It seems to me like the conversation around Ukraine has began waning, as usually happens when we "get used to" a conflict or a crisis when they go on long enough. This is concerning. The impact of the war reaches far beyond just Ukraine.
Here are some bullet points to what I'm thinking a lot about regarding the situation in Ukraine, and what I think people should consider when discussing Ukraine. This is gonna be a long one, I'll try to keep this coherent. I recommend checking out the links for the sources.
1.) The escalation of a global food crisis
Because of Russia's invasion and the subsequent war, a global food crisis looms over us, and the countries in most danger are the ones who rely heavily on wheat imports.
"Libya and Eritrea get more than 40% of their wheat from Ukraine, and Lebanon more than 60%.
35 countries in Africa import food from that Black Sea region, while 22 import fertilizer.
African countries could be hit especially hard by wheat and fertilizer shortages, WTO director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told the BBC." (Source)
On May 19, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said "The food supply for millions of Ukrainians and millions more around the world has quite literally been held hostage by the Russian military."
In early June Russian airstrikes hit a freight railcar repair factory in Kyiv. The latest attacks on the railcar factory — reportedly used to transport goods such as grain — have raised questions over the possibility Moscow could weaponize the supply of food. In so doing, it will exacerbate the global food shortage stemming from pandemic's disruption of supply chains as well as the effects of climate change.
Crucially, with Ukraine and Russia being major global exporters of grains such as wheat and corn, the war in Ukraine and the subsequent curtailment its exports had contributed to the global food crisis threatening people in countries across Africa and the Middle East, the United Nations said. (Source)
Even if the war was ended today it would take a long time for Ukraine to recover to the point where it could produce crops at the same level it did before the invasion. The faster the war ends the faster Ukraine can begin rebuilding.
2.) Imperialism in modern day Russia
If it's not Ukraine it's someone else. Someone else's homeland, someone else's people, someone else's dignity.
Since 1991, the year that marked the end of USSR, Russia has been involved in several wars and military conflicts. We must assume imperialistic aspirations are deeply rooted not only on Putin but on all of Russian leadership. The country facing the consequences of these deluded aspirations right now is Ukraine.
"Ukraine’s national origins can be traced back for over a thousand years, but Vladimir Putin refuses to acknowledge that Ukraine is a nation at all. Instead, he disavows its history, language, culture, and religious traditions while publicly insisting that Ukrainians are in fact Russians." (Source)
"Positive Russian attitudes toward the war are rooted in longstanding perceptions of Ukraine as part of Russia’s imperial heartlands. Despite the passage of three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russians have never fully come to terms with the idea of an independent Ukraine and continue to regard the country as an indivisible element of historic Russia that has been artificially separated from the motherland." (Source)
3.) Threats, disinformation and propaganda
Russia has troughout the current war made threats against The West and other European nations. At this point, even when talking about nuclear weapons, no one should panic and feed Kremlin's fear tactics.
Recently former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, now a member of the European Parliament, reportedly told Ukrainian online television channel Espreso TV that the West has the right to give Ukraine nuclear warheads to protect its independence. Western countries have not suggested supplying Ukraine with nuclear weapons, nor has Kyiv asked for them. Sikorski's statement has not been officially supported by the Polish government.
Predictably, the head of Russia's State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, retorted that if Western governments were to provide Kyiv with nuclear weapons, a nuclear conflict could follow in the heart of Europe and it could "disappear". (Source)
All this kind of talk, while worth following, should be approach with caution, not panic.
“The Kremlin has relatively few instruments to try and influence the West, and therefore it’s resorting to all this spine-chilling rhetoric as a means of attempted intimidation,” said Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank based in London. (Source)
There's no such thing as harmless imperialism, no matter which country is in question.
It has been speculated that China could be planning military action to invade Taiwan. Taiwan considers itself a sovereign state, but Beijing has said in the past it could reclaim the island by force if necessary.
Now as Putin has waged war against Ukraine, whether Kremlin admits to call it a war or not, it's been speculated China could be learning from Russia's mistakes. The West's slow and lacking response to Russia's aggression is also something China is thought to be likely to notice.
"The Chinese government insists that the Ukraine and Taiwan situations are different and that China has no plans to attack the island it claims as its own. But the Taiwanese government correctly recognizes the overwhelming similarity between its situation and that of Ukraine: Both are small democracies menaced by aggressive, nuclear-armed dictatorships threatening to wipe them off the map.
But China has a key advantage that Russia didn’t. By not going first, Xi can easily avoid repeating Putin’s military blunders, and China also now knows the West’s playbook for responding." (Source)
In interested in discouraging China from initiating military action towards Taiwan, the West should aim to end the war in Ukraine as fast possible.
The Ukrainian refugee surge arguably revealed the racist face of Europe once and for all. It is true that in many places across Europe Ukrainian refugees were met with hospitality whereas during the 2015 European Migrant Crisis refugees, most of whom where Syrian, were met with blatant hostility.
This isn't to say Ukrainian refugees had it easy. This is to say that Europe does have double standards, and quite literally no nation is void of racism and xenophobia, and that moving forward it's absolutely crucial to discuss discrimation and prejudices.
Europe desperately needs to have a discussion on our national attitudes regarding our policies on, among other things, minorities and immigration. That discussion should include European identity itself.
That said, derailing conversation about Ukraine to topics of other, former or on-going, conflicts and wars really serves no one, expect perhaps Russia. Discussions about Ukraine and, for example, USA's war crimes can be had independently without one taking attention from the other.
kaledo-art
stormborns
blakekathryn
prguitarman
