 The world is a very different place from the last time we met you on this show. War has broken out, not just the war of bombs and missiles, but also the silent war of sanctions, which will have an effect on the lives of millions of people. Across the world, people are asking one question, how will this end? We'll be discussing all this and more on this episode of Mapping Fortlines. Before we get into these questions, let's first take a look at the military situation on the ground right now. As we know, the Russian attack began on February 24th and over the past seven to eight days, it has focused on four main axes. The first axis as we see is around the capital city of Kiev, Ukraine's capital city. There, a vast Russian contingent is awaiting some miles away from the city. The second major axis is around the city of Kharkiv. The third major axis is in the Donbas region and the fourth major axis is from Crimea. From all these areas, Russian troops have entered Ukrainian territory. A key city of Kherson has been captured. The city of Odessa is what seems to be one key target. The city of Mariupol seems to be another key target. The important question, of course, is will an attack take place on Kiev? If so, what will happen? To know more about this, we have with us Prabir Purkayashta. Prabir, so first of all, we've seen the military situation on the ground and we've seen the specific directions in which the Russian troops have advanced over the past few days. So, could you maybe take us through what seems, of course, it's difficult to completely analyze it, but what seems to be the significance of these key directions in which the Russian advance has been taken place? I think that's a very important question. Of course, it also has to do with what the end goal Russia has with respect to Ukraine. It has said the denazification. It has said the demilitarization of Ukraine. Now, what does that really mean in actual practice? Does it mean smashing the state itself, taking over Ukraine and then running it for some time? Is that even feasible given what we see? And after all, Ukraine is not a small country. It's a country of 40 million people, 40-45 million people, whichever you want to count it. And it is the second largest country in terms of area in Europe. So, this is not a simple target, as it might appear. So, if you look at the more restricted military targets, what we see from the map that we have here, seems to be one is, of course, surround Kiev. And that they have done from coming from east, the Belarus side, and also coming from the, again, from the other side, the eastern side of Kiev. Both there is a Spencer, west and east, from which they seem to have come. And a possible encirclement of Kiev is there, though they have said they're going to leave a corridor for the civilians to go out of. So, this is the Kiev situation. At the moment, we don't see an assault in Kiev that we see in, for instance, in Kharkiv. Now, Kharkiv seems to be linked much more close to what has been for Russia a major issue, which is the Donbas region, which is what they said was a military action for. The Donbas region, Lugansk and Donetsk, where there is a strong Russian-speaking majority who have been under siege, and who are at a threat, again, of assaults. That's what the statements have been. And the fact that there seems to have been also bombardment preceding even this action. In fact, some kind of civil war equivalent has been going on this region for quite some time. The last part of it is that Crimea, there are two arrows that you can see go. One goes to the Donbas region. So, it's a kind of encirclement that they're trying, it seems. And the other is going towards Odessa, which means really looking at the Black Sea coastal region. And see that it's also is taken away so that they have control over the Black Sea strategically and doesn't leave it in the hands of Ukraine. Because there was a naval base being set up over there, Rokhachov base that was being talked about, which could be used to attack the Russian navy in Black Sea. That's the argument that we are hearing. So, this arc seems to be also there by which there is an attempt to take over the coastal areas. It's interesting that the one which is going from Crimea goes to Mykolov. And it seems to be somewhere, something which doesn't really need to be there for strategic purpose of controlling the Black Sea coast that we talked about. Now, there could be a secondary target here, which is a nuclear plant, which is in Mykolov Oblast province. There's a very large nuclear plant. Maybe these are also targets. Because one of the issues, unstated issues really is the nuclear reactors in Kiev and the possibility therefore of Kiev turning towards nuclear weapons at some point of time. So, is it also meant to see that this does not happen? Therefore are the secondary targets. But again, western Ukraine doesn't seem to be under attack at the moment. It doesn't mean that this can be a policy which could be extended to western Ukraine, not from the disposition we see at the moment. So, this is broadly the military position. What is unfortunate is that we are seeing also now civilian casualties in Kharkiv and it does seem that if populated areas are taken, then of course there will be civilian casualties and casualties would be high on both sides. We see a similar possibility in Mariupol where it seems there is a strong group over there and they seem to be targets of the Russian army and they seem to be holding out as of now. So, what we will see in Mariupol could be much more bitter fighting and Kharkiv we are already seeing bitter fighting in which even in the student has lost his life. So, all these things are things to watch at the moment no let up in the military actions and no easy victories as some people might have claimed, nor is it showing any signs of slowing down as people might have also speculated. So, I think that each side is on track claiming what they are saying maybe overstated claims, but more or less claims that Ukraine claiming they are holding out in their areas and Russian advance steady and seem to be achieving the strategic goals. We do not know what the target timeline they have because that is something only they would know, but as of now significant advances and significant movement of the Russian forces have taken place even though Americans and Europeans are claiming that Russia has not used its full 150,000 to 100,000 they said were ready for entering Ukraine. They have not used their full force as yet. So, we still have to see what is in store for the war that we are seeing. Right Prabir and like you said of course one strategic aim seems to be cutting off Ukraine's access to the Black Sea. The other aspect also seems to be in some senses as a demographic component as well because the bulk of the focus seems to be in the eastern areas where the Russian speaking population is actually in more of a majority. That is the other aspect of Ukraine which people are glossing over at the moment in their hurry to look at the colour of the skin and the colour of the hair of the Ukrainian people. It's true as somebody has said his emotionally becomes much more upset when he looks at blonde hair and blue-eyed people being under attack. I think this is the deputy prosecutor of Ukraine who has said it's not a minor figure and this kind of sentiments we have heard of but the point is there are deep divisions within Ukraine and part of it is what Putin was very emotional about that Lenin created Ukraine by handing over Russian territory. The reality is that a lot of Russia's emotions are bundled up with Kiev because they look up the expansion of Kievan roots is what is the foundation of Russia is how they look at it. But if you forget the history because this is also the Kosovo history if you remember with Serbia. If you forget about that then there is no question that if you look at the eastern part of Ukraine then that is linguistically as this map will show that is linguistically much more of Russian speakers and also Russian ethnicity. If you take the western part of Ukraine this side which is there you will see that the Ukrainian language what is now being called Ukrainian language that dominates and if you look at the political map the 2010 elections between Yanukovych and Hulia Timoshenko then you will see the map very closely onto the linguistic boundaries of Ukraine. So this has been the underlying division which is there as you know after the Maidan revolution as it is called 2014 when Yanukovych was overthrown and this was orchestrated between the Newland, Mrs. Newland then you had the American ambassador in Ukraine at the time discussing with the State Department officials discussing who should be the new president and we shouldn't bother about either European Union or we shouldn't bother about who won the election Yanukovych won the election we need to overthrow him and put our man over there. So this was the turning point where actually the sham of Ukraine State being independent of the European Union and the United States essentially the NATO powers was removed and it was made clear that this is what we are going to now control Ukraine is what we are now going to control and that is the history behind what we saw later as the Donbass revolt because there is an attempt also to deny Russian language. 50% of your speaker or 45% of your people speak Russia as their first language and think that's their ethnicity then giving it a place was either necessary or you are talking of a separation separation happened in Czechoslovakia where the Czech and Slovak population mutually decided to separate it happened very brutally in Yugoslavia a Serbian Croatian and what's called the Bosnians separated and this again was NATO was instrumental as you know and break up as well as finally bombing Serbia to quote unquote liberate Kosovo which still remains as a statelet as of date. So this battle to break up Ukraine is not it doesn't happen independently of the fact that in 2014 an overthrow of an elected government and not giving space then to Russian ethnicities come up in terms of language and schools Russian was a language which was supposed to be in lots of places the medium instruction that is stopped it's not supposed to be taught you have the language and television, radio even newspapers, Russian language all of these instruments of public opinion being taken away so all of this was seen as obliteration of a identity of a section of the people now that is also the reason Russia came in in support of Donbas and has now also militarily targeted that region. So I think this part of it that's why they don't seem to be at the moment showing much military interest on the western part or west of Kiev and Kiev seems to be their target in order to see, to show to the world that they are controlling the capital militarily. So this is at the moment what we see what further lies in store for us we don't know but these are the historical currents which Putin has talked about these are the currents that we know from what we have seen and what history tells us and this is where it seems to be at the moment. Praveen of course another front on this whole issue is that of sanctions we have seen that major Russian banks are going to be cut off from swift on the 12th of March I believe we have also seen that there has been an exemption granted to purchasing Russian oil and Russian natural gas as well so those supplies are still set to continue the Russian central banks reserves, foreign reserves have been blocked so lot of questions remaining really on one how exactly is any, how exactly is trade going to continue in the first place and two does Russia have any kind of responses to the situation or are they going to face a major crisis? Well you know the crisis is of an uncertain character at the moment because nobody's ever foreseen a sanctioning of a central bank of this magnitude Russia is not a small player economically it's a primary producer of a number of goods including of course oil and gas, coal and also imports a lot of stuff so this it has an economic weight in the international scenario therefore sanctioning a central bank of this size is something which is uncharted territory for everybody now there seems to be two parts to it let me go over the two parts one is the whole foreign exchange reserves now those foreign exchange reserves are quote unquote frozen and what does it mean when you freeze Russian reserves which are for instance in dollars or in euros we don't know because does it mean that Russia is therefore losing means expropriation of the reserves because that would be a step beyond what the parties are saying so the freezing of the assets of this variety which is what they would then be able to use for payment of things then they buy they can't pay for that now so effectively freezing of the assets to me is equivalent to expropriation so that is a very very significant act of war so this is economic war let's call it what it is the second part of this is that they have not as you said sanctioned the banks that deal with oil and gas now oil and gas the banks gas from bank for instance is one of them there's another bank which deals with gas and oil exports now if they export the oil and gas what are they going to be paid in and how will Russia receive that money if they're paid in dollars or they paid in euros now they can't take it inside because normally what they would do is either buy stuff in dollars or in euros and export it to Russia transact that dollar or euro account can they do it even if they are not cut off from the swift are they allowed to do it this is one question if they bring it to Russia then of course what happens is their Russian central bank then is essentially holding dollar reserves or euro reserves and then that also gets frozen so what happens to this is not clear so the idea that Russia would accumulate frozen assets if that is the idea then that won't fly so Russia has no interest or incentive to do it so that is one big question that how the non sanctioned banks which deal with energy will still continue and these are not small amounts that you are talking about because I think about 25-30% of EU's gas comes from Russia for Germany for instance 40% or 50% of their coal comes from Russia for United States heavy crude after Venezuela Russia is the only supplier since Venezuela is embargoed so that they are getting from Russia and they don't want to sanction that because that will be a huge hole in their production of oil so all of this how they are going to handle can they have their cake and eat it too is the issue that we have to face and the argument that those banks can continue with business as usual seems to be that there is going to be very asymmetric behavior that they expect out of Russia and Russia of course have the possibility of retaliation we have to see whether this money can be used for again external account settling their external account or not and if not then we are in a different situation of course they have the option of doing the oil and gas and coal transfers in Remini so Chinese currency could be used but more important than any of this is this is a significant blow to the primacy of the dollar in future because every country in the world will have to think that if United States want European Union and United States go together if they want they have the ability now to show any country and seize their foreign assets and that is an important issue the Russian response has been of course to declare basically their currency is not convertible 80% of any investment that has been made in Russia cannot be taken out so there are various capital controls there going so the external account we can go to a scenario where for instance which India had once upon a time Russia also had a non-convertible currency so that is one way of responding and I think that they have already started so those things are there but seizing of assets and you can see the amount of assets we are talking about except for the gold and what they hold in China the Chinese bank as the graphic shows the rest of it is all held either in foreign banks or in liquid assets which we don't know what or where it is held but since they are dollar or euro assets they are at definitely at risk of being frozen they cannot be transacted so essentially that's a kind of indirect seizure of their foreign assets and from it finally like I said the question that's on everyone's mind right now which is that is there a possibility for both sides to withdraw from the current face-off that they're in we do know that one round of talks did take place no senior officials of course participating in those round of talks they both presented a series of demands which probably have been what are called maximalist demands but in the coming days is there a possibility where of course difficult to predict but is there a possibility where there could be some kind of negotiations and this immediate conflict ends I don't think Ukrainian is even a player in all this because Russia is concerned they want to deal with NATO and if NATO is not on the table Ukraine is not in a position to negotiate anything because Ukraine at the moment has become essentially in the hands of NATO completely it has virtually given up its autonomy as we can see so the off ramp has to come either from Russia saying okay now we are willing to negotiate we'll stop the advance I don't see them doing it because at the moment why should they do it if the other side is not reciprocating anything so the entire exercise they have done seems to then go into a deep freeze and it doesn't get them anywhere so I think they will then push on for some tangible benefits on the European Union and NATO side European Union at the moment has more or less surrendered its autonomy to the United States and one of the fallouts of Afghanistan we had said is the weakening of NATO we seem to see European Union now much more integrated with within NATO Germany talking about increasing its military spending etc so what we have to talk is does United States offer an off ramp which is essentially NATO's expansion in Ukraine and in the Baltic States putting nuclear missiles over there putting missile batteries over there unless these come under discussion I do not see there is a immediate off ramp to this war at the moment so both sides have to come down to the key question where does the military balance now remain and is the military balance is somewhere in between the maximalist positions of Russia and the maximalist positions of the day of NATO or is there a possibility somewhere in between in both sides can reluctantly but come together now if they don't we are facing a very very dangerous time because these are all nuclear power so I don't think we should really neglect that dimension of the problem and there are 15 nuclear reactors in Ukraine that's not a small number anything happens over there you are going to see another Chernobyl in that part of the world let's not forget it happened once it can easily happen again and the midst of war to keep nuclear reactors safe it's not an easy task so I think all of those things we have to take into account how to Russia wages war and how can it withdraw from it and how can NATO stop its rather reckless march towards the east which people like Kissinger, Keenan, George Keenan the doyen of American foreign policy all of them had said this is not the way to go we should really think much more about it and this is not a long term it's not going to be of help to the world or to NATO or to the United States I think that is something we need to put back on the table absolutely thank you so much for being here the coming days of course will be crucial it will be coming back with mapping fault lines to look at some of these developments until then keep watching NewsClick