Opinion: Holding Putin accountable
Hyderabad: Two days before he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin in his long-winded, unhinged and bizarre speech while expressing his grievances against the West for its eastward expansion of NATO allegedly threatening Russia’s security, dismissed Ukraine’s existence as a state, stating it was a fiction and created by Lenin in 1922. […]
Hyderabad: Two days before he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin in his long-winded, unhinged and bizarre speech while expressing his grievances against the West for its eastward expansion of NATO allegedly threatening Russia’s security, dismissed Ukraine’s existence as a state, stating it was a fiction and created by Lenin in 1922.
As many military experts and war correspondents have commented, Russian troops have not only been incompetent in their operations and tactics but have shown utter disregard for rules of war and international law by consistently engaging in unspeakable, countless atrocities such as bombing deliberately and indiscriminately housing complexes, schools, hospitals, commercial centres besides committing murder, rape and stealing.
Atrocities
For instance, in March, Russia bombed and destroyed Mariupol’s maternity hospital, and a few days later, a theatre building where thousands of Ukrainians were sheltered, killing hundreds of civilians, including children. And until recently, Putin’s regime had refused to provide a corridor for thousands of civilians who were hiding at the Mariupol’s steel complex for months. Reports indicate Putin forced thousands of Ukrainians to migrate to Russia in violation of international law.
In the wake of these atrocities, US President Joe Biden has called Putin a “war criminal” and European leaders, though hesitant initially, have tacitly agreed with Biden. If Putin believes that Ukrainians and Russians are one people, one would have expected him to halt his troops from behaving so recklessly and horrendously. The victims of Russian atrocities are both Ukrainians and Russians (Russians account for 23% of Ukraine’s population).
Putin’s rationale for the invasion to remove the Nazis is ludicrous when the country’s President is Jewish. Putin’s troops, it appears, are emulating the Nazis in Ukraine. Nearly 14 million Ukrainians have become refugees on account of this unjustified invasion. Eight million refugees are camped in the neighbouring countries such as Poland, Romania and Moldova.
It is estimated that Ukraine may need over $100 billion, involving decades of restructuring, to restore it to its pre-invasion level. Harvard’s eminent emeritus law Professor Laurence Tribe proffers US Congress a legal basis to use the Russian $100 billion frozen assets in the US towards Ukraine’s reconstruction as reparations for illegal invasion. European leaders too are talking along the same lines.
Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flippantly talk of using nuclear weapons against their enemies when they are the aggressors, and when they fully know well it will be MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) for both Russia and the West.
Dubious Claims
During the outbreak of the Russia Civil War (1918-20), following the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution, Ukraine had enjoyed quasi-independence but was partitioned between the Soviet union and newly independent Poland. But by December 1922, the two parts of Ukraine were joined to become one of the Soviet Socialist 15 republics under Lenin, the father of the Russian revolution, in the name of self-determination.
But during Stalin’s regime, as Ukrainians resisted his forced collectivisation, Joseph Stalin ruthlessly starved (Holodomor) them during 1932-33, which killed 3.5-5 million Ukrainians. He called them Kulaks (landlords) although most of them were small farm peasants. He, however, permitted Ukraine to be a separate member of the newly founded United Nations.
Following the collapse of the Soviet union in December 1991, President Boris Yeltsin (1990-99) let Ukraine declare itself as an independent nation and recognised it as an independent nation. Putin who refuses to recognise its existence, in 2014 annexed Crimea and declared the predominantly populated Donbas region independent and is supporting the rebels although historians point out that until the 19th century that area was populated mostly by Ukrainians. With the invasion, Putin now seeks to restore the Czarist empire which he is unlikely to achieve.
Rentier Nation
With the gaining of independence from the Soviet bloc in 1991, all the Eastern European countries have not only emerged as functioning democracies but are emerging gradually as prosperous nations too. Russia is the only country in Europe which continues to be an autocratic nation, an anomaly. A country bountifully blessed with natural resources with the second largest scientific manpower in the world could have outpaced China as an industrial giant if Russians, perhaps, had enjoyed political and economic freedoms as the West has done. Russia remains a rentier nation depending primarily on oil and arms exports. Putin is the longest reigning autocrat of the Russian Federation since 1999 outpacing Stalin’s regime (1924-53). He has almost made himself president for life. He has jailed nearly 15,000 protesters who have opposed the invasion. As Ukrainian military sources indicate, 30,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives in Ukraine, double the number lost in the eight-year Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during 1979-88.
Ukrainians and Western powers are calling for the trial of Russian generals and Putin for their alleged war crimes at the International Criminal Court, The Hague. Although it is unlikely that Putin will be held accountable at this court given the fact that Russia is not a member of this court, and Putin is unlikely to visit a country that is a member of the court where he can be apprehended and handed over, there are other avenues Ukrainians and the West may explore to hold Putin and his generals accountable.
With the help of international experts, Ukrainians are gathering data to submit evidence to the UN International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
India’s Neutrality
It is true that since Khrushchev’s time, the Soviet Union/Russia has been a trusted ally of India standing with it in its conflict with Pakistan and China in international forums, besides providing military and economic aid since the 1950s. But with the interlocution of market reforms since 1991, as India has diversified its economy and military, it has reduced its dependency on Russia although it still purchases arms, oil, fertilizers etc.
Following Putin’s invasion, India took a neutral stand at the UN Security Council, UN General Assembly and UN Human Rights Council when more than 140 countries denounced Russia’s act. Taking a neutral stand while obliquely calling on Russia to respect one’s sovereignty and independence is not enough. As such, the Modi government has undermined its moral high ground and credibility. Meanwhile, the US Freedom House and the Economist magazine have ranked India as “partly free”, a blemish on Indian democracy. Let us hope the Modi government introspects and restores India to full democracy.
(The author is a retired professor of Political Science, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA) 
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