Russian onslaught in Ukraine and Bangladesh stance

Ziauddin Choudhury

As Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues its military march on Ukraine choking the beleaguered country on
all sides, the UN General Assembly on March 5 overwhelmingly denounced this aggression with 141
countries in favor of the resolution. Only five countries were opposed including Russia supported by four
others, but surprisingly not China, which abstained from voting. The abstention list of 35 countries
included India, Bangladesh and other countries which are presumably reluctant to risk Russian ire over
this overt aggression. Interestingly most Muslim countries notably in the Middle East (except Syria) and
in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia and Malaysia joined the censure resolution. Even three of our South
Asian neighbors, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives joined their voices to protest the Russian aggression.

The crisis that faces the world today from Russian invasion of Ukraine is of a momentous proportion that
is fraught with the risk of launching a nuclear warfare should Putin feel threat of a resistance from the
Ukraine’s neighbors. In fact, he had threatened European countries of a consequence that would be
unimaginable to them should they even think of retaliating against Russia.

This is not a moment to take pause and ponder what triggered the Russian invasion and speculate on
whether Russia was provoked to this act by Ukraine or its neighbors. It is a time to prevent another
catastrophe from happening without a blame game. It is time from throwing the world back to the days
when big powers threatened each other with nuclear weapons, and one power invaded countries that
were not toeing its way with it.

It is not too distant a time to remember for many of us when the former incarnation of present-day
Russia, the Soviet Union, invaded Hungary (1956), and later Czechoslovakia (1958) in the name of
quelling uprising of people against their puppet communist regimes. The same country invaded
Afghanistan two decades later to install its owned favored regime in that country. Today, Putin wants a
regime change in Ukraine because its President does not want to toe Russian line, and the country seeks
admission to a better economic union, with twenty-seven other countries of the continent. But Russia’s
Putin would not have Ukraine choose its freedom from Russian yoke and would like to restore the glory
and power of former Soviet Union with the strangle hold that it had over fifteen of the countries that
comprised that empire.

The invasions that the former incarnation of present-day Russia made in the previous decades were not
actively resisted by other nations including USA for fear of encountering World War III with dangerous
repercussions of a nuclear war. Soviet Union was a world power which held a nuclear balance with the
west, and leaders were wary of a self-annihilating conflict in a world that had just recently come out of
an eight-year long warfare that had killed millions and unleashed untold sufferings on people. Fears of
another world war diminished with implosion of USSR and freeing of many European countries from its
iron clad control over them which abandoned dictatorship and embraced democracy.

Yet, fear of another kind domination of one country over another started to emerge when other
material considerations of control over energy sources and dictators reappeared in world scene. Along
with it also reappeared state control by undemocratic forces to establish their ideology and overthrow
of weaker regimes by the military, especially in the Middle East and Africa. In this chaos, also emerged
terror groups who tried to gain political supremacy through false ideology and takeover of state power.
The alliances were newly drawn between those regimes controlled by autocrats and countries that
sought access to the resources of these countries by giving legitimacy to the leaders through alliance.
Russia and China were the leading countries which established such relationship with many countries
that had powerful figures who had been catapulted to these positions. (Unfortunately, the United
States, the only superpower left after the demise of the Soviet Union, also had its share of siding with
such powers in many cases.)

The quest to seek new alliances and reestablish lost authority began in Russia substantially much after
the dissolution of Soviet Union. It took a long time for Russia to reestablish itself as a solitary republic
shorn of the fifteen other countries that once embellished its size. It took a long time to recover from
the economic downturn and other adversity that it faced from the shrinkage. But what it did not lose
was its military might and equipage that it had retained including its nuclear arsenal, most of which was
within Mother Russia. And this military might and nuclear strength that gave Russia ability to act as a
power to the countries that it befriended and helped later on. This strength would be leveraged and
exploited by Vladimir Putin when he gradually climbed to power and slowly turned his semi-democratic
country into another autocracy. As a former officer of the might KGB, the feared agency of state power,
he had seen the fall from grace of USSR and its turning into a mere “another state” in former of Soviet
Union. He regretted this fall and pined to reestablish control over the countries that formed the former
empire. Ukraine was his back yard, and he would not let it out of Russian domination.

So, the Russian aggression in Ukraine is not so much as fighting for the rights over Ukrainian resources
as fighting to establish Russian authority over the less powerful country. Putin is blind with rage that a
country that he wants to be a vassal state like Belarus would like to remain sovereign free from Russian
hegemony. He does recognize the rights of Ukraine citizens to choose their freedom to associate with
countries that he detests. Russian aggression is stopping these rights.

The question before us is not whether we like to risk our relationship with a country which in its earlier
incarnation supported our liberation struggle. The question is whether we would like to stand up with
another country which is defending its sovereignty from a mighty aggressor. The question is not one of
displeasing our own mighty neighbor which has a long history of association with Russia, and it imports
heavily its defense equipment from it. The question is whether we would like to give up our courage and
values to stand up against assault on sovereignty of nations and countries in order not to irk mighty
neighbors.

We have to decide what we value most. We are a country that witnessed a bloody assault on our rights
to exist as a nation and defend our territory against aggression five decades ago. We have a tradition for
fighting for not only for our freedom but also all freedom loving nations. We cannot yield to powers
because they may not like our independent thinking. We should choose justice and freedom rising
above fears of the mighty and powerful.