United Nations, Feb 24 (IANS) The intractable Ukraine War entered its fourth year on Tuesday with no early sign of an end to the conflict that has spread its tentacles across the world, destabilising geopolitics and international trade.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it “a stain on our collective consciousness and remains a threat to regional and international peace and security.”
According to the UN, more than 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and 41,000 injured in the four years of the conflict.
Children were hit hard, suffering 3,200 casualties, about 660 fatal, and a third of all children in Ukraine have been displaced, the UN estimates.
International think tanks estimate that 325,000 Russian troops and 140,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed in the war.
Moscow’s bombing of civilian targets in Ukraine continues, while the troops of the two countries are locked in a near stalemate on the ground, and Kyiv has made limited air and ground incursions into Russia.
The economies and societies of both countries are devastated.
On February 24, 2022, Russia started the war – the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II – with a ground assault and a missile attack on targets across Ukraine.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin expected a quick capture of Ukraine, a country having less than three times its population, with an economy about an eighth its size and a military much smaller.
But Ukraine put up massive resistance, and it didn’t play by Putin’s script, and there is a virtual standoff, with a slight advantage for Russia, which holds about 20 per cent of Ukraine territory.
In an X post on Tuesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky declared, “We have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood; Putin has not achieved his goals.”
The post-Cold War geopolitical stability in Europe was shattered by Moscow’s invasion and heightening fears among smaller neighbours of Russia, especially those that were a part of the Soviet Union, like Ukraine.
The other European powers, like Germany, France, and Britain, have had to reconsider and recalibrate their military and diplomatic strategies.
Ukraine received the backing of Western nations that call themselves the “Coalition of the Willing”, although without direct military involvement.
Many European leaders were visiting Kyiv on Tuesday to show their solidarity.
The US has committed about $175 billion to support Ukraine since the war began, and the European Union $230 billion.
But support wavers, with Trump sometimes putting pressure on Russia and other times on Ukraine, and telling Europe to pick up more of the tab.
And Hungary’s President Viktor Orban, who is sympathetic to Moscow, has tried to block increasing the EU’s support for Ukraine.
The Security Council, which alone can take action to end a war, is unable to act because of Russia’s veto, and the General Assembly’s resolutions condemning the invasion and demanding Moscow withdraw from Ukraine are powerless.
The Council was scheduled to hold a session on the Ukraine War on Tuesday afternoon, which would be just another rehash of the rhetoric.
The only impact the UN has had was in facilitating the export of Ukraine’s wheat to the international market, where the shortages hit many developing countries the hardest, especially in Africa.
Trump claimed during his campaign that he would end the war in 24 hours, but 13 months on, the war continues, and he said in October, “I thought this would have been an easy one to settle”.
It has eluded him, but he has not given up, despite a failed summit with Putin in Alaska last year, and his team of intermediaries are continuing to facilitate negotiations.
After the latest round of negotiations last week in Geneva, Trump’s Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt reported there was “meaningful progress”, and the two sides agreed to “continue to work towards a peace deal”.
Trump said in December that a peace deal was “95 per cent” complete.
At the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State acknowledged, “The bad news is they’ve been narrowed to the hardest questions to answer”.
The main sticking points are Russia’s demands that Ukraine give up territory, including those it has not captured in the Donbas region, and the fate of Crimea, which it took over in a 2014 invasion, and control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power complex that Moscow holds.
Ukraine refuses to give up any territory, and its constitution decrees a universal referendum to authorise any land transfer.
–IANS
al/uk
