River Talk 1: Russian-Ukrainian War

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River Talk Series

Welcome to the Millennium River Talk series! While I already do various write-ups in the form of articles, blog posts, and creative pieces, the River Talk series are a special category of blog posts. How so? Unlike the other usual blog posts that I post on this website, these types of blog posts have my personal opinion and commentaries far more heavily integrated integrated into them. As such, for those that may have known Millennium River for leaning more towards the professional spectrum, you may dislike the idea of this. To those people I say do not worry. River Talks will still have the signature Millennium River brand language style and all. The only difference is that they are even more opinionated and chat-like, hence the term “River Talk”. The first write-up for the River Talk is indeed a very dark one, but is also one that I have been really wanting to do.

Slavic Slaughter

It is what it is: Slavic Slaughter. Why does Russian need so much land? They are already almost twice as large as the second largest country on the planet: Canada. And for its sheer size, they cannot even properly populate they land they currently have, yet try to acquire more. To put it into perspective, Bangladesh has an area of 147,570 square kilometres, yet with a staggering 164 million people! Russia on the other hand has an area 17,125,191 square kilometres, but with only 144 million people. If you do the math, Russia is 116 times bigger than Bangladesh, who at the same has 20 million more people than it. Truly mind-blowing. But what is even more mind-blowing in a very sad way is the slaughter for more land and resources. Yes, I know there is far more to it, and that is exactly what I am about to discuss further below: Why is Russia slaughtering Ukraine in the first place? Is it really for just more land? Is NATO really a threat? Did Joseph Biden get on Vladimir Putin’s nerves?

What I Had Previously Known

When I became aware of the situation, the gist of it was Ukraine is “ours” and NATO cannot be on Russian boundaries. So before writing any further into this talk I decided to watch a detailed 30-minute video on the full scoop of the situation.

Notes I Gathered

• Ukraine “belongs” to Russia
• NATO is a threat
• Ukraine’s tariffs for sending oil through them to Europe are too high
• Stopping Ukraine from becoming a major player in the petroleum industry
• When Ukraine became too pro-EU and Pro-West, they ousted their pro-Russian Government which was deeply upsetting and offensive to Russia.

Direct Demands:
1. Ukraine never join NATO
2. Bring NATO troops from Eastern Europe all the way back to the pre-1997 boundaries, ending them at Germany
3. Freeze the NATO alliance as is and add no more new members

Jealous Control Freak

Putin is behaving like a man who cannot get over his break-up with his former wife. From the day they split, he never stopped thinking about it. He kept a dangerous, jealous, controlling eye on her. Watching her success. Watching her assets. Watching her wave the flag of independence loud and proud. Watching her get increasingly comfortable with a group of people who do not share his values. Out of sheer spite and jealousy, he proceeds to robbing a portion of value from her house. Her friends react in disgust. Later, as the desire to bring her under full control surges, he sends a crew of his men to capture her! She is caught, and illegally living under his possession. Nevertheless, she is fighting furiously for complete freedom, while calling on her friends to help.

Ukraine Belongs To Russia

Ukraine, alongside all other former Soviet countries legally and officially voted independent from Russia. This is a solid fact. They do not want to be connected to the Russian empire. Not even Belarus wants to be connected Russia, despite being one of their closest friends. Ukraine has its own language, ethnicity, and culture which it is firmly proud of. Yes, it is an undeniable fact that the Slavic countries do share a common origin and were once under the same lands. We can say the same thing for other languages and peoples. Do we see other countries at this time trying to annex the smaller brother tribes into the greater brother? No. Ukraine does not belong to Russia.

NATO Is A Threat

100% fabricated. NATO even has a fact-checked page debunking all of Russia’s blatantly absurd claims. One of the most regurgitated claim is that NATO is encircling and trying to contain Russia.

“NATO is a defensive alliance, whose purpose is to protect our member states. Our exercises and military deployments are not directed against Russia – or any other country. This myth also ignores geography. Only 6% of Russia’s land borders touch NATO countries. Russia has land borders with 14 countries. Only five of them are NATO members. Outside NATO territory, the Alliance only has a military presence in Kosovo and Iraq. The KFOR peacekeeping mission is carried out with a United Nations Security Council mandate. NATO’s non-combat mission in Iraq contributes to the fight against terrorism and is carried out at the request of the Iraqi government, with full respect for Iraq’s sovereignty. In contrast, Russia has military bases and soldiers in three countries – Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – without the consent of their governments. Russia also has amassed over 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border and is threatening to invade Ukraine.” — NATO

The last line has not been updated, as we all know that Russia is presently invading Ukraine. They have been doing so since February 2022 up to now, June 2022. Another thing that has not been mentioned is that Russia’s aggressive behaviour has actually caused NATO to expand even further. Finland and Sweden have been neutral countries. Even in the height of the Cold War they remained neutral. The invasion of Ukraine drove them into a drastic change of mind, and caused them to apply for NATO membership. I do not blame them. Russia does not share modern 2022 values with the rest of Europe. If I were the leader of a tiny country right next to an angry giant, I would not hesitant at the chance to join a massive military alliance.

Russia Must Remain Europe’s Biggest Oil Producer

Russia is an absolute oil titan. While I knew that Russia was one of those places that produced a lot of oil, it was not until now, June 2022, that I learned that Russia is 3rd largest oil producer on the planet. Only Saudia Arabia and the United States produce more oil. Considering how “small” Saudi Arabia is in comparison to gigantic Russia, I find it more mind-blowing how so much oil produced from land drastically smaller than Russia and the United States. Back to the point of oil, Ukraine apparently has a lot of oil, too. Not only oil, but they also compete with Russia for crops. So much so, that some even nickname it the breadbasket of Europe. Though it goes beyond just Europe. Africa also happens to be a major client of Ukrainian wheat, so we could say that it is more so the breadbasket of the Old World, alongside Russia.

Russia apparently sees this as not just some rivalry, but a grave threat to their domination. Russia wants the major oil and wheat profits to itself. But why? What is wrong with a little competition? After all, healthy competition makes rivals stronger and better. Simply put, Russia is behaving like a big, successful star, afraid of the up-and-coming star, because the rising star is no longer as close to them as before. Ukrainian independence? They hated them for that. Before Russia built pipelines in several other regions, they had to pipe the oil through Ukraine to get it to other part of Europe. The tariffs were high, and they hated that. When Ukraine started becoming increasingly pro-EU and Pro-West, particularly during Euromaidan in 2014, they ousted their pro-Russian Government, Viktor Yanukovych, which was deeply upsetting and offensive to Russia. Russia then took this opportunity to illegally annex Crimea, giving them access major ports in the Black Sea and lots of natural resources. On top of this, the Western companies that had been involved in the oil business left, leaving Ukraine unable to take back Crimea when Russia stole it.

Fast forward to now, we can clearly see that Zelenskyy was right about the West and Europe not doing enough to punish Russia for this illegal annexation. Had Ukraine’s friends given them the support and attention they are receiving now, Russia would not have been able to walk away with Crimea back in 2014. The lack of tough action gave Russia the time to plan, build up, and carry out massive military aggressions years later.

Bloodthirsty Race To #1

The route of Putin’s tactics is money. The whole NATO blame game is nothing more than Putin afraid of the West getting in the way of trying to restore Russia’s position as the #1 Empire of gas and oil. You see, the former Soviet Union had a lot of assets under its roof. It had vast amounts of oil, gas, wood, weapons, and money. Rather than trying to adapt with the times, Putin is resorting to an ancient mindset of conquering and exploiting, which is ironically making the Russian economy even worse. So much so, that some economists even went as far as saying that Putin could be setting Russia behind 30 years of economic development. Ouch! This bloodthirsty race to try and regain the #1 position as a global superpower is clearly not working in their favour. What may have worked centuries ago, will not work in the 21st century.

Putin has made a Pariah of himself. Europe, the largest consumer of Russia’s precious oil and gas, does not even want to buy oil and gas from them anymore. Well, most of it, that is. Serbia in May 2022 openly declared that they bought a good gas deal from Russia. Lithuania on the other hand, has already cut off all imports of Russian gas, while others are planning to get off of it as fast as they feasibly can. Not to mention the slew of the sanctions that have been placed on both Russia and Belarus. This race to the top is ironically pushing Russia to the bottom of the barrel. By the time the Russo-Ukrainian War is over, not only will the Russian economy be in a disastrous state, their recovery is going to be rough. So rough that is leads to another extremely interesting topic: Outcomes.

Outcomes

There are a lot of potential outcomes for the Russo-Ukrainian war. In a Russia-favoured scenario there are 3 options that come to mind:

1. Russia successfully manages to subdue Eastern Ukraine, thus leading to them capturing the rest of a financially and resource-drained Ukraine who can no longer continue fighting.
2. Russia may decide to completely forgo any plans of capturing Western Ukraine, and successfully walk away with Donbass and the already stolen Crimea.
3. Russia could go absolutely berserk with the violence and deployment, capture Ukraine entirely, and proceed to retaking non-NATO former Soviet countries to get as close as possible to restoring the former Russian empire. 

With the amount of sanctions in place, and the fact that there are vastly more countries on Ukraine’s side, it is very unlikely to see #1 and #3 happening. It is a fact that NATO does not want to get directly involved out of fear of mass destruction. Nevertheless, the alliance is closely monitoring the situation. Therefore, I believe the worse that can happen to Ukraine is that they end up losing the East, and are unable to retake Crimea. Any extreme act of violence that gets too close to Poland or another NATO country is bound to trigger NATO’s direct involvement. NATO itself has even stated that certain acts like the use of chemical weapons will prompt their direct response.

In a Ukrainian-favoured, or I should say mostly internationally favoured scenario, there are 3 major options that come to mind:

1. Russia loses and is forced to remove Putin from power and have a complete transformation of government
2. Russia not only loses the Government, but is also forced to disarm
3. The loss could end up being so severe, that it not only results in the full return of Ukraine’s territories, but also results in the dissolution of Russia.

If Russia loses, it is 99% safe to say that scenario #1 is going to happen. I initially never thought about the possibility of the Russian Federation itself breaking up further into separate countries, till I came across a post somewhere. Upon looking into it, it turns out that the hypothetical Dissolution Of Russia is not a new topic. In fact, there is a full-blown Wikipedia page on it, Quora discussions on it, and Reddit discussions on it as well. I personally do not think that will happen for now. At the same time, I would not be greatly surprised if it does. History has proven time after time that “great empires” always end up getting dissolved when the primary holder can no longer bare the burden of all that land and responsibility. British Empire? Roman Empire? Ottoman Empire? Mongol Empire? Where are they now? Gone and broken up. Depending on how bad the Russian economy gets, and what type of transformation the government undergoes, #3 could happen within the 2020s decade, perhaps closer towards the end of the decade.

Other World Wars Going On

Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, and East Africa? While much of the World is deeply focused on the Russo-Ukrainian War, I have seen questions in regards to why is Ukraine getting so much more attention and funding than other wars that are just as bad, if not, worse, and have been going on long before the Russo-Ukrainian war. Here is where things are going to get touchy and offensive to some, but I have to say it: it is because those countries are not considered important enough in the eyes of the West. Yes, the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe have indeed accepted a fair bit of refugees from these countries. Yes, some relief and aid has been sent to them. The question remains though, why are efforts not determined enough to fix these countries? It is combination of a lot things.

Many people feel that some places, particularly Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia for example, are unfixable Danger Zones that are not worth the continual effort. People also point out that it is because these are non-White countries, thus leading to increased scrutiny and distrust against these peoples. Islamic countries tend to be stereotyped as being incompatible with Western values, and have a high terrorist rate. African countries on the other hand, Islamic or not, also tend to get looked down as inferior, diseased, dirty nations for being dark-skinned. Again, these reasoning all go back to them being too different from the West.

Going back to value point, a lot of countries that tend to be ignored, or helped limitedly, do not add financial gain to the West because they are too poor. See, with Ukraine and Russia being the  crop baskets and oil pockets of the old world, it is easy to see why the West would pay so much attention to making sure the global flow of goods are not interrupted. Think about it: Taiwan Versus Laos. Should China decide to attack the latter, how is the West going to respond? They would scold China, yes. They would also allow Laotian refugees to flee for safety. They would send some aid. Help more or less would end there. Now if China were to invade Taiwan, which is something that the West is openly concerned about right now, Biden already went as far to say that he would forcibly defend it. Not just him, but many other Nations too. Why? Because Taiwan is a major semiconductor and electronics.

Clearly, it is combination of how profitable a country is in global trade or how Westernized they are that determines how much support they will get in hard times. While I can understand why it is important for major global centres to not get disrupted, could it be possible that some countries often ignored could end up being major players in the future? Certainly. Which ones? That is something I do not have an answer to. The powerhouses today, were not always powerhouses. They too, had their chaotic, impoverished pasts. Each and every countries’ solution to its problems are complex and different. This does not mean that they should forever go ignored. Those that can be fixed easier than others, should be given a bit more of a chance.

Final Word

Truly, I do hope that the Russian-Ukrainian War ends utmost soon. Slaughtering people for the sake of money, oil, and power is deeply revolting. Russia is losing more of what they are fighting for, than what they are trying to gain. May Ukraine be fully liberated, including Crimea and Donbass. May the world learn from these events to prevent future ones similar to it from happening. Hopefully it if ends soon enough, the World can start looking into fixing other conflicts before they turn into major ones that end up impacting all countries. Early prevention is key.