Vladimir Putin is a former head of the spying agency of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). A spy is a person who lives a life of deceit as a strategy to manipulate the opponents in order to obtain information about them to enable the spy steal their business secrets, kill or destroy them. The job of a spy is to steal, to kill and to destroy. When President Joe Biden was elected President of United States of America, he pointedly told an interviewer that Putin is a Killer. Professional Diplomats like us thought he should have been more diplomatic, because in diplomacy, we were taught how to say bad things nicely. However, latest events, especially the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Putin, has proved Joe Biden right. There’s no other reason for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine other than his insatiable thirst for blood and his satanic desire to quench his thirst for blood with the blood of the innocent people of Ukraine.
USSR collapsed after 1990 and their collapse was not unconnected with their ill-advised and doom-fated invasion of Afghanistan, in their insatiable appetite for territorial expansion, which resulted in their monumental loss of resources, men and prestige around the world. After the collapse, some of the diehard believers of the imperialist USSR like Putin believed that the demise of the Republic was the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the 20th century. When he became the President of Russia, he was obsessed with the restoration of not only the lost glory of the defunct empire, but also its lost territories. Unfortunately, Ukraine is one of the most attractive lost territories of Russia which Putin was poised to assimilate back to Russia. He had invaded Ukraine before and took the Southern city of Crimea and glaringly annexed it. He annexed also the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk from Ukraine in 2014 under the pretext of recognising their independence. He also camouflaged the invasion of Ukraine with the craftiness that he wants to defend the independent Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk that have come under purported attack from Ukraine. The declaration of war on Ukraine on the 24th of February, 2022 is a mere continuation of Putin’s desire to re-enact the moribund Soviet Union, after lying many times that he had no intention of invading Ukraine.
Let’s face it, this is not a war by Russians against Ukrainians, it’s Putin’s war against Freedom. Putin unilaterally declared this war against the Ukrainians. Russia service men are part of the victims. Russia has lost approximately 6,000 military men, the largest casualty figure since it started the recent annexation of territories, while they are being lied to that they have lost only about 500 service men and this 500 number seems to be constant over many days. Putin has abolished all independent media in Russia to ensure he is in charge of the narrative. Unfortunately for him, he was wrong on all his estimations and projections of the war. He thought he will be welcomed as a liberator by the Ukrainians. He was wrong, he is being welcomed as a blood sucking demon. He thought Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, will fall within 48 hours, which will give him the opportunity to plant a puppet government. He was wrong. The war is lasting more than 2 weeks with no end in sight. He thought the international community will not be united against him, he was wrong, his action has triggered the most concerted unity among European countries, NATO and indeed the whole world against him. No country on earth has come out to endorse his war against Ukraine, not even Belarus, where his Lackey is the leader, because the Belarusian President has offered his country as a ground for the peaceful resolution of the crisis. China has expressed concern over the war even with their romance with the Russian Dictator. They abstained from voting in the United Nations Security Council meeting condemning Russia invasion of Ukraine. The world has imposed crippling sanctions on Russia on united fronts and Russia economy is on free fall. This lays credence to the fact that a person may have the power to determine when and how a war starts but may not have the power to determine when and how it ends.
These frustrations are irritating Putin and making him more desperate thereby unleashing the beast in him. He has breached all known laws of International Humanitarian Law or the Laws of Armed Conflict. As a scholar of International Law and Diplomacy, I know as a fact, that civilians are insulated from armed conflict. War is defined as between the armed forces of the countries involved. Weapons of mass destruction that could affect civilians, intentionally, negligently or recklessly are banned. Women and children are off limits to the triggers of fighters. The blood of the innocent is sacrosanct. Even the members of the armed forces are spared immediately they surrender and lay down their arms. They can only be taken in as prisoners of war. Civilian infrastructures that sustain life like electric power, water supply, peaceful nuclear plants and so on are billed to be protected during war. Putin has desecrated all these laws with his indiscriminate bombing of children, civilian infrastructures, apartments, cities, hospitals, using cluster bombs. Western intelligence has revealed that his strategy is to bomb Ukraine cities into submission. He did not count on one factor, the will of the Ukrainian people. We are learning from this war that you can bomb the cities into submission but you cannot bomb the will of a determined people into submission.The resistance from Ukrainians surprised the world, including America. The United States intelligence report predicted that Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, will fall within 1-4 days. For more than 2 weeks now, the capital is still standing. No matter the outcome of this war, the world order will never be the same again. Leadership is everything and the Ukraine war with Russia has proved it. President Volodymyr Zelensky was a successful movie actor, indeed he was regarded as a comedian, before contesting for the post of the President of his country. This teaches us that if you can excel in your chosen career, you can excel in the leadership of your country. A lot of people are ignorant of the fact that actors and actresses, having risen to fame through the love of people, are always sentimentally attached to the love of people and the desire to positively impact on their lives.
Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood Movie Actor, as President of United States of America, changed the face of America and prepared the ground for the disintegration of the USSR and the unification of Germany that was torn into East and West Germany. We remember with nostalgia his voice while standing beside the Berlin Wall screaming, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”. The wall was eventually torn down and East Germany under the Soviet Union became free. Not only was the Berlin wall torn down, the entire Soviet Union was torn down. That is the power of stardom. They have the ability to charismatically inspire their generation to a particular direction for the good of the people. They have a name to defend and most times they are willing to lay down their lives in defence of that name. It is not surprising that President Zelensky, a movie actor, has stepped in again to the challenge of demystifying what is remaining of the beleaguered Russia Republic under the brutish Putin. In his quest towards defending his people from Russia, he refused a ride and asked for ammunition. He refused to live in hotels but decided to live in the trenches with his soldiers. He remained in Kyiv despite being the number one target of Putin. He is still standing while Putin and Russia are gradually unravelling. When can we get such leaders for Nigeria.
This should also teach the citizens a lesson. Any leader that does not stand up to be in the forefront of the fight he is initiating is either a coward or a hypocrite and does not deserve the followership of the people. Some Nigeria politicians will recruit other peoples children to be thugs for election while their own children are studying in the best countries abroad. Some separatist leaders in Nigeria will brainwash their followers to fight Nigeria armed forces with stones and machetes, and be slaughtered, while they flee abroad enjoying themselves with women of easy virtue in hotels abroad. If we must learn any lesson from the Ukraine war, we must all stay back in our country and in unity find solutions to the myriad of problems bedevilling our beloved country. We need charismatic leaders that will inspire us to build more refineries to supply our needed refined petroleum products to power our economy and preserve our foreign exchange which will in turn shore up our currency as the importation of refined petroleum products is the greatest destroyer of our foreign reserves because we pay for the fuel in dollars. We need to build electric power, provide security and infrastructures for our people that will guarantee their welfare. All these can only succeed with effective leadership and we must all work together to elect such leaders come 2023.
In doing all these, we must ensure that nobody is above the law. There must be effective deterrent against criminal behaviour no matter whose ox is gored and no matter how highly placed the person may be. What is happening in Ukraine today is because International Law, under the United Nations Charter, placed some countries above the law. The five permanent veto wielding members of the Security Council of the United Nations are effectively above the law. One veto vote is as strong as all the votes of the world put together. Moreover, as a Lawyer, I know that the way the veto power is allowed to operate offends the law of natural justice, which is that nobody is allowed to be a judge in his own cause. Russia and Ukraine should not be allowed to vote in issues concerning the Russia invasion of Ukraine because certainly there will be the likelihood of bias. Allowing Russia to veto votes meant to protect Ukraine children, civilians, infrastructures, and possible annihilation of the country is ridiculing the whole idea of international law and the law of natural justice and if the world continues in this trajectory, it won’t take time before the United Nations will collapse like the League of Nations and anarchy will descend on the world.
The world must do more to assist Ukraine not to lose this war. A defeat of Ukraine will adversely affect the urge to fight for freedom by the oppressed and suppressed people of the world because they will fear that the Ukraine fate will befall them.