Russia-Ukraine war

We are witnessing the most devastating war since the second world with serious socio economic, financial, and humanitarian consequences.

The immediate and long-term adverse effect of the Russian war on Ukraine and on the entire global community includes high energy prices resulting in increased cost of travel, increased hunger due to excessive cost of food, inflation of commodity prices resulting in slowing down of major projects due to escalation of project cost, shrunken international trade and overall slowdown of global economic growth. These damaging issues are already being seen but analysts predict even more adverse effects.

Another damaging feature of this Putin’s war is the humanitarian toll. Thousands of Ukrainians mostly civilians – women and children, have been injured, killed, or displaced from their homes, creating another world record of being the highest refugee situation since the last world war.

Most Ukrainians being of Jewish ancestry, this situation is reminiscent of the holocaust. Is Ukraine the place of the latest Jewish persecution as we saw in Egypt, Babylon, and Hitler’s Germany.

Why the war? One will ask. The only answer but lacking reason is simply that Vladmir Putin, the Russian leader is simply mad and suffering from megalomania. Just when the world is beginning to recover from a global pandemic that has damaged economies and caused the death of millions, it is worrisome that such blatant and flagrant abuse of power by a world leader can still be perpetrated while the world looks on. For fear of escalation of the war into a global war which could result in use of nuclear weapons, leaders of other superpower nations like United States have only responded non-militarily by imposing economic sanctions on Russia. Is this enough? The question remains. The United Nations apparent powerlessness can best be explained by the fact that Russia the perpetrator of this crime heads the United Nations security council.

Analysts and the media have shown that war crimes have been committed and are trying to gather all the evidence to support a possible future prosecution of offenders. One can only hope that this will be realised.

Chinyere Ifegwu

#MMBA3