 Hello, welcome everyone to another International Relations Capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. There is only one subject we can discuss today, that is the Russia-Ukraine War. The last time we discussed it, I assured you all that there would be no war. I was not the only one. Most people believed that there would be no war. And you know the logic of it, because we know the reason for the war, we know the solution. So why fight a war? Why can't we go first from the problem to the solution itself? That was the logic that we applied. But logic doesn't apply in matters relating to conflict between countries. The only person who kept saying that there would be war was President Joe Biden. Even his own Secretary of State did not believe it. The US diplomats never admitted that there would be a war. But Mr. Biden kept on saying tomorrow, day after tomorrow, etc. But nobody cared for it because Mr. Biden is not famous for his political assessments. So whatever it is that began, you know how it all began. Mr. Putin started talking about security for Russia. He felt that the over-sincere relationship between the European Union, NATO and Ukraine was creating a problem for him. So he wanted an assurance from everyone that Ukraine will not be admitted into the NATO. And he had a strong ground for it because when Soviet Union split, there was an assurance given to the President Elsin that the NATO will not be expanded eastwards. In fact, logically, NATO should have been disbanded when Warsaw Treaty was disbanded. But the NATO decided to stay on. It is no more an ideological grouping because there is no communism to fight with capitalism and everybody has adopted capitalism. So why have NATO? But they were concerned about his new conflicts in various regions. There could be threat from non-communist countries, terrorism, all these bearing in mind. They decided to continue the NATO alliance. And not only that, more people joined. About 14 countries joined, NATO, some which broke away from Yugoslavia and some which broke away from Soviet Union itself. So you are Poland, you have Hungary, you have Czech Republic, various countries, even Slovenia which is a former Yugoslav Republic. So both non-EU and EU countries joined NATO and Ukraine was supposed to have applied for EU membership and NATO membership. Though now we hear that they are not even applied. But anyway, he started off with that. Mr Putin started off with the complaint that he felt insecure because of the move of NATO towards the east to the former Soviet socialist republics. Well, the western countries, Hamdan-Hod, they had really no plans to take Ukraine into NATO. But they were not willing to give a guarantee that they will not. And at the same time, they felt that Putin will not fight a war. And so Mr Biden, who believed that there would be a war, kept declaring that I will not fight, United States will not fight against Russia, but we will fight with economic sanctions. So this I think encouraged Mr Putin because his worry was that if he went into Ukraine, the European Union or United States might launch an attack on Russia. But he got a clear assurance that this will not happen. And therefore, he pressed the claim further and started, there was some tension and so on. And this went on because the problem started in November 2021 when he started amassing troops on all sides of Ukraine. And this is what matter of concern and Ukraine kept saying that the Soviet US troops should be dropped from their borders. But Putin said, I'm in my borders, I'm in my country, what are you worried about? So this argument went on. And finally, on the 22nd of February, Mr Putin made a wrong speech, well, I would say wrong speech, justifying an aggression, an attack. It was a one-hour speech, I think we talked about it. He spelled out the whole history of Soviet Union and put the blame on Lenin, Stalin, Prussia and everybody else for destroying the Soviet Union. And then he said, now Russia is weak, also threatened by the NATO and other forces. But he's determined to bring back the glory of the Soviet Union. He said it in so many words. And he said that I have the responsibility, I have now inherited the Soviet mantle. And therefore, I shall make sure that all these countries which have joined, noted NATO, etc., will come back. And there will be peace. But there was no sign of all that. And the European Union did not take this threat very seriously. And that is when he made this speech and said, what I'm now doing is to enter into Ukraine, but only two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, you must be knowing the names by now, that these provinces, I am sending my troops into that to peace keep in those regions. He did not say he's going to fight a war. So he said to keep peace in the region, I am sending them in. And then he waited for two days. Moscow troops went into Ukraine. Still, the reaction was very gentle, some small sanctions and some banks not being allowed to take loans from the West and so on. So in those two days, he decided that these people are not going to hurt me. So I go for an overall attack, which he did on the 24th of February, last four days ago is the fifth day. And this has changed the whole situation. And still, the European Union and America kept saying that they were both sanctions. And now they are imposing sanctions one after the other in the last few days, while the war is raging. And everybody had expected that the war would end quite suddenly, but it did not because everybody thought that there would be an overrun by the Russian forces. And somehow, two or three days, the Zelenskoyevsky may run away or he will be taken prisoner. And the new pro-Russian president will be appointed. And then Mr. Putin will declare victory and go back home. And then he will have control over the whole region. And the new president will not apply for membership of NATO. This was the solution that he had in mind. But not only did the sanctions increase day by day, making it difficult for Mr. Putin to continue in various ways, like the price of the ruble, the value of the ruble went down by 40%. And that is going to be a crunch. The economy of Russia cannot persist for long with all these sanctions. But Putin did not show any concern about that. And he went on to bomb Ukraine. And he has reached very close to Kiev. So once Kiev is taken, he goes into the presidential palace. Kiev will of course depose Zelensky and appoint somebody. But the resistance has been so strong that he himself has been taken by surprise. The reason for that was Zelensky turned out to be a very charismatic leader. He was an actor till 2018. And that was a comedian. And he did exactly what MGR, M.G. Ramachandra and J.R. Kandit did. What did they do? They built themselves as perfect people in every movie they acted in. MGR has always been nursing the people, looking after them, fighting for them, the man who runs the draw. And all his films were designed in such a way to build his image. And so when they came to politics, everybody believed that they will be like the movie heroes, great friend of the people. And in the case of Zelensky, the show that he had was called the Servant of the People and an ideal model president who is always concerned about his people etc. And therefore when the election came in 2018, he won with 73.2% majority against the reigning, the ruling president. And this excited a lot of people and he began doing what he promised to do in his movies. He took away power from the rich millionaires. Imagine the prime minister of India gets rid of Ambani and Adani. Naturally there will be resistance because they hold big amounts of money with which you can do anything. They can buy the government of India if they want to. But then he controlled them and took the power in his own hands so he became very powerful. Yeah, he said he will want to be a member of the European Union, then a member of NATO, and Putin felt that he had grown too big for his shoes. But in all these pronouncements, he was in fact getting more and more popular and powerful. And then when he came to the television and that started asking people to fight the war against the Russians, they listened. They said, take guns and go and shoot. And those who can't fight, leave the country for God's sake and go and take care of yourselves. We will fight it out. And every day he appears on television, very cheerful, charming, 44-year-old president, very valiant and strong. And so what would have been a three-day war has now entered the fifth day and there is no sign of victory for the Russians. In between, you must have read about the UN Security Council meeting. Whenever such occasions arise, the Security Council meets and tries to pass a resolution which reflects the thinking of the entire United Nations community. And as luck would have it, as it happened in the case of China when the pandemic came, this month Russia itself is the president of the Security Council. So the accused, the judge, everybody is Russia. But then within the Security Council, there were serious objections to what was happening in Russia and the United States particularly and 11 member states out of 15 voted against Russia, asking Russia to withdraw and return to peace. Only three countries abstained. One was India, the other was China, and the other was UAE. Of course, many people misunderstand. They say that India and China voted today. There's a big difference between India's vote and China's vote because China is a permanent member of the Security Council. So according to the Charter, if all the five permanent members must cast a positive vote in order to get a resolution and object. So China did not want to exercise a veto because if he voted for the Russian resolution, it will be like vetoing the resolution. But they did not want. So that's the only reason why they abstained. In our case, we have a dilemma. We are in a difficult spot because we have very good relations with Russia. Our military is dependent on Russia. We have just bought the 400 missiles, 26 military contracts that they put in signed with Modi and so many things. Every field, that is great cooperation between us. And then India is investing in Vladivostok region where Chinese influence is big, but they want to balance China with India. So there was no question of our opposing Russia. This is what happened also in 1979 when Afghanistan came. Everybody in the world was against it. Even people in India were against it, but Mrs. Indira Gandhi was not against it. She supported him. And that is the long story of Afghanistan we have talked about many times. Afghanistan was under the Russians for five years. We supported them consistently and therefore we fell out with the Taliban. Then with the Americans, we were there for some time. And again, the Taliban has come back and that whole story you know. So here we wanted to ensure that we do not take sides. So we have taken what is called a neutral position in the security council by abstaining. Our abstention is simply abstaining. That is, we are not deciding either of them. Our abstention will not make any difference, even if we have voted to determine any difference. So China vote was because they did not want to use a veto. So they abstained while we genuinely wanted to be neutral. At the same time, we decided to criticize Russia for some of the things that they have done. So in the resolution, we abstained. But in the vote in explanation, the statement in the explanation of vote contained several points, four or five points, which pointed at Russia as having done a few things which it should not have done. Like for example, breaking up the dialogue of just going on between France and Russia. Even the Indian Foreign Minister was in France, was part of this effort to rescue Ukraine. But he did not wait for that, precipitously he launched a war and all this was very clearly criticized in the explanation of vote. And he's finally said, yes, because of all the reasons, all these reasons we are keeping out of the vote. So it was a balanced principle unlike the Chinese one. And so we abstained. And the other countries abstained. So UAE, again people are asking questions, how come UAE abstained? And you have people who know UAE, what happened in the last few months, you will know, this is all because of Israel. Because Israel has a stake in peace in Europe. But they are fighting wars every day and they know how terrible it is. So Israel is very much interested in keeping the peace by supporting Russia. And UAE itself has a major problem with the terrorists and others. And so UAE has come together with India, with what we call an Eastern Quad, that is United States, India, Israel and UAE. So how can UAE vote one way or the other? So they abstained. So now the procedure in the United Nations says, as you may know, if a resolution is vetoed by a permanent member, that resolution is taken to the general assembly under a resolution called uniting for peace. In the sense that the permanent members of the power, but the non permanent members can also agitate. And then the identical resolution will be now placed tonight before the general assembly. And I'm sure it will be adopted, to be carried because there are enough people who are willing to vote for that resolution. Because anything that you can do to criticize Americans out and that is fun for people of the United Nations. There's many times that US has lost its vote. Sometimes US puts up a general assembly resolution and votes against it because others are all so opposed to it and then they abandon it. Such cases also happen. So even if you are very powerful in the UN, the numbers matter in the general assembly. But the Security Council, numbers do not matter. With one vote, the permanent members can hold their place without any attack from the others. In between, there was a resolution to all the general assembly to look at the resolution. It was a procedural resolution, which we opposed. We abstained on that also. There was no need. It was a procedural debate. So we could have said, okay, we are in favor of the debate. So we are supporting this resolution. But we did not. We wanted to be consistent. So we abstained on the first resolution and the second resolution. And of course, in the general assembly also, most likely we will vote against the resolution and support Russia in a sense. But fortunately for us, all that we did in the Security Council to please the Americans and the Russians and the Ukrainians with the same kind of force, we became a kind of a candidate for mediation. Not that we want to. But each one of them, US said, why don't you talk to the Russians and solve the problems you have influence? Russia said, we are very happy that you did not support this resolution. So he spoke to Prime Minister Modi and promised to help with the repatriation of 16,000 Indians who are in deep trouble in Ukraine. And then Ukraine said that they are very happy about India's vote. So please speak to Mr Putin and bring peace into our region. So we appear to be the only country in this whole in Broglieu to be acceptable to all the three because we did not oppose any of them openly. And we stuck to our position that what Russia did was wrong. And that was mentioned in the explanation of the vote. Resolution itself, we abstained. We had nothing to do with resolution. But we explained that this is the reasons why we did that. And that is where the political action rests. But in the military action, something very surprising has happened that after three or four years, four days, Russia has lost out more in terms of people, arms, aircraft, etc., than Ukraine. This was not expected. And this is because of the charisma of the president. And he told the Ukrainians, get ready to fight. Otherwise leave. You go and survive there for somewhere else. We are going to fight. And if we win, we win. If we don't, we don't. But we are going to fight. And that is a call he gives to the people every day. He's using the social media very frequently. So he is declaring this to them and the people rise, they pick up guns and go to shoot the Russians. And as a result, the ambassador, the Ukrainian ambassador in Delhi said that they have killed 5,400 or 4,500 Russians and down several aircrafts, several helicopters, etc., etc. And that is the reason why even though the Russian soldiers have surrounded key presidential palace, they have not entered it because they are afraid that they must be massacred by the people inside the palace. So surprisingly enough, Russia asked for talks, not Ukraine. Russia invited the president for talks or is representative and he readily agreed. The disagreement was only where it should be. Russians wanted it in below Russia, which is anti-Ukraine in all respects. But Zelensky said, no, we will not go there. We are willing to go to Poland. So last two days, the discussion was taking place. And he also asked that Zelensky said that there should be a ceasefire before we talk, number one. And secondly, there should be peace while the talks going on. No fight. But now we have landed up in a situation where there is a fight which is raging. And at the same time, the two parties are sitting near Chernobyl. Chernobyl was the notorious place where there was a nuclear accident took place. My own feeling is that the talks will not gain anything because Russia is not going to discuss anything. Nor is Mr Zelensky. So this is the situation and we will know as it goes on. But the indication is that war will continue. Only two reasons why the war would end if Russia wins and Zelensky is deposed and the puppet government is established in Ukraine. Or secondly, the sanctions will be so debilitating for Russia that they are not able to breathe. They will not exist economically in which case they will say, okay, let's have some peace and then we will negotiate and then take the sanctions away. These are the only two possibilities. But we are confronting a very grave situation which could break into a global war. If a request made by Zelensky to become a member of the European Union immediately today, such a request has been made. So if that is made, then the European Union will be getting involved, the Americans will and there will be a full scale war. Otherwise, Putin will win the war, but it will be a pyrrhic war. It will not be a war of success. It will be a war of success or failure if you can say. There is something like that. And maybe Russia will face years, five years, six years, 10 years of guerrilla warfare and Ukraine may become the Vietnam of Russia. That also is a possibility. And the last point is about the 16,000 Indians stranded, mostly students and a large number from Kerala. So we hear about it all the time in Trivandrum. And they're all stranded. They're on the point of starvation. So depending where they are, in some places they have to travel or walk 10 kilometers, 15 kilometers, 30 kilometers to reach the border. And even when they reach the border, they are not being allowed to enter Poland or Czechoslovakia or Czech Republic or any other country. And in fact, since so many Ukrainians are trying to get out, the Ukrainian soldiers are attacking these students and asking them to return and not cross the border. Because Poland's border, they are only allowing a few people to cross. And so they're chasing the Indians away. And we have seen scenes of that on television. So but this has become a big challenge to the government of India because the government of India is being accused of delaying the repatriation because many other countries had left. But we had faith in Putin. We had also faith in what we used to say that there'll be no war. So we did not take the precaution of moving them out. And even the students were not very keen to move out because they would have problems about continuing their education because most of them are in medical education. And if they came away now, even if they are able to go back, they will lose a semester or two. So they were also not very anxious to leave. But when the overall action took place on 24th February, then things changed dramatically. Now they're all screaming and shouting at the government of India or letting them stay there and starving there. But nothing has happened. Nobody has been hurt or starved out or anything like that. But the situation is very serious. And that is why the government of India, after taking many other actions, has now dispatched four cabinet ministers to each of these countries to make sure that they open their borders for the Indians to come back. I'm sure you must be following the news, four or five planes have already returned. But many more will be required because 16,000 people is a lot of people. And this is one risk we're running around the world because Indians are everywhere. We are very proud of that. We say it is the empire on which the sun never sets. But that may be true. But when there is trouble, it's always the Indians who get caught. And we did not even know that there were so many students in that. Because nobody tells the government. Everyone goes for its own reasons. And so, the government is in a shock as to how to get these people. And therefore, a high-level delegation has been sent. Many officers were sent earlier. So, life as officers who know Russian were sent to all these regions. But still, the students complained that they are not able to contact anybody. Nobody is contacting them. And even if they are contacted, they will say, walk to the border, we'll be here from there. But how to walk to the border with this intensity of war? So, maybe there is a ceasefire. And if there is a lull, naturally our people can be rescued. But even otherwise, they will be. Because otherwise, it will become a big blow for the Modi government. You cannot afford to have international skilled abroad, which will not help him in UP. It will not help him anywhere. So, he has taken this initiative to send first officers and now ministers to deal with the situation. So, that's all hope that this will work and these people will come back. And in the meantime, there could be a ceasefire. There would be also a UN Security Council resolution condemning the attack and asking Putin to leave. All this will happen within the next 24 hours. But what happens after that is a big question mark. For that, we have to wait for the next capsule on the consequences of the attack on Ukraine by Russia. It does not seem that it is not going to be an easy walk over for Russia. But at the same time, they will finally prevail. And if they prevail, Russia has to be subdued in its opposition to its neighbors. Thank you. Well, time for questions. Yes, those are true. Such things Ukraine has done. But that is not the only thing that Ukraine is the only country which has done that. Several people have been unhappy with India on various grounds. These are minor grounds. I don't think it is a factor. This is WhatsApp literature. WhatsApp shows so much of these things. These votes we may not even notice. These are insignificant votes. If you go and vote against India in a particular committee or something, it doesn't make even news. But that is not the factor. The factor is clearly that we have deep commitments in Russia and deep commitments in the United States. And so we have to be neutral, naturally neutral, not just in voting. Because naturally, neutral may not work. But as I said, all these three have been very happy with the results. And all the three of them are saying, why don't you intervene and do something. And Prime Minister Modi called President Putin and spoke to him for the need for ending the conflict. So we are taking the line that we have told Mr. President directly and then why should we go and vote against him. And such arguments, but it's a realistic, pragmatic decision which was decided by Mrs. Gandhi in 1979. Mr. Modi is not the author of this position that was authored by Mrs. Gandhi to support the people of Afghanistan against the Soviet forces. So it's consistent. The opposition is saying that there's a wrong decision and it is clear to them that this was not Mr. Modi's decision. This was the decision of Mrs. Gandhi in 1979. After we pointed it out to them purely academically, then they realized that and now they don't seem to say it. Because they also say, why didn't you bring back the Indians earlier? Well, we should bring back Indians only if it is required. And just before the fun of it, we don't bring back our citizens. That is the reply to that. Because you know the answer, because it's impossible to get a medical seat in India. Either you have to pass an examination or you have to have tons and tons of money you can give to a private college. So people who don't have either of these, they go anywhere for a medicine. They go to China and have us in Moscow. A lot of people used to come to Moscow. Nobody wanted Russian certificate. But they said, no, let us take a certificate. We will see. And then pressure, lots of graduates from Moscow University or New Mumbai University. What do you do with them? So we recognize them and not only we United States and other countries are very rich doctors now. So and that is the investment that people are making. Yes, Russia wants to overtake Ukraine like Iraq did with Kuwait. In the case of Iraq, Kuwait, there was an international force against Iraq. But Russia will not have that good fortune. There may be many people opposing Russia, but there may not be many people wanting to take any action on it. And therefore, they clearly expect a total domination of Ukraine to be used for the future to fight against America and the European Union. Zero. The world will end. And there's no question about it. There is a nuclear war. US cannot sit idle. And there will be a nuclear war with all its consequences. But there are two versions of it. First, the report was that Putin had asked his nuclear forces to be ready. But later in the day, he clarified to be ready for what? Not to attack, to be ready to prevent an attack or to prevent blackmail and also to attack if somebody attacks us. So there is a logic there. But now, Belarusia has come up with an idea that they want to become and declare themselves a nuclear weapon state, which would be illegal because they are now an independent country, not part of Russia. They had the nuclear weapons because they were part of a permanent member. But now, they are not part of a permanent member. Therefore, they have no right to keep nuclear weapons. And after them, there will be sanctions. But to add to the confusion, he also said we are going to declare ourselves a nuclear weapon state, which is another threat, but an empty threat. Of course, it was premeditated. Well, they have trust in the US and EU. In fact, he was feeling threatened by them. So he did not trust the US and the EU. So there is no question of that being the reason. But Putin had planned it, but announced it slowly. First, he said security. Then he said these two provinces. Then he said he is going for a picnic. All this he did. And finally, he said, I'm declaring war on Ukraine. So his credibility is completely lost and nobody is interested in his honesty. They would have a few days earlier. But now that Russia and China have signed an agreement of loyalty, friendship, neutrality, etc., etc. And now there is an understanding that on Ukraine, China will help Russia. And in Taiwan, Russia will help China. So if this happens, there will be again a big war because Americans will not permit that. So they will not remain neutral if there is an attack on Taiwan or if there is an attack on the US. Because the US was more than neutral in this case because President Trump was supporting us fully. But that situation doesn't obtain now. And therefore, in both the cases of Taiwan and Ladakh, Russia will side with China and China will side with Russia. And that is the biggest problem that we have. Because I mentioned last time that there is likely to be this axis between Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan. And you know that Pakistan was in Russia at the time of the when the war was launched. Either of them. More likely, Russian-backed President. So they can maintain him as an independent government and then secretly do all the tricks that they were doing. They approached me in 2014 when I was the Vice-Chairman of the Higher Education Council in Kerala. Suddenly some 40 Indian students landed in my room. And they said, they are coming from Ukraine. I said, from where? So they said, we are all studying. That's the first time I've heard that Indians are studying medicine in Ukraine. And we have heard about China. But apparently Ukraine is still cheap and easier to get admission. There are many agents in India who take these people. And I must say now those agents are helping the students. Many of them are pricing them for the effective action they have taken. But there is no possibility at all of getting them medical seats. You can all imagine 40 medical seats is impossible. Then how will you give them 1600 medical seats in India? Even if all the seats put together, we will not. So there will be a lot of despair. Hopefully many people will be able to go back and pursue their studies. Well, they are already supported morally. And that will be a deterrent. Nobody will attack Russia because they know like it happened in the Bangladesh crisis. Nobody attacked India because Soviet Union was behind us. So similarly, they will be protected by Soviet Union. We will. But that won't make a difference for the situation. Neither side is depending on our military support. The question remains, it depends on how far Putin wants to push this situation. He knows very well playing with nuclear weapons is extremely dangerous. So even if nuclear weapons are not used, by the time he comes out of this war, Putin will be very weak. And may possible that there will be a coup there also and somebody else will take over from him. Well, they have the option, but they're not likely to exercise it for the sake of the play. Yes, China is, it can block South China Sea anytime and the global trade will go for a six, but they have not taken them yet. If Ukraine had joined, it would have been a different story. But this decision not to fight a war is taken by the United States and the NATO is simply following that because they don't want a world war to destroy the global economy itself. Well, China has become a greater friend because after this decision earlier, maybe China would have, of course, here also, they only abstained, but China would have definitely abstained even before. But now they have no choice. As a permanent member, they have to abstain in order to exercise a vote unless he goes out of the conference room. That is not permitted. In Security Council, you have to stay there. Only if all the 15 members are present, can the meeting start. So you cannot just walk out and say something and do something. That's not possible in the Security Council. Yes, in a sense, we can say that. They could have been worse, but they also are looking both sides. Not if President Biden continues. And Mr. Trump is waiting in the wings. But of course, at the moment, he's only criticizing Putin. He's not criticizing anybody else. He wants to be President again. That's all on his agenda and he's already campaigning for it. So that is another thing. And that's a threat to Biden. Biden is all the time looking backwards to see what is Trump doing and he's doing a lot of damage. And therefore, Biden's talk has gone down. And now if he goes to war, it will be much worse. And therefore, the United States is not likely to get involved. Well, North Korea will always fight for those who want to fight a nuclear war. And North Korea is criticized by the Americans and others a lot. So they stand with Russia and China. China is not Korea's patriot. And now that Russia is also a friend they could be to help. That is a risk that we are going to do. We are going to face, you know, in a real world war, where will you stand? Let's hope that it will not happen because there are so many options and so many possibilities. And I don't want to even think about it. And remember all this for your examination. You know, all these technical names and the names of people and the tactics and the sequence of the war, everything should be new. Something or the other will come because the examiners are always reading newspapers. And so whatever is in the newspapers, they will ask you. So be sure that if you know what is in the newspapers, that will be very good. Thank you very much. See you next week.