With the announcements of President Putin to de-militarise and de-nazify Ukraine, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began on the morning of 24th February, 2022. It is not Russia, who started the war and the war didn’t start in 2022, rather the war started way back in 2014. There are historical roots to it. As the NATO expansion, EU expansion and fostering of orange revolution around the world are blamed as major fire sticks by distinguished political scientist Jhon Mearsheimer.
On 22nd February, 2023, The Forum for Global Studies hosted an exclusive interview with august presence of Mr. Robinder Sachdev, Founder President of The Image India Institute, New Delhi. The session was moderated by Col. Manoj Kumar Singh, Director Research, Forum for Global Studies. Responding to major compulsions that forced Russia to launch a full-fledged war against Ukraine, Mr. Sachdev highlighted the obvious reason of Russia’s sense of getting encircled by an expanding NATO. Which got further accelerated by Ukraine’s NATO centric gesture. Blaming the Russian intelligence, he shared the insights about the miscalculations. He also explained the bottom-line catalyst in generating conflicts and imbalances with the role of NATO.
Delicate path of neutrality in the beginning and cautious attempts of muscle flexing down the line, is what articulates India’s role. Stretching his response here, Mr. Sachdev said that India has played the role in polite speed and transcended the message that ‘it is not the era of war’ rather ‘it is the era to live and let live’ he added. India being the voice of peace and respecting state sovereignty, it has provided humanitarian aids to Ukraine, halted 2.1 billion USD strategic deal of defence equipment upgradation with Russia. At the same time it has also abstained in the voting in UN. Sighting this, he emphasised how India has maintained a muted sound. India would not bend to the pressure of west, rather will cautiously look after its strategic interests and continue to act as a voice of peace and growth together.
What is acting as motivation to Mr. Zelensky to continue the war even after enormous damage of human lives and continuous destructions? Where Ukraine is today is not the outcome of last one year, rather Ukraine of today is the outcome of last twenty odd years. In this to a reasonable extent the western intelligence played a crucial role and this role went to an overdrive after 2014. The nationalist current and the feeling of ‘one Europe’ is also on rise. Once stated by French President Mr. Macron that the ‘NATO is brain dead’ to the urgence of one collective voice and the collective alliance to retaliate is also on rise. He also spoke about the cautious display of pan European threat from Russia by President Zelensky.
Isn’t the western narrative lopsided? Yes, absolutely it is. The west has feed its narrative to the global commons, also continuously spreading narratives which demonises the potential of President Putin. Answering to whether Mr. Biden’s visit to Ukraine complicated the situation there, Mr. Sachdev, mentioned that Mr. Biden has become the tallest military leader of the western alliance since the second world war. As he has aptly put the debate of democracy and dictatorship on rolling and established the democracy as sacrosanct.
Coming to the question of Russian pull back of the existing nuclear treaties, he emphasised upon the issue of mutual escalation and its ramifications to be. From Chinese ambition to be the global leader to America’s recognition of this challenge, and resisting the Chinese standards from going global, he highlighted multifaceted outcome of this new global order. From hesitant China to cautiously neutral role of India, he emphasised upon the strategic choices too. To the probability of India’s role in soliciting a reformed order, he advanced the opinion to not have an unsolicited jump into the troubled water.
At the end, a note of thanks was offered by Dr. Sandeep Tripathi, Founder & President, Forum for Global Studies.
Note: The event report is written by Nandini Ghosh, Research Fellow at Forum for Global Studies, New Delhi.