Disruption on Ukraine is not good for India

First, the background. The territory of Ukraine was established in the ninth century as Kievan Rus on the banks of the Dnieper River. In medieval history, western and northern Ukraine was occupied by Poland and southern Ukraine by Tartars (descendants of Mongol invaders). In the 17th century, the Cossacks reclaimed most of the territory from Poland and established a Hetmanate which is considered the forerunner of today’s Ukraine. This Hetmanate entered into various treaties with Imperial Russia which made it a vassal state. During the 18th century, Russia occupied much of today’s Ukraine and Crimea. When the Bolshevik Revolution established the Soviet Republic in Russia, Ukraine was engaged in a civil war for independence. In 1921, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UKSSR) was established after the Red Army conquered two-thirds of Ukraine. The western third became part of Poland. In Russia, Ukrainian territory is referred to as “Little Russia”, a term that today has a pejorative connotation. In a surprise move, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to Ukraine, despite an ethnic composition in Crimea that was two-thirds Russian.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine declared independence in 1991. About 250,000 Tartars who had been driven into the Gulag by Stalin returned to Crimea. In 1996 a new democratic constitution was adopted and a new currency hryvnia (a Kievan Rus’ term) was introduced. In a swift action during 2014, Russia again annexed Crimea, which has a strategic location on the Black Sea and includes a spectacular deep natural harbor in the city of Sevastopol.

Given this background, Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to reestablish a “sphere of influence” broadly similar to that of Tsarist Russia and the USSR. Last year he wrote in a paper, he mentioned that history. In Putin’s words, “Russians and Ukrainians are one person—a whole” and “Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Russia, which was the largest state in Europe.”

Putin has already engineered the establishment of a friendly autocracy in Belarus (in the north of Ukraine), and it is widely believed to be a Russian-sponsored militia control zone in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region.

Even though Russian naval movement from Saint Petersburg and Sevastopol can be restricted by blocking Scandinavian waters in the Baltic and the Bosporus Strait in the Black Sea, they serve as sea access points to warm waters and a winter foil to the port of Murmansk. work. In the Barents Sea. Despite its size, Russia is for all practical purposes a ‘landlocked’ country, and therefore feels it must preserve its territorial buffer. For Russia, Ukraine is dangerously close to its population and economic groups, all of which are on its western side. After losing the Baltic states in the north and Georgia in the south of Europe to NATO, Russia clearly wants to maintain its influence in Ukraine and Belarus. Further west, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria have all joined the Western Alliance.

Russia presented a package of conditions to NATO that included an undertaking that it would completely withdraw troops and missiles from its Eastern Front and insisted that Ukraine should not be allowed to join NATO. The West responded with a package of possible sanctions if Russia were to invade Ukraine. These sanctions include cutting off Russian access to an international payment system called SWIFT. Denying this access to Russian banks could have disastrous economic consequences for Russia’s dollar-denominated energy trade, a very blunt instrument and would likely have dire consequences on global payments.

If Russia does invade Ukraine, it seems likely that it will be limited and vague in construction, rather than a full-scale invasion. Cyber ​​attacks, skirmishes in the Donbass and unidentified drone strikes are more likely 20th-century-style regional territory. Russia’s Western Front will require continued talks as Russia considers Ukraine its ‘Taiwan’ and seeks to split NATO. Any agreement between NATO and Russia, especially if NATO makes concessions, is likely to be reminiscent of the Munich Agreement of 1938.

For India, which is still recovering from the economic shock of the pandemic, it certainly comes at an inconvenient moment. Oil prices are higher and will likely move higher with each wave of tensions. Global supply chains have already been disrupted and any further war is likely to worsen it. India runs the risk of facing a stagnant inflation scenario with uneven economic recovery coupled with high inflation.

On the strategic front, India will have to carefully manage its old friendship with Russia and its new friendship with America. condition of india The Rs 35,000-crore deal to acquire the Russian S-400 missile system could complicate New Delhi’s options if it comes to their standstill.

PS: “The strong do what they have to do, and the weak accept what they ought to do,” said the Athenian general Thucydides.

Narayana Ramachandran is the chairman of Include Labs. Read Narayan’s mint column at www.livemint.com/avisiblehand