The Tribune

Yesterday, in an overwhelming vote signalling revulsion against the suffering in Ukraine and global opposition to Russia’s breach of the former’s sovereignty, the General Assembly (GA) of the United Nations supported a resolution “deploring Russia’s invasion and called for the immediate withdrawal of its forces”.

The resolution unambiguously stated: the UN “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”. It demanded “the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine” and “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces”.

In an emergency session, 141 of the GA’s 193 member states voted for the resolution. Thirty-five abstained and five voted against. Such lopsided votes on such contentious issues are rare.

The only countries to support Russia were Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. Cuba, Venezuela and China, longstanding allies of Russia, abstained. The GA vote revealed the extent of Russia’s isolation.

The nations of the world have long grown weary of the imperialism of larger states, whether that of the United States, former European colonizers or Russia. The right to self-determination is deeply embedded in the consciousness of the global commons.

By invading Ukraine with such brutality, specious reasoning and imperialistic adventurism, Russia has breached and offended the core principle of national sovereignty. The abstentions by China and Cuba sent a compelling message.

China craves domestic and global stability. It is likely President Xi Jinping, whose country enjoys a good relationship with Ukraine, is watching the conflict warily, and is unhappy with the war.

A part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative is set to go through Ukraine. Xi is also watching to see how the West, Europe and others respond to Putin.

The fog of war may last for some time in Ukraine. It is still early days. How far is Putin prepared to go to subdue Ukraine and hold the country of 44 million, which is larger in size than France and also Spain? How determined is the resistance?

How will economic sanctions against Russia play out in the intermediate and long-term? Countries such as Japan and other Southeast Asian nations have joined many of the Western sanctions.

How will opposition to the war grow in Russia? Will this be a long urban war? How will this effect Russia long-term as the bodies of young Russians come home? The Russian people are tired of war. The memories of Afghanistan and Georgia are fresh.

The human suffering will be widespread and terrible. Many civilians, including children will be killed or maimed in Ukraine. Scores of refugees are already flooding Europe.

There are continuing strikes on civilians, which is likely a strategy to lower the morale of Ukrainians. And there are always horrible costs that cannot be seen or imagined.

Helmuth von Moltke, (1800-1891), was a German Field Marshal, known as Moltke the Elder. He cogently stated: “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.”

What has the authoritarian and brutal kleptocrat Vladimir Putin underestimated about the strengths of the Ukrainian people, Western powers, the United States and the global commons?

Another strategist put it this way. In an interview with a Sun Sentinel reporter years after a famous boxing match, Mike Tyson explained:

“People were asking me, ‘What’s going to happen? They were talking about his style.’ [They said] ‘He’s going to give you a lot of lateral movement. He’s going to move. He’s going to dance. He’s going to do this, do that.’ I said, ‘Everybody has a plan until they get hit. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze’. “

Before Putin unleashed his forces, many analysts and others viewed the impending conflict primarily through the prism of the geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West, ignoring the agency of Ukrainians and their desire for sovereignty and self-determination.

Anne Applebaum, who has followed Russia for many years, recently wrote in The Atlantic:

“As it turns out, nations are not pieces in a game of Risk. They do not, as some academics have long imagined, have eternal interests or permanent geopolitical orientations, fixed motivations or predictable goals. Nor do human beings always react the way they are supposed to react.

“Last week, nobody who was analyzing the coming war in Ukraine imagined that the personal bravery of the Ukrainian president and his emotive calls for sovereignty and democracy could alter the calculations of foreign ministers, bank directors, business executives, and thousands of ordinary people.

“Few imagined that the Russian president’s sinister television appearances and brutal orders could alter, in just a few days, international perceptions of Russia.”

Some were fixated on the imperialism and hypocrisy of America and the West, while saying little or more fully acknowledging Russian hypocrisy, imperialism and history of violence. America is a relatively young imperialist power. Russia has been a brutal imperialist power for centuries.

Throughout history, and in the world of contemporary realpolitik, great powers, such as the U.S., China and Russia, have spheres of influence and buffer zones. But by invading Ukraine, Putin may have miscalculated how far he can go.

With his bizarre rants about de-Nazifying Ukraine, and other behaviour, Putin seems isolated behind the Iron Curtain of the Kremlin Walls. Last week’s column noted how leaders may become isolated in a bunker mentality, incapable of seeing certain realities, and making avoidable mistakes.

There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, of an exchange between Nikita Khrushchev and fellow-Politburo members after he became First Secretary of the Communist Party following Joseph Stalin’s death.

Khrushchev detailed for the members, the savagery, mass deaths and failures under Stalin.

A voice from the back of the room asked, “Where were you!?” Three times Khrushchev asked, “Who asked that question?” When no one replied, he declared: “I was where you are!”

Who is going to speak truth to power or raise objections or queries to Putin, a former head of one of the country’s major intelligence bureaus, who is also a murderous authoritarian? Putin’s isolation, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, may be worse than we realize.

By example, his hope for a coup de main in Ukraine in general or Kyiv in particular may have evaporated. Putin needs to win quickly militarily.

If he does not, the political, military and economic costs will mount rapidly, especially with Russia being under severe economic and financial sanctions, and becoming more isolated by the day.

Is he prepared to unleash on his fellow Slavs the same brutality he did on Muslims in Grozny in Chechnya? How far is he prepared to go to secure what he deems a victory? What is the end game to hold Ukraine?

A number of commentators argued the Russian war on Ukraine would be a death knell of sorts for NATO and “the liberal world order”. So far, Putin’s war is making Russia a pariah state. His calculations may have backfired.

He appears to have reinvigorated NATO and the European Union, and galvanized global and Western opinion against Russia. Germany has made a sea change in its approach to Russia. Finland and Sweden have talked about joining NATO.

Various European countries are giving stepped-up bilateral military assistance, including fighter jets, to Ukraine.

Also writing in The Atlantic, Kori Schake observed:

“Hungary, thought to be the weakest link in the Western chain, has supported without question moves by the European Union and NATO to punish Moscow. Turkey, arguably the most Russia-friendly NATO country, having bought missile defence systems from Moscow, has invoked its responsibilities in the 1936 Montreux Convention and closed the Bosporus Strait to Russian warships.”

Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Putin, condemned “Russia’s military intervention”. His Foreign Minister stated: “We stand with Ukraine — we stand with Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

Applebaum also noted:

“And what about Russia? Is Russia condemned always to be a revanchist state, a backward-looking former empire, forever scheming to regain its old role?

“Must this enormous, complicated, paradoxical nation always be ruled badly, with cruelty, by elites who want to steal its wealth or oppress its people? Will Russian rulers always dream of conquest instead of prosperity?”

But what about Ukraine? What will this war mean for a people, with a history as old as Russia’s, that has struggled for self-determination for centuries? We are watching extraordinary history being written in real-time.

Timothy Gorton Ash, the British historian and political writer, who covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as the Balkanization of Yugoslavia, recently opined in The Guardian on the war in Ukraine:

“ … We must be prepared for a long struggle. It will take years, probably decades, for all the consequences of 24 February to be played out. In the short term, the prospects for Ukraine are desperately bleak. But I think at this moment of the wonderful title of a book about the Hungarian revolution of 1956: Victory of a Defeat.

“Almost everyone in the west has now woken up to the fact that Ukraine is a European country being attacked and dismembered by a dictator.

“Kyiv today is a city full of journalists from all over the world.

“This experience will shape their views of Ukraine forever. We had forgotten, in the years of our post-cold war illusions, that this is how nations write themselves on to the mental map of Europe: in blood, sweat and tears.”