 It's day 50 of the war in Ukraine, a war that has changed every aspect of life around us and will continue to do so in the near future as well. From politics to military and technology to the economy, the impact is being seen in every aspect of life. We'll be talking about all this and more on Mapping Fault Lines. We have with us Prabir Purkayastha. Prabir, so this is the 50th day of the war, like I said, and a lot of the implications are still yet to be seen. I mean, we're still in the very early stages, so to speak of this war. But let's first take a look, maybe, at the military situation because that is the one that's kind of changing on almost a day-to-day basis. Multiple reports coming in. Broadly, we have so many variations of what is happening on the ground in terms of reports, some from the west, some from Russian sources, of course. So for the clarity of view, how would you sort of analyze and place the military situation on the ground as is now? Well, as you were saying, there is a deep fog of war that is there. So each side is claiming different things and, of course, there are talks of atrocities. Now, as we know, talks of atrocities are also extremely political and extremely propagandized. We have taken earlier the case of Syria, for example. We have discussed in the news click as well that the so-called false flag attacks on Douma, claiming Assad was using poison gas. All of this we have seen, they had clear political agenda as perhaps some of the attacks that have been talked about, for instance, Boucher and so on. So I'm not going to get into that. But if you look at the larger political picture that you now, for instance, you can see in the map itself, it is clear that there are two interpretations of the war. One is that Putin apparently expected a lightning victory in Ukraine, fall of Kiev, taking over all of Ukraine and so on, which I don't think was ever a realistic picture of what any military could do. After all, you know, even if you take the Second World War, pans and divisions, this is not the rate at which even the Nazi military forces really went and captured various places. So that seems to be a figment of the Western military imagination to claim that Ukraine has done much better than what it indeed might have. If we take the Russian side, they had said demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. Now denazification is a political process. It needs the Ukrainian side to agree in order for that to happen. So that's really a question of the political settlement that's finally reached. For the demilitarization, it needs the military forces of Ukraine to be interdicted and also made immobilized and destroyed. This is the way it would really unfold. And that, if you look at the picture now, you can see in the east that this is where the most of the war-ready forces were deployed because Donetsk-Lugansk regions were the places where they were not willing to concede autonomy. They're not willing to accept the implementation of the Minsk Accords and from Russian sources that they were poised for an attack on these regions. And the Russian recognition was essentially to force all that. And now their deployment seems to be to create conditions by which these forces are slowly destroyed. If you look at the larger picture, which is of course taking over Mariupol, protecting Sevastopol, providing water for the Crimean Peninsula. All of it is to be also looked at in a different way that they have essentially made Ukraine Air Force really virtually useless at this point. They have degraded their anti-air capabilities and they are slowly destroying the military, Ukrainian forces, particularly the most advanced sections of the military. And this is what's happening in the Donbass region. Now if we take the picture of what the Russian forces were interested in as really destroying Ukraine's military, what they call the de-militarization, that seems to have happened. And even if the NATO forces want to give them weapons, etc., it's not going to be easy to be able to make them battle-ready and make the Ukrainian forces battle-ready using these kind of weapons. Therefore the need to source weapons which are much older, which Ukrainian forces may be already familiar with. So if we take this part of it, it seems that Russians were more interested in finishing the Ukrainian military forces rather than attacking the civilian centres. And if we take the fact that they have not taken out electricity in Ukraine, they have not taken out for instance the Internet in Ukraine. It would seem to indicate their battle names were very different from what the western experts claimed they are. So this is I think broadly what we can see. How far they are successful in attempts to destroy Ukraine's military, that we'll have to see. And what was their timetable? Putin never gave a timetable, unlike the western experts who were giving timetables. But it is also true that Maria Poll is a city they are going to take because as of Battalion was there, they are the ones who had driven out the Donbas forces from that part in 2014. So this was definitely a target and they are going to not back off from. So that is also clear what is happening. And Maria Poll is also strategically important over there. So that part is going to happen. It looks like they have almost taken over more. Also the port of Maria Poll and only that very large steel plant that is under siege at the moment. They have underground apparently facilities over there as well. So how that will take place we have to see but it's really a battle of attrition at the moment. And as you know any built up areas if they are to be taken they require first at least three is to one or five is to one superiority which Russians have not deployed. But also then you have to wait them out, wait the forces out till they run out of rations, they run out of supplies and of course ammunition. So this is that battle of attrition is what's taking place in Maria Poll over the last 25-30 days. And that seems to be now their conclusion though the steel plant in Maria Poll which as I said was the largest steel plant in the world that may still take some time before it's completely subdued. So looking at it from my point of view the real issue is that the peace talks which led at one point to withdraw from the areas near Kiev that does not seem to have proceeded any further. So is it something that Russians think was bad faith they made some concessions nothing happened or is it something that Zelensky and Russians did not agree on further. That's why nothing has to move forward. That's something we have to see but it is also true the kind of acquisitions of atrocities that have been thrown do seem to indicate that the peace talks at the moment are going to be steamed. We'll come back to the peace process Praveer but before that I also wanted to take a look at the economic situation. We have had a lot of discussion on this even on this show. Some of the key aspects being the seizure the expropriation of Russian assets the rubles price initially you know plummeting but then reaching some kind of stability concerns overall concerns over natural resources of various sorts. So in the medium to long term how do you see the impact of this war across the world actually because that's a key question a lot of people are having. I think the three major issues that came out of the sanctions as the West called it the swift is a something which is you can call a sanctions. But seizing foreign exchange reserves that Russia had earned and which was parked in the West. This is something which did not have even the Crimean war when Russia and England were fighting. So this is something in terms of war. This is something new seizing a country of the size small countries you can bully but country of Russia size seizing their foreign exchange reserves is going one step beyond what can be even called sanctions. Sanctions themselves are economic war and they in terms of international law would be considered as acts of war. But seizing foreign exchange reserves of which means that these are goods that you have bought though you had you have paid for it you have kept it in your bank. Now you're seizing that money which means you have expropriated the goods that you actually bought and you whatever the money that you had to pay you're not paying now. So there are various ways of describing it but it is a it could be a strong inflection point in the world's monetary history. Are then international currencies like euro and dollars or pounds because all three have done this. Are they in fact dependable in terms of use in trade. And that's a country question that countries like India countries like China face China has about a trillion dollars of reserves in part in the US treasury. India has about 640 billion dollars worth of foreign exchange either in the dollars in the held in dollars or held in euros abroad. So these are again then open to expropriation and all countries have to think of how do then we do our trade because we keep foreign exchange reserves for a rainy day. That in case are we need some immediate short term replenishment because we want to buy some things. Yes then we have the money to do so in foreign banks. So this is going to be a huge issue in terms of how does the dollar which is de facto the global reserve currency if not even be sure that how does it then survive in the future. The huge hit that its confidence would have taken by the virtue of this appropriation. So this is one issue. The second is there are certain commodities which are always going to be important. Every country needs it. One is of course energy oil and as well as coal liquid LNG and considering as equivalent to oil. So oil gas and coal these are things that still today are the backbone of your energy and every country is dependent on a variety of this in terms of proportions for meeting their energy needs. Yes we have some amount of nuclear energy not very large at the moment and of course you have the renewables but they do not even today are the major producers of energy. The kilowatts and megawatts you can say they are very large but in terms of actual energy production it still is largely coal. It is still your coal oil and natural gas which is the major source of energy. So the world is going to take a hit because the prices of oil will go up. Right now we have a bit of a advantage because Shanghai has been shut down. Therefore there will drop in the whole bunch of activities. Therefore the energy prices have still not gone up plus the fact that Russians have said you can buy from us at the cheaper price. So that part of it is also depressing or keeping the prices lower than what it was projected to be. But don't forget it's still 50% higher than what it was a year back so it's already pretty high. So that is the second part of it the energy economy because without energy every country's industry is going to take a hit including India's for example. We also need coal for it not only just oil and natural gas. The third is the whole bunch of other activities for instance in fertilizers you need for instance metals. So all of this is also going to take a hit. So what you are likely to see is higher prices for all of these commodities therefore inflation but you are also going to see stagnation because we are not going to be able to meet to supply all of this. So your industries are going to not see a boom in terms of being able to manufacture more which is what you might expect if the prices go up. So you are going to get stagnation and inflation simultaneously and particularly there are inelastic demands like food for example you take Sri Lanka example. Energy and food are not available so what do the people do. So this might be replicated at a large scale across countries and the big hit would be European Union they don't have energy. They have decided to be very aggressive on Russia how they will substitute for energy which will shut down their industries is a good question. And Praveen finally so we have seen the economics and the military situation including the refugee crisis of course you have described how the economy impact is actually global not just restricted to Russia or Ukraine or even Europe. But in this context we actually see that there is not really too much of a push for peace. Now Russia and Ukraine have been negotiating at various points of time. You have described some of the issues that are complicated these negotiations but globally there doesn't seem to be much of a desire for or at the diplomatic level at the level of say various regional forums. There doesn't seem to be much of an initiative to push both these countries or push the west towards a move for peace. Why do you think that's the case? I think one is that the fog of war that we are talking about there's been a huge campaign against Russia and this western media which today dominates the information space is able to create an apparent global opinion which is Russia bad Ukraine the victim. There are no Nazis even though they say they are Nazis so all of this is one part of it. So and there's a global echo chamber that the west has built up they start believing what they are propagating. If you see for instance which countries have sanctioned you will find the 41 countries which have sanctioned Russia under the 29 European members of European Union and if you put all the numbers together well they are one large country at most you know. So that is the level at which this whole so called global rule based order seems to move that we make the rules what we say is the reality and I create the reality because I say so. So this seems to be the kind of mood that is set in the west and they therefore start believing that everybody has isolated Russia while the reality is the number of countries who have not sanctioned Russia is much larger the number of countries who have and if you take population into account is of course much much larger because India and China really have the world's population. So given that I think that my apprehension or my concern is if the globe is facing this kind of future crisis or stagnation inflation combined you're going to see really huge hit to the global food economy which might mean a whole bunch of countries will face the condition the Sri Lanka is in now for example countries like India fertilizers crisis coal not being available for your power plants all of this and global warming is going to take a huge exact because the west has now said okay coal is back okay for the foreseeable future coal is back. So all of it should actually cause the world peace movement to come up and demand of the west demand of Russia demand of Ukraine return to the peace process instead of this competitive information war and the military war on the ground instead of supplying more and more arms to the Ukrainian government which may or may not be in a position to even use most of it but it gives them a feeling that they have the west has its back. So given this I would have thought even during Korean war there were interventions made by others to bring peace Nehru and India was key element in that but at the moment everybody seems to be saying well you know we'll look after our interests Nirmala Sitaraman's famous words I'll look after my country's interest but our country's interest the global interest is also peace and that seems to be completely missing in the international scenario today we're all trying to negotiate our self-interest between the players so we don't have that kind of international opinion please come to the table resolve the issues yes I think Russia has a point that there were attacks on Russian identity language in in in Donbas region that is something which needs to be put on the ground. Minsk Accords had given regional autonomy to Russian speakers in that part of Ukraine so these are real issues they should not be wished away at the same time if Ukraine government wants to have Nazis then what does Russia do that's a question that we need to address but at the same time we need a war for it. Does the west needs to back the Nazi forces in Ukraine they'll get a blowback tomorrow it's not that the Nazi sympathizers are not there in western Europe as well so these all of these are already there so I think this needs much more far seeing diplomacy and at the moment we are leaving it to Zelensky and few people to set the terms of the peace and which is certainly not to the interest larger interest in the people so unfortunately the United States which has become treaty incapable also seems to be peace incapable but it is war capable and I think that's a threat we face. Thank you so much for being I will the chances for peace improve in the coming days what will happen in the military situation will be tracking all this in future episodes of mapping fault lines until then keep watching news click