For Russian president Vladamir Putin, capturing Kyiv and making a regime change was the only visible opinion at the start of the war.
However, it is now widely believed that the war has entered into a stalemate which is surely a win for both the United States and Ukraine.
In the times of asymmetrical warfare when the Russian and Ukrainian forces had no apparent competition, and the downfall of the government in Kyiv seemed inevitable, Ukrainians have managed to pose an appreciable amount of resistance against the military might of an autocratic country that can cross any length to achieve its foreign policy ambitions.
Ukraine is the Powermaker of the Whole Europe
In any geographical region, there is always one country that has the capability to control the politics of that region. According to Halford John Mackinder, who was an English geographer of the early 1900s, anyone controlling the region of Eastern Europe would have controlled the whole world.
This region was surrounded by the global powers of Russia and Germany. Back then, the status of Germany was unparalleled as the country used to dictate the whole world.
Similarly, Russian communism was at its peak as it tried to expand the same in the region. Thus the said region of Eastern Europe was composed of modern-day Ukraine. And this is no surprise as Ukraine is enriched with natural resources like oil, coal, and grain.
When the Soviet Union broke into pieces, Ukraine was the second largest and the equally powerful country just beyond modern-day Russia.
Had Ukraine decided not to give up its nuclear arsenals to Russia, it would have been the third most nuclear-populated country just beyond America and Russia now.
Many perceived that Mackinder’s argument was outdated in today’s world, and the geographical importance of the country was overestimated.
However, more than 100 years down the line of the thesis, it seems that Mackinder’s theory is turning out to be true.
When he made this prediction, the actual contest to control modern-day Ukraine was between Russia and Germany. Now only one thing has changed, i.e. Germany is being replaced by the whole west in general.
In fact, Germany was working in collaboration with Russia to get its gas pipeline which is currently in stalemate due to western sanctions on Russia.
Ukraine is the epicenter of global attention once again
The power gap seems to emerge in the same powerhouse of Europe even after the Russian invasion. As the war enters the stalemate, the establishment in Ukraine sees a glimpse of hope in the recent developments in the country.
The videos of the downed Russian tanks and abandoned vehicles are getting viral on social media. The only threat which remains for the western world in general and Ukraine, in particular, is the will of Putin to go nuclear.
Recent talks about a limited nuclear assault should Russia lose the war is alarming to the extent that it would undo all the proceedings which happened since the war started.
Final Thoughts
The egoistic problem of Putin is also alarming for the fact that as he sees himself going in the dead-end tunnel, he is miscalculating things.
Recently Russia revealed that it used a hypersonic missile against Ukraine for the first time since the start of the conflict. This has told the world Russia is incrementally moving toward the nuclear conflict, which seems to be the only way out for Russia.
The measures of Russia to bomb the civilian population of Ukraine are also alarming as this seems to be one of the ways with which Russia could push the world to catalyze negotiations.
One of the reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed was the economic strain that it faced after draining the resources in Afghanistan.
The same is happening in Ukraine as well, as Russia’s economy was already under sanctions, and now it is just putting its resources into the war, which would put Russia back in the position of the early 1990s.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.