UKRAINE has been let down by its so-called “allies”. For years, it was clear that Russia was prepared to take military action against the country.
It warned incessantly that should Ukraine and the West continue their plans for the former to join Nato and thus place nuclear arms on its soil, it would retaliate.
What happened when the crunch came?
The West led Ukraine down the garden path, giving the impression that it would come to its aid. Ukraine naively and foolishly believed this nonsense.
When Russia attacked, all Ukraine’s “allies” could do was impose economic sanctions which are going to take months before they start biting as Ukrainians suffer the opprobrium of Russia.
In fact, the sanctions threat has always been a red herring. The West had been warning that Russia would have to bear the consequences of the sanctions and yet it knew Russia would never back down. The sanctions are not going to stop Russia from its objectives. It has retaliated in kind and the matter has become a conundrum.
What is hypocritical about the issue is that the West goaded Ukraine to lose its sense of rationality and goad Russia, with the false hope that when hostilities broke out it would be helped. A clear example of this is from its most vociferous “ally”, the US, which has emphatically noted that it would never ever send its army to fight the Russians.
The lesson to draw here is that small states should be wary of being used as pawns in the chess game of international skullduggery and think carefully about their own interest first.
Dr Thabisi Hoeane COD, political sciences, Unisa, Pretoria