In the recent press briefing by the US Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, held on February 11, 2022, the United States warned the international community of a possible Russian attack on Ukraine. Is this a real warning or something which the US has falsely been accusing the Russians over the last few months? To get a clear and comprehensive answer, one has to go deep into this pressing issue.
Firstly, the Ukrainian Crisis began on November 21, 2013, during the regime of the then-president Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian president of neighboring Ukraine, who suspended the preparations for the implementation of an association agreement with the European Union. When the European Union offered to sign a socio-economic deal with Ukraine, President Viktor Yanukovych took an unpopular decision and preferred to join the Russian Economic-block over EU.
This decision had some serious repercussions in the form of nation-wide protests in Ukraine following Russian annexation of Crimea, a Ukrainian state with majority population of pro-Russian separatists, and ultimately the fall of President Viktor Yanukovych’s Government
Last year, the US-led NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was about to make Ukraine its new ally, in order to diminish the Russian influence and replace it with the United States’s influence on Ukraine. Consequently, Moscow sensed the ill-intentions of the White House and in counteract, made a military bluid-up along its Ukrainian border. Since, Russia has its own interests in Ukraine, as Ukraine was the second most powerful state of the Soviet Union after Russia during the Cold war era. Therefore, Russia wants to regain the Cold War era status through making alliances of neighboring countries, of which Ukraine is the most important one. Secondly, Ukraine is a big market with population of over 40 million people. Thus, Russia wants to expand its export market by having a greater influence over Ukraine so, there are some economic interests as well. As far as Russia’s confidence in achieving its above-mentioned goals are concerned, Russia has the internal support of the pro-Russian separatists residing in Ukraine who are, according to the US intelligence, trained, equipped, and financed by the Russian government as part of the their proxy war strategy in Ukraine.
In contrast, having greater influence over Ukraine, the United States along with its strategic and economic partners like the European Union, NATO member countries etc, is trying to achieve its long-term goals related to Moscow, which is going to be possible only through having influence over the neighboring countries of Russia including Ukraine. Meanwhile, President Putin desiresa black and white agreement from the United States that NATO’s influence shall not penetrate into Russia’s neighboring countries including Ukraine. Through its military bluid up, Russia is trying to have the US and European Union meet its demands of not letting Ukraine join the US-led NATO and giving a written guarantee of this. Nonetheless, the US doesn’t want to give this guarantee to Russia and it is trying to pressurize Moscow of some tough and serious economic sanctions. In addition to the economic sanctions, the United States has taken a very systematic approach of plotting a preposterous scenario of the a Russian attack on Ukraine which, everyone knows, is not going to happen, because Russia has no such plans. Since Russia’s military bluid-up is just a military tactic to have her demands meet.
During the intervening time, what should prevail is peace and a serious dialogue on diplomatic fronts amongst Russia, the US, and Ukraine as this is the need of the hour to unbiasedly resolve this important crisis which is leading to an another cold war of the 21st century, a war of which we have already suffered a lot during the second half of the 20th century. And we are still suffering in the form of Talibanization and global terrorism. So, humanity cannot afford to have another cold war.
