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Russia on February 15 announced that it’s pulling back some troops from the borders of Ukraine in the first clear signal that it was ready for de-escalation. The announcement came hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin met the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in the Kremlin. “Units of the southern and western military districts, having completed their tasks, have already begun loading onto rail and road transport and today they will begin moving to their military garrisons,” the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement. But the West remained sceptical. A day after the Russian announcement, both NATO and the U.S. said that there were no signs of actual Russian troop pull-back. U.S. President Joe Biden went a step ahead, saying he was “convinced” that Mr. Putin made the decision to attack Ukraine. Allegations of ceasefire violations by both the Ukraine government and the rebels in Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region raised turned up the heat, with the Pentagon saying the clashes could be the pretext Russia was seeking for an attack.
But if one cuts through the clutter of rhetoric, there are “signs of peace”, argued this editorial of The Hindu. While Russia has mobilised over 130,000 troops on the three sides of Ukraine, it has also kept all the diplomatic channels open. And three European leaders and many more diplomats visited Moscow in recent weeks. Of them, the diplomatic interventions made by French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Mr. Scholz were particularly significant. While Mr. Macron took steps to revive the Minsk Accords to address Ukraine’s internal conflict, Mr. Scholz said twice, first in Kiev and then in Moscow, that Ukraine’s entry into NATO is “not on the agenda right now”. In a televised address, U.S. President Joe Biden, who warned Russia of “severe costs”, also said, “Neither the U.S. nor NATO have missiles in Ukraine. We do not — do not have plans to put them there...” Put together, these proposals offer at least solid talking points to push for a diplomatic solution. While the rhetoric of a conflict is still high, all sides remain open to walking down the diplomatic road.
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India and the world
In the annual Munich Security Conference, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said India’s relations with China were going through a “very difficult phase” after Beijing violated border agreements. “For 45 years there was peace, there was stable border management, there were no military casualties on the border from 1975,” he said at a panel discussion. “That changed because we had agreements with China not to bring military forces to the… we call it the border but it’s Line of Actual Control, and the Chinese violated those agreements.” Mr. Jaishankar also, at the conference, dismissed the notion that Quad (the U.S., Japan, Australia and India) is an Asian NATO. “Quad is a grouping of four countries who have common interests, common values, a great deal of comfort, who happen to be located at four corners of the Indo-Pacific, who found out that in this world no country, not even the U.S., has the ability to address global challenges all on their own,” he said.
India’s Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar at the Quad foreign ministers’ press conference in Melbourne. | Photo Credit: AP
China, however, equated the Quad with the AUKUS (Australia, U.K., U.S.) defence pact, calling both “exclusive cliques” part of the Biden administration’s “ill-intentioned” Indo-Pacific strategy. “What the U.S. says in its ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’ is different from what it is actually doing. The U.S. claims to advance ‘freedom and openness’ in the region, but is in fact forming an exclusive clique through AUKUS and Quad,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said.
In a separate development, India and the United Arab Emirates signed a bilateral “comprehensive” trade pact on Friday. “This agreement will herald a new age in our financial relations. Our trade in the next five years will increase from $60 billion to $100 billion,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a virtual summit with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.
The Top Five
What we are reading this week - the best of The Hindu‘s Opinion and Analysis
- Is the post-Cold War security order changing? In a discussion with The Hindu, P.S. Raghavan, the former chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, and Nandan Unnikrishnan, distinguished fellow at ORF, New Delhi, discuss the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the push for a new security equilibrium in Europe.
- A “Freedom Convoy” that is turning into a roadblock to public safety What are the demands of Canada’s protesting truckers? Why has Prime Minister Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act? G. L. Narayanan explains the Canadian truckers protests in Text and Context.
- Tackling racism in Hong Kong, one joke at a time The everyday experience of Indians in Hong Kong is a central theme in the comedy routines of Vivek Mahbubani, reports Ananth Krishnan from Hong Kong.
- Putin’s man at the table Russia’s long-time Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is facing a tough challenge over Ukraine, writes Stanly Johny in The Hindu Profiles.
- A nexus fostering Muslim authoritarianism The Islam-state relationship must be redesigned to promote intellectual and economic creativity, argues A. Faizur Rahman.
Neighbourhood Watch
Residents line up to get tested for the coronavirus at a temporary testing center despite the rain in Hong Kong, February 21, 2022. | Photo Credit: AP
Hong Kong’s government said last week it was facing “a tsunami” of new COVID-19 cases that had overwhelmed its hospitals and left more than 10,000 people waiting for treatment. The crisis prompted Chinese President Xi Jinping to ask the Hong Kong government “to take all necessary measures” to bring the outbreak under control. Mr. Xi said the SAR government “must take the main responsibility”, “mobilise all forces and resources that can be mobilised”, and “stabilise the situation as soon as possible”, Ananth Krishnan reports from Hong Kong.
The SAR also decided to delay the election of the next Chief Executive by six weeks due to the COVID surge. Chief Executive Carrie Lam said it would take at least two months to stabilise the current surge and bring it under control.
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