Russia-Ukraine War: Origins and Endgame
Rashed Rahman
Three years after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the advent of Donald Trump into power in the US has upset the applecart for Volodymyr Zelensky and hints at a changed geopolitical scenario in Europe and the wider world. Trump had exhibited a soft spot for Russian President Vladimir Putin even in his first term, and after leaving office, consistently opposed the war while expressing a tilt towards Russia. During his election campaign and on the eve of a return to the White House, Trump made no bones about wanting to, and being capable of, ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict “within 24 hours”. The timeline may have been the usual Trump hyperbole, but it did indicate the US President’s mindset vis-a-vis the war.
What is the Russia-Ukraine conflict? What are its origins and, in the light of the remarks above, its likely endgame? The problem with seeking an objective account of this conundrum is that the whole affair is shrouded in propaganda and partisan spin from both sides (not an unusual phenomenon in wars). First, some historical background.
Ukraine’s Donbas region, around which the current war has been waged, is considered in Russian historiography as the original home of the Russian people and culture after they migrated there from Scandinavia around the 8th-11thcenturies. Add to this nostalgia the fact that the Donbas, largely Russian to date, complained of discrimination and worse from Ukraine, particularly after the Maidan uprising in 2014. In the aftermath of that political cataclysm of regime change (one of the ‘colour’ revolutions in Eastern Europe orchestrated as it is widely believed they were, by the CIA), both the Russian denizens of Donbas and their Russian Orthodox Church (revived after the Soviet collapse in 1991) came under alleged attack by neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine. These neo-Nazis are considered the heirs of the WWII Ukrainian collaborators with the occupying Nazi war machine of Hitler.
Russian sensitivity regarding its diaspora scattered throughout the former Soviet Republics has informed Moscow’s actions in Abkhazia, Georgia (where a separatist Russian movement was indirectly supported by Russia) and Ukraine, the two most extreme examples of such intervention. Moscow has also kept an eye on the interests of Russians in the Central Asian Republics that broke away and became independent in 1991. Putin in particular appears to have made it his life’s mission to ensure his Russian compatriots in the former Soviet Republics are not maltreated.
On the other side of the divide is the perfidious role of the West which, not content with its ‘victory’ over the Soviet Union, has been needling post-Soviet Russia with NATO-creep (the inclusion of Eastern European countries in the military alliance, a development the West initially assured Moscow would not happen) and the doing down of Russia’s military might (which includes nuclear weapons). All this is intended to weaken Russia and ensure the US-led West’s unchallenged global hegemony. Sceptics are invited to cast a glance at how China, after being embraced when it opened its doors to capitalism under Deng Xiaoping, is today being considered an economic, political and military threat by the US-led West precisely because of the progress it has made. Thucydides is therefore alive and kicking.
Had the West remained content with the humbling of Russia post-Soviet collapse, things may not have reached this pretty pass. However, Trump is making one thing clear: the days of Zelensky are now numbered, along with those in Ukraine who still dream of recovering all the territory they have lost to Russia in this war. Trump seems uninterested in Ukraine’s refrain along these lines. His avid interest currently is in asking Zelensky for $ 500 billion in rare minerals to be found in Ukraine as payback for all the aid Washington has bestowed on the (by now lost) Ukrainian cause.
Another major loser in the second Trumpian era is Europe, which has been excluded from the table as US-Russia meetings roll out. The European Union’s angst about Ukrainian, and therefore European, security has been trashed by the new/old incumbent in the White House. Trump had in the past railed against the continuation of the US stationing troops in and bearing the cost of Europe’s security (a hangover of the post-WWII world) and repeatedly asked for Europe to increase its contribution to European defence. This had not been taken too seriously in practice by the EU, lip service notwithstanding. Now it seems the free lunch is over and the chickens have come home to roost.
Welcome to the Trumpian universe.
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