This Ukraine crisis and its like implications
By Boniface Chizea
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskky just issued an appeal requesting the West to tune things down to postpone panic as the crisis was beginning to take its toll on their economy! One is left wondering where that is coming from. It appears he wants to pretend to be oblivious of the fact that just as it happened in 2014 when Russia over ran Crimean Peninsula and occupied it that but for the staunch opposition from the west, Ukraine by now could have been occupied by Russia.
You have a situation whereby a nation with the highest stockpile of nuclear arsenal in the world as well as the largest assemblage of conventrational forces has amassed troops numbering; wait for this, one hundred thousand on your borders with stockpile of armament including supplies of blood breathing down your neck. And what is more is the fact that you are here dealing with a ruthless nation that has an unenviable record in this respect.
What is holding invasion is the fact that NATO, Americans and United Kingdom have spoken with one voice of consequential unleashing of sanctions on Russia, the like of which had not been witnessed before, including targeting Vladimir Putin for personal sanctions; now this is reaching home and could stop even a tyrant on his tracks!
The range of sanctions being contemplated could be very devastating for the Russian economy ever so exposed to the west. It includes calling out Russia from the SWIFT Financial system which moves money from bank to bank around the world. This move will deal instant far reaching blow on the Russian economy with the potentials for prolonged long-term negative consequences. There is also the talk of blocking Russia from access to US dollars and the denial of access to some high tech facilities used for war planes and passenger jets and which also power smart phones.
On the other the consequential effect on the west which Russia invasion would precipitate is the effect on gas supply of which the west is dependent on Russia to an illogical extent of about 35% which is set to increase when the Nord 2 pipelines already in place, which bypassed Ukraine to Germany thereby avoiding the payment of associated fees comes on stream. There is also the fear of a deluge of refugees who have no visa requirements access to Europe. The influx could even be by as simple as walking across the borders. Already it is a fact that this tension has taken its toll. The Americans have already put about 8,500 troops on red alert in case of an invasion even though Joe Biden had given the promise that there will be no boots on the ground. And at last count Americans have transported armament to Ukraine estimated at over 650 million dollars. And this is against the effect of the pandemic which the world is struggling to recover from. This is money that could have been better spent elsewhere in pursuit of social causes to alleviate the effect of the pandemic.
But what is the bone of contention? The Russian painful aware that their sphere of influence has shrunk, as most of its former allies in the Russian Federation have since joined NATO and the west has insisted that Ukraine should not be allowed to follow the rest claiming strategic security interests. But that is a throwback to the cold war years. For shouting out loud, Ukraine as a sovereign nation should be allowed to chart its independent course.
Just a trip down memory lane. It will be recalled that following a military coup on December 25, 1991 the Soviet flag flew for the last time over the Kremlin in Moscow. This was consequent upon failed attempts to reform the Russian economy that was languishing by Mikhail Goberchev during his six year tenure at the helm under his pet programs; Perestroika and Glasnost. This failure led to the resignation of Goberchev and the consequent collapse of the Russian Federation. Fourteen of the fifteen nations in the Federation immediately charted their separate course aligning with the west and joining NATO leaving only Kazakhstan. In 2014 the leader in Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych who preferred an alignment with Russia was toppled through popular uprising and replaced. The Russians out of frustration encouraged a separatist movement on the eastern border of Ukraine which it supported with arms and troops even as it claimed that the troops were volunteers resulting in the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
The Americans claim that they have intelligence that indicates that the Russians will invade Ukraine this February. Already US, UK, Germany and Australia have withdrawn some of their embassy staff from Ukraine with their families. We hope that good counsel will prevail and there will be a de-escalation of this crisis. It is a truism that an invasion will be disruptive as well as catastrophic for the prospects of the wellbeing of a generality of the population of the world. And if nuclear weapons are wrong headedly deployed the end of this civilisation as we now know it; if not Armageddon will beckon.
Dr. Boniface Chizea is a top-notch economic and business development consultant
