On February 24, the war between Russia and Ukraine will reach its one-year mark. Millions of people who value peace around the world have lost hope before the hubris of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
We had begun to believe that wars between nations were a thing of the past until the start of this decade. Iran and Iraq fought a long war from 1980 to 1988. About 500,000 people perished in it. Now, Ukraine is set to rewrite that history.
To date, almost 7,000 Ukrainian civilians have died in the war. It has also caused 7.1 million people to leave their countries and another 6.5 million to face exile in their homelands. The war has made the world more afraid, hungry, and miserable. In Europe, charity restaurants frequently see long queues these days. Amid the bitter cold, the locals are compelled to live without electricity. Such a situation had never arisen since the end of World War II.
According to reports in the western media, Ramzan Kadyrov, a notorious warlord in Chechnya, helped Putin avoid being labelled as a war criminal. Kadyrov has a private army of combatants. Even Hitler would be embarrassed by the atrocities his men committed against Ukrainian families. Also, Ukrainian toddlers and teenagers were kidnapped and sold as slaves in the flesh markets of Europe. The international figures for human trafficking have risen by 5% over the past 11 months, claims a report.
Although slavery is no longer practised, it is now confronting us in a new and distorted way.
If this is too alarming for you, get ready for fresh shocks headed your way in the coming days. According to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, Russia intensified its strikes two weeks prior to the start of spring. It has opened two new frontiers. The West thinks Putin will stop at nothing to secure a decisive triumph in the coming summer.
The entire West, led by the United States (US), has been stockpiling Ukraine with weapons up to this point. The US has previously given Ukraine weaponry and aid worth $24.2 billion. Even nations such as Germany and France, which had been reluctant to supply extremely lethal weapons to Ukraine, have started supplies. They want Putin to suffer a resounding defeat this summer.
Nonetheless, there is still a significant gap between what was promised and what happened on the ground. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking F-16 fighter jets, but the US is not inclined to grant his wish. There, it is said that Russia is waging a conflict akin to one from the 20th century by persistently extending it while the US is dousing it with 21st-century armaments. What will happen if the US needs to deploy weapons elsewhere in such a scenario? According to military analysts, the US can produce only 5,000 rockets annually; it has already given Ukraine 4,800 rockets. Also, the US has an annual production capacity of 93,000 rounds of ammunition and has already sent Ukraine 7,400 rounds.
For the same reason, the US’s export of Javelin missiles (used for destroying tanks) has been halted. It can only produce 1,000 Javelin missiles in a year. To provide Ukraine with weapons at this rate, production would need to double right away, which is not currently feasible. These numbers are terrifying. Ukraine might be left alone if the war rages on in this manner.
There are other worries in the meantime. Norway claims that last week, Russia deployed nuclear weapons in the Baltic Sea. Although experts say that a nuclear war is unlikely, assumptions in war often turn out to be wrong. Who would have imagined that in 1914 the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Vienna would lead to the start of the World War I?
This is the reason for the global arms race’s escalation. For the first time since World War II, Japan has proposed plans for a significant $320-billion boost in its defence spending. This is going to benefit the large corporations that manufacture lethal weaponry. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and AeroVironment have all had their share prices rise over the past year: Lockheed Martin by 11%, Northrop Grumman by 23%, and AeroVironment by 21%. This time, the US has a record-high defence budget of $816.7 billion, of which around $4 billion will go into aiding Ukraine.
HG Wells once said: “If we don’t end war, war will end us.” He was most prescient.
Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan The views expressed are personal
