Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 22: Amidst sounding of bugle of war on the Ukrainian border with tension escalating after Russia “recognised” two separatist regions in is neighbouring country as “independent nations,” India said it was watching the latest developments along Ukraine’s eastern border with “deep concern” but refrained from criticising Moscow’s actions.
During a debate at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Tuesday, India’s Permanent Representative at the UN TS Tirumurti called for restraint and diplomatic dialogue.
Tensions between Ukraine and Russia escalated on Monday after Russian President Vladimir Putin in his address to the nation recognised separatist regions in eastern Ukraine and deployed troops in a peacekeeping role. The development was soon followed by the U.N. opening an emergency Security Council meeting.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield in the meeting said that Putin’s claims were aimed at “creating a pretext for war.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK would hit Russia with a “first barrage” of economic sanctions, warning that President Vladimir Putin is fixed on a “full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Speaking at the start of the emergency session that was called immediately following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration on Monday night, Tirumurti said “The immediate priority is de-escalation of tensions taking into account the legitimate security interests of all countries and aimed towards securing long-term peace and stability in the region and beyond,” repeating New Delhi’s previous position where it had chosen not to join Western calls for action against Russia. In contrast, the U.K., U.S., European countries, and Kenya called Russia’s decision an attack on Ukrainian sovereignty, and promised sanctions and other actions.
Separately, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres also issued a strong statement, saying he was “greatly concerned” by Russia’s decision on the status of certain areas of the Donetsk & Luhansk regions of Ukraine. “We remain fully supportive of the sovereignty, independence & territorial integrity of Ukraine, within internationally recognised borders,” Guteres added.
Reaffirming India’s position that the situation must be resolved on the basis of the “Minsk Agreements” of 2014-2015, which had not yet been implemented, Tirumurti said India welcomed talks under the Trilateral Contact Group including Russia, Ukraine and members of the OSCE in Europe, as well as the Normandy Format of talks between Russia and Ukraine along with Germany and France, and said “constructive diplomacy is the need of the hour.”
Tirumurti also called the safety of about 20,000 Indians studying and working in Ukraine a “priority” for the government. The government has issued a number of travel advisories asking Indian citizens to leave Ukraine temporarily. Families of Indian diplomats have also been asked to return to India in the light of the situation, and Air India is operating commercial flights to Kiev this week to facilitate their departure.
“The safety and security of civilians are essential,” Tirumurti added, calling for “all sides to maintain international peace and security by exercising the utmost restraint and intensifying diplomatic efforts.”
While the U.S. had agreed “in principle” to meet with Russia only a day before, U.S. Ambassador following the UNSC meeting announced plans to impose sanctions. The developments over the last night have had repercussions on the World market as well as global stock exchanges all of which including the Indian stock exchange tumbled.
Russia announced on Tuesday that its recognition of independence for areas in Eastern Ukraine extended to territory currently held by Ukrainian forces — further raising the stakes amid Western fears that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was imminent. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had recognised the rebel regions’ independence “in borders that existed when they proclaimed” their independence in 2014. Ukrainian forces later reclaimed control of large part of both regions during a nearly eight-year conflict that has killed over 14,000 people.
Putin’s decision to recognise the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk republics practically brought the Minsk peace process to an end. The Minsk 1 and II accords, reached in 2014 and 2015 as part of the Normandy Format talks between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, brought a tenuous ceasefire between the Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine’s Donbas region, comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, and laid out a formula for resolving the conflict. The civil strife in Donbas broke out after the 2014 Euromaidan protests brought down the pro-Russia regime of Viktor Yanukovych. Donbas, located on Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, has a majority Russian-speaking population, like Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula further south that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
According to the Minsk II agreement, rebels were required to enforce a full ceasefire in the Donbas region, pull out heavy weapons and start talks on holding local elections. Ukraine is also supposed to devolve more powers to the Donbas “republics”, introduce constitutional reforms codifying the decentralisation of power and announce an amnesty to the rebel fighters. Rebels, in turn, should allow the Ukrainian troops to restore control of the border with Russia. These terms were never implemented, mainly because Kiev (and Washington) was not particularly supportive of it. But it had at least remained a path towards peace. That path was closed on Monday when Russia decided to recognise the Donetsk and Luhansk republics as independent.
Right now, rebels control only parts of the two oblasts, but they have claims to the whole region. The conflict has been frozen since the 2015 ceasefire. But now that Russia has recognised the republics, Putin can move troops and heavy weaponry openly to Donbas. Moscow has already announced that it would be sending “peacekeepers” to the republics. With Russian help, the rebels could try to push the frontlines to take control of the whole region or even extend their reach further, as many analysts have suggested, creating a land bridge from Donbas to the Russian-controlled Crimea.
The UK PM accused Putin of “plainly” violating Ukrainian sovereignty and “the over-running, the subjugation” of an independent, sovereign European country. “He’s completely torn up international law and we will immediately institute a package of economic sanctions, which I think his people would expect. Targeted not just at entities in Donbas, in Luhansk and Donetsk, but in Russia itself targeting Russian economic interests as hard as we can,” Johnson said.
Air India on Tuesday operated a Boeing 787 aircraft to Ukraine to bring back Indians amid rising tensions in the eastern European country. The aircraft, which has more than 250 seats, is expected to return to the national capital at around 10.30 pm on Tuesday, according to an airline official.
In a dramatic speech telecast on Monday night, the Russian President had hinted about a decision on recognising the two Russian-dominated regions in eastern Ukraine. Within minutes, he signed a decree recognising the two regions as Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic. Denis Pushilin is president of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, and Leonid Pesachnik is the leader of the Luhansk People’s Republic.
Both Pesachnik and Pushilin have been leading the rebel forces since 2014 in challenging the might of the Ukrainian state in the eastern part of the country. They have alleged that Ukrainian troops violated humanitarian laws and actively sought the involvement of Russia to help them liberate from Kyiv’s control. With the recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent entities, Russia has effectively divided Ukraine and created legal grounds for stationing of “peacekeeping troops” to prevent alleged human rights violation by the Ukrainian forces.
Experts said the developments in Ukraine bear uncanny similarities with events in the Indian subcontinent half a century ago. Angry with a fraudulent election, Bengalis in East Pakistan led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman rose in revolt against Urdu-speaking rulers of Pakistan. As the crackdown against the critics and rebels began on March 25, 1971, leaders of the Awami League left Dhaka for India.
Sheikh Mujib was arrested and taken to West Pakistan. From the safety of Indian soil, Tajuddin Ahmad declared the independence of Bangladesh on April 10. He became the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh. As the PM of the government in exile, Ahmad requested Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to send India’s military forces to Bangladesh to liberate the country from Pakistan’s control.
Indira Gandhi was forced to intervene as Pakistan carried out a genocidal campaign to crush the rebellion. The Russian argument for intervention is similarly citing Ukrainian actions against the people of Donetsk and Luhansk. Indira Gandhi faced strong criticism from the U.S. government, which even sent the Seventh Fleet carrying nuclear weapons to intimidate India as a war broke out between India and Pakistan in December 1971, which led to the birth of Bangladesh.
The war of 1971 had the potential of spiralling into a greater conflict involving the superpowers — the U.S. and the USSR — but that was prevented by India’s quick military victory sealed on December 16, 1971. The developments in Donetsk and Luhansk too have a similar potential of turning into a greater conflict. Within hours of President Putin granting recognition, the West condemned the Russian action and is now contemplating strong sanctions against Moscow’s rulers.
In 1971, Indira Gandhi presented India’s military intervention as a necessary move to protect the people of Bangladesh and to help send back the displaced refugees who had taken shelter in India. Putin has similarly acted and begun to send “peacekeeping troops” to “safeguard” the people of Luhansk and Donetsk. The only country that supported Indira Gandhi’s 1971 plans wholeheartedly was the Soviet Union where President Putin began his career working for the intelligence. The big difference, however, is that Indira Gandhi was criticised by the U.S. government for her involvement but she did receive endorsement from the Western masses and cultural community. Putin, in comparison, has not received that support from the Western mass media.
In his speech to the Russian nation on Monday, Putin buoyed his case for codifying the cleavage of two rebel territories from Ukraine by arguing that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction. With a conviction of an authoritarian unburdened by historical nuance, Putin declared Ukraine an invention of Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, who he said had mistakenly endowed Ukraine with a sense of statehood by allowing it autonomy within the newly created Soviet state.
“Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia,” Putin said. “This process began practically immediately after the 1917 revolution, and moreover Lenin and his associates did it in the sloppiest way in relation to Russia — by dividing, tearing from her pieces of her own historical territory.”
As a misreading of history, it was extreme even by the standards of Putin, a former KGB officer who has declared the Soviet Union’s collapse the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.
The historical reality of Ukraine is complicated, a thousand-year history of changing religions, borders and peoples. The capital, Kyiv, was established hundreds of years before Moscow, although both Russians and Ukrainians claim Kyiv as a birthplace of their modern cultures, religion and language. The history and culture of Russia and Ukraine are indeed intertwined — they share the same Orthodox Christian religion, and their languages, customs and national cuisines are related.
Putin also argued that the myth of Ukraine was reinforced by the crumbling Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev, which allowed Ukraine to slip free of Moscow’s grasp. It was a weakened Moscow that “gave” Ukraine the right to become independent of the Soviet Union “without any terms and conditions.” It was not Moscow that granted Ukraine’s independence in 1991, but the Ukrainian people, who voted resoundingly to leave the Soviet Union in a democratic referendum.
Now, with an estimated 190,000 Russian troops surrounding Ukraine like a sickle, Putin’s declaration that Ukraine’s very existence as a sovereign state was the result of historical error threatened to send a shudder through all the lands once under Moscow’s dominion. It also elicited expressions of contempt from Ukrainians. “For the past few decades, the West has been looking for fascism anywhere, but not where it was most,” said Maria Tomak, an activist involved in supporting people from Crimea, a Ukrainian territory Putin annexed in 2014. “Now it is so obvious that it burns the eyes. Maybe this will finally make the West start to sober up about Russia.”