Following these developments, I think my common sense tells me that this is the last act of President Putin. But if this would happen it means a new start for Ukraine will also come. War stops and all efforts must be focused on normalizing Ukraine, rehabilitating and rebuilding devastated cities and communities. close to five million Ukraine refugees – old people, mothers, young children that fed the country – would thus be able to return to their respective towns in stages, in accordance with the progress of the rehabilitation and rebuilding of all the devastated buildings, houses and everything destroyed in the last continuous bombing more than a month long. Area-wise Russia takes some territory, enlarging Crimea with Donbas and nearby areas. For Ukraine this is still better than continuing a war without any certainty as to when it might end.
But all the rehabilitation and rebuilding is logically impossible to be financed by Ukraine itself, since the country is economically and financially bankrupt. There has been proposed something like a “Marshal Plan” to aid Ukraine, from the US and its allies, and any other country willing to provide grants and aid for rebuilding Ukraine and its system of government. Let us hope this is what will be going to happen.
Final notes.
At this juncture I think it is worthwhile to ponder some sensitive issues that seem to complicate our assessment of what has been developing. There seems to be some misunderstanding about President Putin, despite his tolerance of different religious practices, whether Moslems or Christians in Russia or countries neighboring Russia and former parts of the Soviet Union, like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizstan and Bosnia Herzegovina. This is very true. At the same tie, it is also true what was reported on the killing in Aleppo, Syria of 440 civilians that included 90 children in 2016. It was also true on the killing of civilians in Chechnya in 2000 – all Moslems. I think something similar occurred in Georgia. On other fronts, we should remember how autocratic President Xi Jinping has treated the people of Uighur, Xinjiang as well as the Myanmar junta, which continues the practice of the previous regime not to recognise the Rohingya as citizens of Myanmar, merely because they are Moslems and not Buddhists like them.
Finally, I must reiterate that I am writing this column based on my status as a normal human being with a belief that all of us are God’s creations, endowed with equal rights. I am not a political scientist, an international relations expert nor scholar of communism. I am just an academician with a conscience, full of empathy for the plight of those refugees or marginalised people, second-class citizen in their own respective country. I cannot do much about this, but somehow believe in the power of good write-ups, and have a little hope that this could spark a similar feeling, which could transform into action to help them out from their plight.