Standing against putin’s imperialist project

• As Europe unites against the Russian president’s aggression, India must realise that Putin and Russia are not the same.

Current scenario

• Just a week ago, Germany was weak link in Western coalition trying to persuade Russian President to dial down the crisis in Ukraine.
• Today, Germany - richest country in Europe and with greatest political empathy towards Russia, has thrown its lot with its European and American partners to stand up against Putin’s war in Ukraine.
• German Chancellor in speech declared that Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a turning point in Europe.
• Putin is not just seeking to wipe an independent country off the map.
• He is demolishing the European security order that had prevailed for almost half a century

The outlined five-pronged response

• Military solidarity with Ukraine

• Punitive measures against Putin’s Russia

• Vigorous commitment to European collective defence through NATO,

• German rearmament

• Reduction in Germany’s energy and economic interdependence with Russia.

• Germany has provided European parallel to India’s political warmth towards and strategic dependence on Russia.

• As Germany and Europe rise up against Russian aggression, Delhi too will have to come to terms with the impact of Putin’s reckless course on India’s long-term interests.

Russia’s ambition

• In India and beyond in global South, Russia’s traditional image was that of a natural ally against Western imperialism.
• Today, many developing countries will join West in UNGA in voting against Putin’s attempt to destroy another nation.
• In one of his recent speeches, Putin denounced founder of Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, for emphasising importance of autonomy for various nationalities in revolutionary Russia.
• Lenin, who saw Czarist Russia as a prison house of nationalities, insisted that Soviet Union must be federation of national republics rather than simply a communist version of Russian empire.
• Putin said he is not trying to resurrect USSR. He is trying to revive Czarist Russia.
• This would involve making Ukraine and Belarus satellite states and constructing a sphere of influence beyond Central Europe.
• Putin’s overweening ambition rooted in Great Russian chauvinism is already running into trouble.
• Russian President’s claim that Ukraine was never a nation and that it can be sovereign only in association with Russia is of course challenged by nationalist narrative in Ukraine.

Response of European Nations

• Russian adventurism in faraway land might not have stirred Russia’s European neighbours.
• But the attempt to wipe out sovereignty of a European nation has produced a sweeping backlash in the continent.
• If Kremlin had bet that Europe would be deeply divided in dealing with Russian attack on Ukraine, European response has been swift and hard.
• EU has agreed on sweeping financial sanctions against Russia, many European countries have closed their airspace to Russia, and are isolating Moscow on multiple fronts, including football — a sacred ritual in Europe.
• Some European countries have begun to supply arms to Ukraine; many offering significant economic and humanitarian assistance.
• The EU plans to buy $550 million worth of arms for Ukraine.
• Obsessed with dividing Europe and distancing it from the US, Putin’s Ukraine aggression has united Europe and consolidated Western alliance.
• Even as German Chancellor chose to devote Germany’s massive resources to defeating Putin, he has left door open for diplomacy with Russia.
• He also made it clear that Germany and Europe have no quarrel with Russian people and that problem is with Putin’s messianic agenda.
• Few European countries have been as empathetic to Russia as Germany.
• Despite Germany being a critical member of NATO, country’s elites have nurtured deep political, cultural, and economic links with their Russian counterparts.
• German trade last year with Russia was close to $66 billion
• India, of course, is tied to Russian military supplies in a manner that Germany is not.

India and Russia

• The issues at hand are not just about weapon supplies and regional balance of power where interests of India and Russia have tended to converge in the last many decades.
• For a century, Indian progressives of all hues saw Russia as a natural ally in building modern India;
• They brought Russian literature and culture as well as political and economic ideas into mainstream Indian thinking.
• After independence, Moscow was for long seen as a positive factor in India’s geopolitical and security calculus.

Conclusion

• Like Germany and France, Delhi too would like Russia to take its rightful place in European and global order.
• That now appears impossible under President Putin.