By Musavir Hameed Barech
The saying “war is real peace is a myth” best explains the aura of the volatile region of Euro-Asia. Putting it in perspective, since Zelensky took the reign of affairs of Ukraine, the threat of Ukraine invasion was imminent from Russia. Zelensky, comedian turned president of Ukraine not only tilted the foreign policy of Ukraine towards the West but also sought to join the anti-Russia western defense pact — NATO. Consequently, Russia time and again threatened Ukraine of a possible invasion and warned Western countries, particularly America to not let Ukraine join NATO.
February 24 was the day when President Putin ordered the Russian troops to invade Ukraine. Russian troops first started invasion in the northern region of Donbas –– a region mostly influenced by the Russian-backed insurgents. Russia declared Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states in a press conference amid the Ukrainian onslaught. The leaders of the respective regions were present while Russian President made the announcement.
Putin did not halt there; he ordered Russian troops to remove the Ukraine administration in Kyiv. To achieve its objective of removing Zelensky from power, Russian troops attacked Ukraine from three sides: one, from Belarus — another hostile neighboring country of Ukraine ––, second, from the southern region of Crimea, and lastly, from the newly independent region of Donbas.
Arguably, after the passing of more than a month, Russian troops are failing to remove Zelensky’s administration from power. Hence, it can be said that both the Ukrainian people and government are strong enough to defend their country from foreign aggression.
Apart from the recent happenings, one needs to question that whether Ukraine’s joining of NATO is the only cause that pushes Russia to invade Ukraine and confront the sanctions from the West on their already crippled economy? There are certainly many other factors that forced Russia to go for the extreme step of invading a sovereign country like Ukraine.
The following might be the other factors that resulted in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia: The nosedive growth of the Russian economy and the downward popularity graph of the President were the stumbling blocks for Putin to get back on track. Russia’s economy has been confronting a plethora of challenges starting from western sanctions after the Crimean annexation to the corruption of the Russian oligarchs, and the emergence of COVID-19 in Russia which added fuel to the already flaming fire.
Resultantly, the popularity graph of Mr. Putin was on a downward trajectory path. The opposition leader Alexei Navalny continues to strive to highlight the malpractice of Putin administration. He has left no stone unturned to bring into limelight the corruption cases of Putin. Therefore, protests erupted in Russia against the Putin government. Hence, to diverge attention from the real issues, it would be quite rational for a leader like Putin to go for a small-scale war with another hostile country in order to backtrack the popularity graph and emerge as a leader in front of the masses. Intriguingly, he did the same when he attacked Georgia in 2008 and became successful in retaining his premiership.
Moreover, declining population growth is another factor that is hitting hard the Russian working population. Vladimir Putin at the end of last year highlighted this conundrum and said, “One hundred and forty-six million [people] for such a vast territory is insufficient,”. Russians haven’t been having enough children to replace themselves since the early Sixties. Birth rates are also stagnant in the West, but in Russia, the problem is compounded by excessive deaths: Russians die almost a decade earlier than Brits. Their President is clearly worried that he’s running out of subjects. The declining population growth trajectory of Russia might be the third factor that forced Putin to go to that extent.
Ostensibly, demographic morphing is a phenomenon that developed countries are confronting; the working population is depleting from the market, the youth population is decreasing day by day. In particular, Russia’s population growth rate as per the official statistics is 0.07 which is much lower than the threshold of 2.1 percent which is the international standard. Hence, to mitigate the decreasing population growth conundrum, annexing Ukraine is the best policy option for Russia. More than 42 million population in Ukraine mostly consists of young blood can sort out the population dilemma of Russia.
– The Writer is M.Phil student at Government College University, Lahore
