Dr. A. Motalab Makki
The city’s (Mariupol) strategic port of east Ukraine is under siege by the Russian army and is under fierce attacks. Hence, the coming days will put the people in face of new troubles not only in security, but it may touch all other strategic services. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of failing to provide safe passage to civilians fleeing two besieged and bombarded cities on the 10th day of a war that has caused Europe’s biggest humanitarian crisis in decades. All this happened and no upcoming solution is seen in recent days. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the West’s sanctions against his country amounted to a declaration of war, and defended the attack on Ukraine, saying Moscow needed to defend Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine as well as Russian interests. which means the world is really under the pressure of fighting between two major powers. The war has so far forced nearly 1.5 million refugees to flee west to the European Union and has resulted in unprecedented international sanctions on Moscow, as well as a warning of a global economic recession.
A former FBI agent who worked on China and North Korea says the Russian-Ukrainian war may benefit China the most. He states: “They’ll be the primary beneficiary of the sanctions against Russia, the Yuan will benefit from the decline of the Ruble, and they have been given a case study of what the world’s response would look like if they were to invade Taiwan.”
However, it is safe to conclude that most parties are losing due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, with inflation rising exponentially across the globe, oil prices experiencing significant volatility, and stock markets are bleeding substantially. It is an economic race for power and aggression. We saw how the United States’ medical supply chain completely relied on China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, Russia is employing oil production to Europe and the West as a form of holding an upper hand economically.
While European countries have joined the United States using harsh sanctions on Russia in the Ukrainian conflict, they have mostly spared Russia’s energy sector from such economic warfare, since much of Europe is reliant on Russia for energy. China has also pushed to control industries like rare-earth metals, making attempts to economically isolate China more difficult.
For months, a considerable number of Western scholars have been inclined to believe Putin’s claim that Russia’s long-term ambition is to force a reorganization of Europe’s bigger security architecture. Ultimately, Putin turned to dramatic demonstrations of actual military force to obtain concessions from the West, after years of loud protests against NATO’s eastward border expansion.
Many Russians condemn the war against Ukraine. Some even state that they’re closely related to one another and consider them family. That emphasizes the simple fact that the war on Ukraine is mostly individually beneficial to Putin himself rather than the Russian Government and the Russian citizens. As their Ruble and stock market plummets, importing and exporting goods to the country significantly declined, and several sanctions were being imposed on the country, the real losers of the Russian-Ukrainian war are the Russian and Ukrainian citizens themselves. It is without question that a poll done by the citizens of those two countries would mostly condemn war and conflict altogether. Putin’s main goal might be to restructure defense systems across his border by destabilizing Ukraine, somehow making Russia more powerful, hence secure from his personal perspective. Putin may also be trying to force unsettlement in the west by increasingly forcing his goals towards limiting NATO and creating an obstacle for western expansion towards his Russian borders. Perhaps, Russia in Putin’s perspective is less secure with NATO expansion. But we also need to take into account that Ukraine is not a NATO country and is also the weakest and poorest country in Europe economically, meaning Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine could be more than economically strategic, but mostly personal.
Dr. A. Motalab Makki is Assistant Professor of Media at the Department of Mass Communication, QU, and former managing editor of Al Sharq Newspaper
Dr. A. Motalab Makki is Assistant Professor of Media at the Department of Mass Communication, QU, and former managing editor of Al Sharq Newspaper
