PEACE IN UKRAINE SERIES: PART 7

A key reason as to why Russian intervention in Lugansk and Donetsk was not viewed as humanitarian, with the Ukrainian state instead vilified in the place of Russia – aside from outdated ideological biases held in the west towards Russia – was the exorbitant amount of propaganda that flooded the screens and airwaves. Indeed, now that Russia had officially allocated troops to the Lugansk/Donetsk Peoples Republics (LPR/DPR), they could binarily be painted as the primary aggressor, the ‘bad’ in the situation. From here the ‘Western information war machine’ (Benjamin and Davies 2022 p.91) truly fell unstoppably into overdrive, even though by late March U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) sources had confirmed “they had seen no evidence at all that Russian forces were deliberately targeting civilians with airstrike or artillery” (Benjamin and Davies 2022 p.92). Days into the so called ‘invasion’ United Nations Security Council (UNSC) representative (and UNSC President) of the Russian Federation identified that so far Western media outlets, such as the BBC, had been using pictures from different conflicts in order to justify the perception of a ‘Russian Invasion’ their readers. Articles in which images of U.S. bombing missions in Syria and Libya, Western troop movements, and explosions from Beirut are sold to readers as a ‘Russian Invasion of Ukraine’ (UN 2022 1:19:15-1:20:45). Yet these pivotal criticisms were silenced by historically vested Western interest – capital - in Ukraine.

Between January-August 2022 €84.2 ($90.5) billion was officially committed to Ukraine by the West (KIEL 2022 p.2). U.S. President Joe Biden, the “midwife” of Ukraine’s 2014 Coup, returning to the scene of the crime, but now firmly in the front seat. Biden driving US investments to €44.5 ($47.7) billion, almost 4x higher than all EU countries combined (KIEL 2022 p.21). Where other studies place U.S. investment as high as $68 (€56) billion (CSIS 2022). Biden’s intentions are evermore telling when broken down by military aid commitments, which are roughly half at €21.1 billion (KIEL 2022 p.13), still double all of the EU Countries total commitments combined, which stood at €11.52 billion for 2022 (KIEL 2022 p.21). The United States continue to be the Ukrainian war’s most rapacious proponent, and, due to its recent historically vested interest in the country; the region's greatest inhibitor to peace.

[caption id="attachment_3105" align="aligncenter" width="755"] Image: KIEL Working Paper – The Ukraine Support Tracker: Which countries help Ukraine and how? P.22[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3106" align="aligncenter" width="837"] Image: KIEL Working Paper – The Ukraine Support Tracker: Which countries help Ukraine and how? P.25[/caption] These investments have not slowed down either, since August, and confirmed for the first quarter of 2023, the EU donations have rocketed to €52 ($55) billion (KIEL 2022) with US investments set to climb as high as $100 (€92) billion (CSIS 2022). The US investments in Ukraine this year now dwarfing Russia’s entire defence budget in 2021 (~$80 billion) and the heap of funding continues as we speak. It is the opinion of the author that the most direct route to peace within Ukraine following the events that have transpired in 2022, is to recognise the statehood of the de-facto states that have emerged from this crisis in Eastern Ukraine; The Lugansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics (LPR/DPR). Sadly, less than 10% of the total national commitments have been directed to directly supporting refugees (KIEL 2022).

UNDERSTANDING LUGANSK, DONETSK AND OTHER DE-FACTO STATES

De-facto states are those that possess ‘internal sovereignty’ (Bakke et al. 2017 p.160), meaning they are recognised as legitimate by the citizens that inhabit it. It could still be relatively easy to verify the legitimacy of a de-facto state, in this case the LPR/DPR, by working to re-arrange internationally monitored local elections/referenda within the nascent countries to confirm their opinion under contemporary or near-future (e.g. 5yr) terms. Yet this would simply pull Ukraine back towards adhering to the Minsk II agreements, agreements that they have intentionally skewered, as outlined. New peace plans will be treated with hesitation and as illegitimate by the LPR/DPR and only risk protracting conflagration. Meeting expected resistance from what will most likely only be painted, to those trapped in the simulacrum (Baudrillard 1994) of the Ukrainian War, as ‘Russian-backed’ ad infinitum. Or, more likely, further expanding the scope into an inter-state conflict, rather than smothering the flames of this conflict as a civil war. While 21 of these de-facto states have emerged since 1945, over half have been re-captured by their parent state; usually violently (Bakke et al. 2017). Other examples of de-facto states like the LPR/DPR currently include: Kosovo, which is only recognised by 111 of 193 UN member states (ibid. p.160); Kurdistan in Northern Iraq, which has experienced decades of conflict in its struggle for international recognition; Palestine, a country turbulently uprooted overnight by the contentious creation of the Israeli state.

For the 21 st century a more active involvement by ordinary people in the discourse that constructs and upholds the context behind international relations could reduce the flagrant violence and manipulative proxy warfare that occurs during struggles for independence. Although many more de-facto states have been crushed during their struggles for independence than those who stand today, many more budding national independence movements continue to bubble under the surface of their dominatory parent states. Ukraine could be an opportunity for the global community to review the contradictory UN Charter on Decolonisation (Resolution 1514 (XV) and input a more compliant process. This contradiction best quickly identified when one contrasts Articles 1 & 2, the ‘subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation is a denial of fundamental human rights, and is contrary to the UN Charter’. And 2, that “all peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development” (UN 1960). Against Article 6, which then states that ‘any attempts at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the UN charter’. In order to allow the non-violent precession of de-facto states to full recognition, a new process must be outlined and clandestine intervention by the United States must be addressed in order to be avoided.

The United States has continued since Ukraine in its attempt to destabilise sovereign states, poorly attempting a coup of Venezuela (Operation Gideon) as the rest of the world was distracted by ‘shock’ (Klein 2008) the COVID outbreak in May 2020. But were the US ever sanctioned for those actions? Were the United States met with the same uproar that surrounded Russian actions in 2022? Were the US ever internationally disciplined for their subversive actions either in Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, to name a few?

Following this re-contextualisation the weight of bias on the Ukrainian war is somewhat alleviated, can opinions begin to change? Is there still space to re-conceptualise the narrative to peoples of the world within the flood of Western propaganda? Only discourse will tell...

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REFERENCES

BAKKE, K.M., LINKE, A.M., O’LOUGHLIN, J. and TOAL, G. (2018). Dynamics of State-Building After War: External-internal relations in Eurasian de facto States. Political Geography , 63, pp.159–173. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.06.011.

BAUDRILLARD, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation . Translated by S.F. Glaser. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

BENJAMIN, M. and DAVIES, N.J.S. (2022). War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict . New York/London: OR Books.

Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) (2022). Aid to Ukraine Explained in Six Charts . [online] www.csis.org. Available at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/aid-ukraine-explained-six-charts [Accessed 28 Dec. 2022].

CHOMSKY, N. and HERMAN, E.S. (1979). The Political Economy of Human Rights . Black Rose Books.

GIULIANO, E. (2015). The Social Bases of Support for Self-determination in East Ukraine. Ethnopolitics , 14(5), pp.513–522. doi:10.1080/17449057.2015.1051813.

KIEL Institute for the World Economy (2022). Ukraine Support Tracker - A Database of Military, Financial and Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine . [online] www.ifw-kiel.de. Available at: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/.

KLEIN, N. (2008). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism . London: Penguin Books Ltd.

UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY (1960). A/RES/15/1514 - Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries - UN Documents: Gathering a body of global agreements . [online] un-documents.net. Available at: http://un-documents.net/a15r1514.htm [Accessed 30 Dec. 2022].

UNITED NATIONS (2022). Ukraine - Security Council | Resolution Veto | United Nations | UNTV Live (25 Feb) - Official . [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfzvRN3FYDA&t=20s[Accessed 28 Feb. 2022].