Follow Us on Google
By Charles Onunaiju
It is broadly assumed or even believed that the only effect of the Ukraine’s conflict with Russia on Africa is almost exclusively on the shortage of food and its contingent crises. Even the disruption of the global value chain already under way by America’s favoured de-coupling was further complicated by the conflict. Africa though a minor player in the global value chain has experienced further decline in engaging the chain both on account of the Covid19 pandemic whose sinister role was further compounded by the conflict, However, all these affecting Africa pales to insignificance to the prospect that the conflict might bring the end of all lives including Africa on the planet earth. Russia has the largest stockpiles of nuclear war heads in the world and has enormous machinery for its deadly delivery. Some strong voices in the country has made clear, that should she go down it would take the entire mankind along with it.
Every one including her staunch adversaries knows very well that Russia has the capability to end all lives on earth. And the US-led 32-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) continue supplies of deadly weapons to escalate the conflict bringing ever closer to popular imaginations, the prospect of nuclear conflagration that would end life on the planet earth. Currently, there are about nine countries that have nuclear weapons and they are: Russia, the United States of America, China, United Kingdom, France, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. Together, they possess 12,700 nuclear war heads, out of which 9,400 nuclear war heads are in active military stock piles. Of all these, Russia possess the most confirmed nuclear weapons, with 5,997 nuclear war heads. The US quickly follows with 5,428 nuclear war heads hosted in US and other fire countries which are Turkey, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Netherlands. The total of the nuclear war heads owned by these two States-Russia and the US, accounts for 90% of all nuclear weapons in the world. Among these nuclear arsenals, there are those considered as “tactical” nuclear weapons and Russia is said to possess non-strategic, tactical nuclear war heads of 1,912 while about one hundred of US tactical non-strategic war heads is deployed in five European countries. However, most times, “tactical” nuclear war heads are categorized or framed as “smaller” or “low yield” nuclear weapons and implied to be less lethal and devastating. However, these so-called “low yield” nuclear weapons produce explosions of up to 300 kilotons, that is 20 times that of the bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945. Three days later, on the 9th, the US dropped another bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The two lethal bombings, apart from razing the two cities to the ground killed 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. The US nuclear attack of the Japanese cities remained the only instance of the use of nuclear weapons in armed conflicts. It should be noted that the grade of the monster weapons has not only escalated but have since proliferated with nine countries known formally and informally to possess them.
Russia is outstanding for her largest stockpiles of this end of life weapons. And when the US-led NATO military alliance proclaimed openly that its aim in the current proxy war with Russia for which Ukraine is only, a contact point, is to strategically “defeat” Russia, a heavily armed State, it should invite concerns and especially in Africa which do not seek or possess these end time weapons but is most likely to bear the brunt of its use. The Russia nuclear doctrine as other States is that when the State is militarily threatened, it could resort to self-immolation by using nuclear weapons with its consequence of drawing to a close, the curtain of humanity, including Africa. And the interpretation of existential threat to the state, is exclusively within the domain of the State concerned. In this regard, Africa cannot afford to watch US-led NATO proxy war with Russia continues or even escalates. Russia insist that the start of what it called “special military operation” last year was not the beginning of the war but rather a last ditch effort to end the war began in Ukraine since 2014 after the US instigated coup that removed a democratically elected government in Ukraine, which was friendly to Russia. The installation of virulent anti-Russian regime in Ukraine, following the so-called maiden or coloured revolution in 2014, would give rise to a Ukraine’s State policy of targeting ethnic Russians which constitute 17.3% of Ukraine’s population among other ethnic nationalities. Such draconian measure as removing Russian language as a means of instructions especially in the Donbass region of Ukraine where most ethnic Russians live in majority triggered the Ukraine Civil war. The negotiations to the end of the conflict in the neighboring Bylurus which culminated in the Minsk I and II agreement was a dialogue on interim self-government, set out terms of the end of the conflict within Ukraine’s sovereignty. Among other 13 points deal of the Minsk II agreement for Donetsk and Luhansk or the Donbass region in accordance with Ukrainian law and acknowledgment of special status by the Ukraine parliament. Apart from the representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Organization for security and cooperation (OSCE) and the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk that signed the 13-point agreement in February 2015, the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine joined in Minsk to mark the occasion and issued a declaration of support.
It is very instructive to state here that the regime in Ukraine completed refused to implement the Minsk agreement and very recently, the Ukrainian president then, Mr. Poreshenko said that from the very beginning Ukraine has no intention to abide by the Minsk agreement, rather it had used the period of lull offered by the agreement to build a strong army and amass deadly weapons. What the Kiev regime did subsequently was to undertake earth-scored military and cultural anti-Russia measures designed to eradicate Russian identity. Even during the current conflict, the Germany and France leaders at that time, Chancellor Angela Merkial and Francois Hollande have echoed similar remarks that the Minsk agreements was agreed by Ukraine and the West to deceive both the Russian Federation and ethnic Russians in Ukraine. The Ukraine’s next step was stringent military pacification of the Donbass region and Western-induced demand to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Russia State insist clearly that the military and cultural war to eradicate ethnic Russians and to encircle Russia herself with hostile NATO offensive military equipment was the reason, it started the special military operation to end the war against ethnic Russians in the Donbass region and guarantee its own national security by stopping the Ukraine’s regime from acting a surrogate of the western military alliance to destroy Russia. While all these mix have triggered Europe’s most brutal war since after second war, the strategic aim to defeat Russia, as the US-led NATO has proclaimed should be of immediate concern to Africa. Africa through the Africa Union should send an unmistakable signal to the US and its NATO military alliance, that such objective as to “defeat” a nuclear armed State portend immediate danger to humanity, including Africa and should not be pursued. The American side and her Western allies bear responsibility for the war in Ukraine, having notoriously used the period of lull offered by the Minsk agreement to build the Ukraine army and equip it with lethal weapons. Africa should immediately urge the NATO alliance to end its supply of deadly weapons to Ukraine as such measures could make Russia desperate and force her to reach to her nuclear arsenals.
To be taken serious, the Africa Union should propose series of measures including a united Africa resolution at the UN condemning the dangerous transfer of heavy weapons to Ukraine that might even end up in Africa, potentially stoking new conflicts or escalating the existing ones. Africa should take such other measures as reducing political, military and economic contacts with NATO alliance member States, until they start to genuinely encourage the Ukraine’s regime to start immediate and meaningful negotiation on the basis of the existing reality on the ground. Africa should further take a firm stand that NATO which is product of the cold war have outlined its usefulness in the context of the emerging multi-polar international order and should commence immediate step to disband. These modest measures if concretely advanced by the African Union (AU) can be basis for the end of the end of the Ukraine/Russia war and avoid the prospects of thermonuclear disaster that could spell the end of humanity.
Onunaiju, research director of Abuja-based Think Tank
