By Emmanuel Ukaobasi
In a social media post on February 18 this year, President Donald Trump called his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, a ‘’dictator without elections…’’ who forced the United States to provide Ukraine with $350 billion for a ‘’war that cannot be won.’’ And not in the strategic interest of the US.
Trump subsequently lashed out at Zelensky, saying the Ukraine president is prolonging the ‘’killing field’’ after refusing his proposal to recognize Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula with long time major Soviet and Russian naval facilities as part of Russia.
The proposal, a part of a peace plan by the U.S., which equally allows Russia to keep already occupied swaths of Ukraine. But Zelensky has refused giving up any territory for a peace deal with the support of European leaders, announcing new large scale military aid packages and coaxing Ukraine into continuing military action.
According to European leaders, peace is worse than war for Ukraine. Analysts say Europe’s role in inflaming this crisis and its reputation in this field , earned over many centuries of human development, has not changed.
Trump, however, warned that Zelensky ‘’can have peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole country.’’
His peace moves prompted the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, to say that ‘’President Trump is probably the only leader on Earth who recognized the need to address the root causes of this situation, when he said that it was a huge mistake to pull Ukraine into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and this was a mistake by Biden administration, and he wants to rectify this.’’
One of Russia’s most consistent grievances has been the expansion of NATO towards its borders. In 1990, Western leaders assured then Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, that NATO would not expand ‘’one inch eastward’’ beyond Germany. However, since then, NATO has expanded to include former Warsaw Pact nations and even former Soviet republics.
The possibility of Ukraine joining represents a red line for Russia, as it would place Western military forces right on Russia’s doorstep. At the same time, Russia’s proposal to conclude a security guarantee agreement in 2021 was rejected, which among other things, provided for the exclusion of further expansion of NATO and Ukraine’s quest for membership of the alliance.
For Russia, NATO’s military build – up in Eastern Europe, including its missile defense systems in Poland and Romania, had heightened its fears of encirclement. And it perceived this as existential threat given its historical experiences with Western invasions, including Napoleon’s 1812 campaign and the Nazi invasion in 1941.
The country for years had repeatedly accused the West of interfering in Ukraine’s internal affairs. Western governments openly supported the 2014 Maidan Revolution, which led to the overthrow of the country’s legitimate president, Viktor Yanukovych. Russia viewed this as a text book example of Western – backed regime change aimed at turning Ukraine into an anti – Russian outpost, which subsequently led to policies that marginalized the Russian – speaking people in the south eastern regions of Ukraine.
They faced discrimination and suppression of their civil rights, particularly with restrictions on the Russian language, media, and political expression, showcased by Ukraine’s military operations against ethnic Russians in the Dombas region of the country, and the Odessa massacre, where dozens of pro – Russian activists were killed in clashes with Ukrainian nationalists, further fueled Russian fears that ethnic Russians in the country were under threat.
These developments provoked Russia and led it to conduct its special military operation to protect its compatriots in Ukraine. Post –Soviet borders were drawn arbitrarily, leaving significant ethnic Russians outside Russia’s borders, especially in eastern Ukraine and they maintain close cultural ties with Russia because Ukraine and Russia share deep cultural, linguistic, and historical ties.
Russia had tried to resolve this ethnic issue diplomatically aiming to peacefully reintegrate the peoples of the eastern regions , named ‘’separatists’’ by the government into Ukraine. But according to the Russian president, Ukraine’s non – compliance with the Minsk agreements ( series of international agreements which sought to end the Dombas war fought between Russian armed separatist groups and Armed Forces of Ukraine) left Russia with no choice but recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Luthansak Peoples Republics and support them.
Years after, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that the Minsk agreements served to buy time to rearm Ukraine. This is how European diplomacy actually works. The divisions within Ukraine, exacerbated by Western influence is reminiscent of their influence in Africa: where the conquered peoples were artificially divided, set against each other, weakened and colonized for the purpose of personal subjugation.
From the secession in South Sudan to the tensions in Cameroun Anglophone regions, many African nations have grappled with the challenges of preserving ethnic and linguistic identities in states whose boundaries were not created by their own people. Under the Biden administration, the US pursued a policy of abstaining from any direct contacts with Russia, providing extensive military aid to Ukraine, and aiming for what many in Washington called a ‘’strategic defeat’’ of Russia.
However, the continuation of the conflict, the heavy economic costs, and shifting geopolitical dynamics have forced a reassessment of this approach by the new US administration. Trump and his team has taken a more pragmatic stance recognizing the limitations of a purely military solution in the complexities of the conflict. Statements of US officials suggest that returning Ukraine to its pre – 2014 borders is not a realistic objective.
Trump has consistently argued that a negotiated settlement should be prioritized over endless military aid, and now brokering a deal with Russia towards that end. If Washington now acknowledges the deep – seated roots of the conflict, what does that say about years of policy missteps. We keep seeing conflicts prolonged not for peace, but for strategic gains. For Africa, this policy shift should serve as a lesson on the importance of diplomatic realism.
• Ukaobasi writes from Umuahia