How can our democratic governments rationalize their decision not to intervene militarily in Ukraine, considering the irrationality of their position?
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
Russian forces daily violate the rules of the law of war, both the Jus ad bellum (the causes that legitimize war) that the Juice in bello (those that govern the conduct of war).
There are currently more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees and it is estimated that at the rate of their arrival, there will be 1 million refugees for every five days of the conflict. By avoiding a direct confrontation with Russia, the consequences of the human crisis will destabilize the European Union (EU) with, among other things, this influx of refugees. Is it a rational solution to allow Putin the right to annihilate the people of Ukraine and leave the West alone to bear the consequences of his illegal and unilateral actions?
Europe is already experiencing difficulties with the crisis of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, what will happen with 5 million refugees who will no longer want to return to a Russian territory whose infrastructure will have been destroyed and the inhabitants will have become dying?
PHOTO MICHAEL SOHN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ukrainian refugees line up for food after arriving in Germany at Berlin’s main train station on Tuesday.
The West faces a paradox. Without his help, Ukraine will quickly fall under Putin’s thumb; but the more we help it, the more we contribute to its destruction and the more we fuel a humanitarian crisis that will soon be out of control. We should also remember that by refusing to intervene militarily on Ukrainian soil, the West is once again allowing Russia to decide unilaterally, by force, on the future of the sovereign countries that border it. Once Ukraine is under Russian control, what will be Putin’s next objective? Connecting the Kaliningrad enclave? Is the West just postponing the inevitable? The longer you wait, the higher the costs will be.
Putin legitimizes the war in Ukraine by proclaiming the fictional narrative that Ukrainians are committing genocide against the Russian minority. Rather, aren’t we witnessing, dumbfounded, that of the Ukrainian people, considering the intensity of the bombardments directed towards the civilian population and the humanitarian corridors?
Should we again regret our inaction, as was the case during the genocide in Rwanda?
In the event of genocide, shouldn’t States intervene to put an end to it? What good are our conventions if tyrants can circumvent them at will, while continuing to commit atrocities?
It should also be remembered that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) intervened militarily at the end of the 1990s, without the consent of the United Nations Organization (UN), in order to protect the Kosovars against the abusive offensive Serbian forces. How are Ukrainians so different from Kosovars?
Is international society trying again to ease its conscience by listing war crimes so that, following the end of hostilities, the International Criminal Court can judge the criminals it manages to capture? But doesn’t this international society have an obligation to act immediately when it witnesses such crimes being committed?
As an excuse for not intervening, the UN Security Council recognized the Russian veto against condemnation of the illegal and illegitimate war that Moscow is waging in Ukraine. How can we accept that one of the permanent members, at the origin of a war, can prevent any condemnation of its actions, while giving itself the right to go against the foundations of the Charter of the United Nations ? The whole thing looks suspiciously like the final years of the League of Nations in the 1930s.
To let Putin wage this illegal war to satisfy his needs without preventing him from doing so is to become an accomplice and to recognize that, from now on, each major nuclear power will be able to evade international conventions, as it sees fit, thus sounding the death knell of the UN.
Remember the preamble to the United Nations Charter:
We, the peoples of the United Nations, resolute
- to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which twice in the space of a human lifetime has inflicted untold human suffering;
- to reaffirm our faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women, and of nations large and small;
- to create the conditions necessary to maintain justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law;
- to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.
Considering the stalemate of the Russian forces and the intensification of their destructive capacity following the courageous resistance of the Ukrainians whom we are fueling, is it not time to put an end to this barbarism by imposing our own non-negotiable ultimatum on Putin?
It is time for the West to threaten Russia with the establishment of a no-fly zone over Ukraine if it does not agree to an unconditional general ceasefire, to force a return to fair negotiations between the parties, with the contribution of the United Nations as mediator.