We are told that negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv aimed at some form of peace talks have not led to any progress. Perhaps, Ukraine is not in the mood to meet for “talks on talks”.
by Victor Cherubim
British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson on a two day visit to India was given a tumultuous reception and treated like a “maharaj,” is reported to have said, that he believes the war in Ukraine could last until the end of 2023.
While at long last, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, will travel to Russia next week, (April 26, 2022) to be received by President Putin and for talks with Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, in what is their first meeting, since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.
We are told that negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv aimed at some form of peace talks have not led to any progress. Perhaps, Ukraine is not in the mood to meet for “talks on talks”. Russian officials on the other hand state their proposals to their Ukrainian counterparts and negotiators, offered five days ago remain unanswered.
Would anyone doubt or deny Ukrainian stance as fighting, shelling, bombing and burying the dead, has not only stopped in the siege of the port city of Mariupol, particularly in the precincts of the Azovstal Steel Mills where Ukrainian fighters and civilians are “holed in” and “holding out” against all odds of the Russian Army.
President Vladimir Putin, we are informed, has ordered his Russian forces, “not to storm the Steel Mill. However, he has ordered his troops to do so “in such a way that not a single fly would pass”.
Ukrainian authorities have estimated that over 1000 civilians are inside the steel plant along with the fighters, and will fight to the last. The Ukrainian Government maintains that Russia
may have taken parts of the Donbas region, but Mariupol is still in Ukrainian hands.
How long will it last?
A communique from Russia’s Embassy in Iceland has stated: “a number of Western States continue to actively ‘stuff’ Ukraine with heavy armaments, among them are howitzers, armoured personnel carriers, helicopters, drones etc.” It is no secret that United States has agreed US$ 800 million worth of arms to Ukraine in the last few days.
Whilst all this goes on Ukrainian exiles have retorted on twitter: “You never complained when the Soviet Union got stuffed with heavy weapons in World War II”.
The tears and tales of horror of escapees from Mariupol tell a poignant story of man’s inhumanity to man, as they arrive by train to Zaporizhzhia, that Russians are “killing people for nothing”.
We also hear Mariupol is totally destroyed, graves and crosses litter the yards, following over two months of shelling and starvation, as humanitarian corridors are not allowing, or in fact preventing refugees leaving due to incessant bombardment.
Do I have to repeat this stoic resistance?
From monuments in honour of Alexander Pushkin to Gagarin, Ukraine has rid itself of Russian symbols, one at a time.
Russia on the other hand has destroyed everything that Ukraine has built since Soviet days, as tit for tat. It appears it is a vendetta without end.
Brother arraigned against brother, as many know there have been both Russian and Ukrainian speakers, intermarried inside and outside Ukrainian and Russian borders, especially in Eastern Ukraine.
People on both sides are fighting an insane war, as if there has some acrimonious plodding perhaps, by an unknown hand. This is seen by the venom in this war. A bucket of red paint was thrown on a statue of Russia’s great Poet, writer, Alexander Pushkin, in the centre of the western Ukrainian city of Tenopilin.
Many of the towns and cities in Ukraine have purged statues of Lenin. They were removed in the 1990’s and 2000’s especially during the “Maidan Uprising,” in 2013/14.
In 2015 after the annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian Parliament passed “de-communisation laws”, banning vestiges of Soviet symbols.
The atrocities now committed by both sides has been brewing over decades, if nothing else.
President Putin’s justification was that modern, “Western leaning” Ukraine was a constant threat and that Russia could not feel, “safe, develop and exist”
Whilst people wanted a different Ukraine, Russia with its vast empire, was naturally incited to anger which has now blown all over, so called affluent neighbour, Ukraine.
Historians in future decades will be excited to analyse the causes and consequences of this war of attrition.
In the meantime, the world is calling both Russia and Ukraine to come to its senses, come to some form of understanding of not destroying both cultures, or committing unheard atrocities and the “tyranny of the innocents”.
When will this war end is the only question on everybody’s mind?
“Wars begin in the minds of men, and in the minds of women, that the defences of peace has to be built.” This is in the Charter of the United Nations. We hope the visit of the UN
Secretary General, to Moscow will bring some form of realisation of this iconic statement to both Russia and Ukraine.
Perhaps, a small island nation, like ours, can play a role in bringing both parties to Sri Lanka to negotiate a deal, in resolving this incomparable stalemate, as we too divert attention in containing our political and economic impasse.
Compassion is what the Buddha taught, has a much greater meaning in the world of today.
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