Russia’s war against Ukraine began in February 2022. And it is still spluttering along with both sides showing no sign of a truce. Again, the Israel’s war to exterminate Hamas, the Palestinian jihadi group, began last October. And it still remains unfinished. Despite several US-brokered ceasefire attempts, the end of armed hostilities in Gaza does not seem near. The good offices of the UN for precisely such troubled spots around the globe were rendered ineffective long ago, thanks largely to the intense tussle between the two super powers during the Cold War. After the cold war ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the lone superpower by some distance messed up its role, frittering away much global goodwill besides trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of men in waging wars in West Asia with nary a clear objective in view. Meanwhile, its project to implant the democracy seed in China by facilitating her double-quick economic growth from a basket-case economy had now come to boomerang on it. While Russia is a much reduced power, albeit with a huge arsenal of nukes, it is China which is increasingly challenging the US both economically and militarily. The short point. However hard the US might want to be the sole anchor of the global order, China, with Russia playing the second fiddle, is unready to accept its hegemony in large swaths of the world. It is notable that the US now accuses China of helping Russia in the latter’s assault on Ukraine. Equally important to note that the Russian President Vladimir Putin particularly names China along with India and Brazil as parties he would trust to facilitate a peace formula to end the Ukraine war. Yeah, as if the US and the European Union without whom President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would have raised both hands in surrender within weeks off the Russian tanks rolling into Luhansk and Donetsk, would agree to these nations playing the peacemakers! Two years later there is no end to the war. If the Russians make advances in the southeastern parts of Ukraine, the latter have now surprised the Goliath, attacking miles deep inside its Kursk region, the first time enemy troops had set foot on Russian soil since the end of the Second War. Zelenskyy's bravado still would not merit an affirmative answer to his plea to be allowed to attack deep inside Russia. The West fears a bigger conflagration. Neither Russia nor Ukraine’s puppeteers are in a position to call off hostilities fearing a loss of face. Even though the war is going nowhere two years after Putin started it on the ground that Ukraine’s increasing embrace of NATO posed a greater threat to Russia’s security. Putin has said that he was agreeable to peace talks should India, China or Brazil, together or separately, succeed in evolving a negotiating platform. How can Ukraine consider peace while Russia retains the occupied lands? That will be a defeat not only for Ukraine but for the US and the EU. While there is a growing weariness in the West at the rising costs of bankrolling Ukraine, it is unlikely that even in the case of a second Trump presidency Zelenskyy could be thrown before the Russian wolves. That will a bigger blow to the Americans. While Ukrainians perforce may reconcile to live as second-class citizens yet again under the Russian yoke but the US will stand further diminished in the eyes of the world. In other words, only a miracle can result in halting the armed hostilities in Russia’s Ukraine war. For Putin, deaths of tens of thousands of Russians do not seem to matter. For Ukraine, it is defending its territorial integrity, giving her soldiers a worthy objective. Against all odds they have soldiered on willingly.
As for Israel’s attack on Gaza to avenge Hamas’s barbaric atrocity which caused killed 1200 , mainly civilian men, women and children on October 7 last year, despite President Biden’s repeated bids, a ceasefire appears elusive. It is extraordinary that everyone seems to impress on President Benjamin Netanyahu to call off the hostilities while no-one to our knowledge has asked Hamas to free the 100-odd hostages whom it still keeps in captivity to make the task of a ceasefire much easier. Last week bodies of six hostages aged between 18 and 35 years were recovered in a tunnel. A forensic examination revealed that they had been shot in the back of their heads hours before being found by the Israel troops. Last weeks, fears of the West Bank becoming another theater of active armed hostilities got stronger after Israel carried out raids to flush out a number of jihadis reportedly plotting another terrorist attack. In the near year-long war over 40,000 civilians have died, a large number of them women and children. Yet, Hamas would not consider giving up the remaining 100- odd hostages, some of them reportedly already killed, so that Netanyahu could be devoid of the reason for continuing the armed assault against Gaza. Without Iran sustaining the spigot of terror it will run dry. Without the West, Ukraine will crumble. Of course, there is no moral equivalence being argued in the two on-going wars. Just plain and painful facts on the bloodied ground in Ukraine and Gaza.
