More civilians evacuated from Ukrainian cities, maternity hospital struck

Russian forces have seized large swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine and its troops have begun to encircle Kyiv, the capital of 3 million people. But Ukrainian resistance remains stiff and Russia appears to have suffered heavy casualties and losses.   

On Tuesday, U.S. intelligence agencies estimated that Russia has lost up to 4,000 soldiers. If that count is correct, this military invasion by Russian President Vladimir Putin would make it the costliest military campaign for Russia since the end of the Soviet Union. By comparison, about 15,000 Soviet troops were killed during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that took place between 1979 and 1989.   

Wednesday saw U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrive in Poland for a three-day visit of Eastern Europe where she will be rallying NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression.   

The economic blockade of Russia is intensifying too after American corporate brands McDonald's, Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Pepsi announced on Tuesday that they are pulling out of Russia. Other major American brands – including the Hilton hotel chain and Nestle – announced their own boycotts of Russia on Wednesday.   

Russia is being cut off from the West in an unprecedented manner with its airlines, athletes, products, politicians, news outlets, businesses, scholars, internet services and organizations largely banned in the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and allied countries.   

Despite such punishing measures, many other parts of the world – including Israel, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and China – continue to keep economic and political ties open with Russia.   

In response to the blockade by the West, Russia is adjusting its economic and political firmament to try to cope with the fallout from its decision to invade Ukraine, a country with which it shares a long history and for which it has chosen to stake its future upon.  

Russian financial markets were expected to be closed on Thursday and Putin signed into law on Wednesday a series of economic measures to assuage the tremendous blow he incurred by launching the invasion of Ukraine. Those measures are meant to shore up pensions, wages and business losses.  

From the Kremlin’s perspective, an invasion of Ukraine became an existential issue because its southwestern neighbor was becoming a de facto NATO member since a U.S.-backed coup d’etat took place in 2013-2014 with the so-called “Maidan Revolution,” which was a series of protests, violent events and intrigues that saw the democratically elected pro-Russian Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovych deposed and a pro-Western government installed in his place.  

The Maidan Revolution led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a peninsula where Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet is based at the naval base in Sevastopol, and the eruption of a quasi-civil war in eastern Ukraine between aggrieved eastern Ukrainians, who tend to be pro-Russian, and Ukraine’s central government, which had become adamant about the need to rid Ukraine of Russian influence following the Maidan Revolution. 

The conflict in eastern Ukraine remained unresolved despite a 2015 truce agreement, approved by the United Nations Security Council. Lingering tensions there, including the possibility of a Ukrainian military operation to reconquer separatist eastern Ukraine, set the stage for the devastating war now taking place.  

In justifying his invasion, Putin said it was necessary for Russia to rid a growing NATO threat on Russia’s borders in Ukraine and reestablish his country’s “brotherly” relations with Ukraine.  

However, Putin’s invasion has unlocked not just long-simmering tensions in Ukraine but radically altered the state of dynamics around the world and ushered in what many fear is a new tipping point where U.S. dominance is challenged and a new divide in global affairs descends, creating in practical terms a new “Iron Curtain” where relations between the so-called West and East are frozen.  

By the shutting off of Russia from the West, it appears increasingly likely that world politics will be defined by a divergence in economic and cultural models wherein Russia and China will develop new systems of banking, internet, trade and multilateral governance.       

The economic consequences of the West’s overwhelming rejection of Russia’s invasion – which is being characterized as tantamount to Adolf Hitler’s expansionist ideology at the start of World War II – are being felt around the globe as the price for gas, food and other basics quickly rise, prompting fears of a global recession and unrest across the planet.     

The conflict in Ukraine, meanwhile, is showing no signs of abating as Russia said it had evidence that NATO was establishing bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine and encouraging the development of nuclear weapons in the country.  

The West, meanwhile, warned that Russia was preparing to use chemical weapons in Ukraine and that it was endangering Europe by sabotaging nuclear power plants it has taken over in Ukraine, including Chernobyl, the site of a nuclear disaster in 1986. 

Ukraine is Europe’s second largest country after Russia and its vast flatlands were turned into an industrial powerhouse under Soviet rule. The Soviet Union built massive factories, pipelines and other infrastructure in Ukraine, a land that was until then largely defined by the presence of big farms.  

The industrial transformation of Ukraine caused a horrific famine in the 1930s that is known as the Holodomor. Millions died during Joseph Stalin’s radical decision to industrialize Ukraine.  

During World War II, an anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalist movement took shape and it was supported by Nazi Germany, leading to a prolonged insurgency against the Soviet Union that was supported by the United States. The insurgency was ultimately defeated by brutal methods condoned by Stalin.  

Modern scholars, most notably American historian Timothy Snyder, have defined Ukraine as a “bloodlands,” a contested region between the West and East. Other scholars, however, note that Ukraine had enjoyed about 80 years of calm until the 2014 Maidan Revolution.  

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Follow @cainburdeau

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