influence of Kremlin in its politics and seek to emerge as a sole independent democracy with freedom of doing what is best for them. Thus, they want to organize with West and USA considering that NATO’s had a rough ride with Russia since cold war.

In 2014, Ukraine’s Pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych rejected association agreement with EU and NATO which was against the sentiment of most of the Ukrainians who wanted to get out of Russia’s sphere of influence and affiliate with NATO. Hence, he was ousted by the Ukrainian parliament. The outthrow of Yanukovych escalated tensions in the eastern regions of Ukraine bordering Russia, where Pro-Russia sentiments are higher. Putin took this advantage and annexed Crimea claiming that he did so to protect ethnic Russians from far-right extremists who overthrew Yanukovych. Since then, Pro-Russian separatists of Donbass region (South-eastern region of Ukraine) started armed conflict with Ukraine’s army because they wanted these regions to be a part of Russia. This is the epicenter of conflict that’s happening today between Kremlin and Kyiv. These Ukrainian regions has been locked in armed conflict killing more than 14,000 people till today. The Pro-Russian regions of Donbass (Donetsk and Luhansk) declared independence in 2014 as Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. No country has recognised these republics as sovereign states except Russia. The representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the leaders of separatist-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk signed a 13-point agreement (MINSK- II) in February 2015 which aimed at ending the war in eastern Ukraine and build the path of peace by expecting a comprehensive ceasefire. On 21 February, Putin signed a decree to officially recognize the independence of these self-proclaimed republics during his speech to the nation. EU and NATO members who have been supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine condemned this act and imposed a new set of sanctions on Russia.

MINSK-II deal (2015 agreement) was never fully implemented because Russia wants Ukraine to grant separatists, the autonomy and representation in central government, effectively giving Moscow the power to veto Kyiv’s foreign policy choices but Ukraine doesn’t want to allow Russia to have a de facto veto on Ukrainian foreign policy decisions so it wants a limited devolution of power to the separatists. Today, Ukraine’s been a battleground of Russia and NATO’s conflict of interests. NATO’s prominent strategy is to make Ukraine one of its members in order to prevent Russia from geopolitical expansion because it doesn’t want Russia’s expansion. Ukraine wants to be a member of NATO as it would help in sustaining democracy and also stop annexation of Ukrainian states by Russia. However, Russia has been resistant to Ukraine’s potential move towards European institutions, particularly NATO because this would be a stumbling block for Putin’s ambitions. NATO’s article 5 which covers “collective defense” mentions that an attack one ally is considered an attack on all allies. This could pull the US and West further into Ukraine’s matter. Russia doesn’t want its neighbor Ukraine (former Soviet state) to be in NATO’s influence as it would significantly increase its military and political backing and would act as a firm deterrent to Russian aggression.

Putin’s Ambition

Putin wants to restore the Soviet Union as a geopolitical powerhouse against NATO, take control over its neighbors and emerge as a stronger force. He has been using Pro-Russians in Ukraine and annexing eastern regions of Ukraine since 2014 and wants to “Demilitarize” and “Denazify” Ukraine which means he wants to have a strong influence over Ukraine by replacing its government with a puppet regime. A lot of people see it as his obsession with Ukraine but there is a bigger picture ahead. He’s been furious watching US’s unilateral interventions in Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and as they were tagging it with ‘International law’, ‘Foreign Policy’ and leaving their power footprints around; Putin is showing the world that he can play the game too. He wants to be the winner of this game and forcefully wants to let people know that the US is not only the sole superpower. Thus, he is creating conflicts around Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Syria, elsewhere. He wants to strangle Ukraine and fail the US and West’s policy to bring Ukraine into NATO’s imperium and force the US and West to accept his expansion policies, build spheres of influence inside the EU and secure a Western pledge to not interfere in Russia’s geopolitical backyard.

Soon after this invasion, the international community denounced Russia’s aggression and the violation of international humanitarian law. UN called for an urgent security council meeting. On 25 February, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution that demanded Kremlin to immediately stop attacks and withdraw all the troops from Ukraine. Since the security council was unable to act due to veto, this was followed by a rare emergency special session of UN General Assembly on 28 February. Only 10 such emergency special sessions of the General Assembly have been convened since 1950. Assembly President Abdulla Shahid underscored that Russia’s invasion was a violation of the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and the violence must stop. Ukraine’s ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya remarked that if Ukraine doesn’t survive, United Nations and international peace doesn’t survive and democracy fails next. While the Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia argued that the actions of his country are distorted and further stated, “The goal of the special military operation is to protect people in Luhansk and Donetsk, two regions in eastern Ukraine, who for eight years were subject to torment and genocide by the Kyiv regime.”

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution demanding that Russia immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. Among 193 UN Member States, a total of 141-member countries voted in favor of the resolution, which reaffirms Ukrainian sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. The UN Human Rights Council voted on the need for an urgent debate regarding human rights violations in the Ukrainian crisis. The motion passed and the urgent debate is happening very soon as Nepal also voted in favor. Russian and Ukrainian officials ended peace talks at the Belarus border but couldn’t secure ceasefire or any diplomatic breakthrough as Kremlin gave no any hints of peace deal and Putin insisted upon his demands that Ukraine should disarm, stay neutral outside NATO and also recognize Crimea as Russian territory (which he had not stated so bluntly before). But still there is a potential ray of hope as a second round of diplomatic talks is happening soon after further consultation with respective capitals.

There can be some disagreements over Ukraine’s potential move towards NATO but it should never be answered with war. Since Ukraine is an independent country, it has the right to decide whether it remains non-aligned or moves towards NATO but the United States and West should not instigate Ukraine for the sole purpose of limiting Putin’s influence. It’s less likely that the conflict would be resolved, but the focus should be on managing the conflict. Ukraine, despite being the largest country of Europe and richest in terms of natural resources and mineral ores, continues to be characterized by unstable democracy, weak rule of law, high level corruption and Kremlin’s oligarchic influence on the politics, economy, and media. Hence, it should focus on advancing its economic development and stabilizing its democratic regime by settling internal conflicts. Many leaders see the MINSK-II agreement as a blueprint for a diplomatic breakthrough and viable solution to end the conflict and secure ceasefire at least for now but there may be a room for a compromise as the deal was largely in favor of the Russian side.