The world is watching the war being waged in Ukraine. This theatre presents Vladimir Putin as a villain and Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the tragic hero. The Ukrainian president is crying for help to protect his country’s sovereignty. He is seeking help from the USA-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, but the latter has so far abstained from direct military action to drive away from the invading Russians from Ukraine’s soil. 

America and the West have resolutely condemned this Russian misadventure. They have imposed sanctions and are equipping the Ukrainian military with sophisticated arms. Thousands of lives have already been lost on both sides. Horrific scenes of invasion, telecast to the world outside, are heartrending. Pounding of missiles on residential buildings, schools and hospitals in Ukraine is a demonic display of Russian military might. Scenes of charred buildings, from which smoke billows, lay bare the brutality of Putin’s military. Deserted city streets and long queues of frantic refugees flash up on television screens and appear on social and print media. They bring tears to my eyes. 

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To many of us, Putin is the present-day incarnation of Genghis Khan who slaughtered millions of people to realize his dream. He is also compared to Adolf Hitler who invaded Poland this way in 1939. But what is in Putin’s mind? Does he want to reverse the course of history by bringing back the Soviet Union? Maybe, he is dreaming of retrieving the lost empire of czarist Russia? Is he that crazy? Is it that he wants to annex all of Ukraine or only the eastern Donbas region? He says he wants demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine, but the West does not believe him. The liberal world is viewing him as a demon who has ruthlessly invaded his sovereign and democratic neighbour. Now we need to look at another side of the coin for it needs two hands to clap. Putin is on one hand, and the other is the US-led Western Europe. Let us examine the course of actions of the US-led NATO and the growing trust- deficit between them and Putin that triggered and culminated in the current war. Let us look back at recent history. First, Gorbachev came to power in March 1985 as president of the Soviet Union. He launched perestroika, which is restructuring, and Glasnost, which means openness to the world. The Soviet people breathed a sigh of relief. He was welcomed as a messiah of freedom and democracy. He freed them from the shackles of the dictatorial communist regime. 

Presidents of leading Soviet republics wanted to be free from the union. In December 1991, three presidents, Boris Yeltsin of Russia, Stanislav Shushkevich of Belarus and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine met secretly at Belavezha in Belarus. That meeting rang the death knell of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union broke apart and so did the military alliance with all Soviet satellite countries. The Warsaw pact ceased to exist. 

Russia without the Soviet Union turned out as a big issue for American diplomacy in the post-cold war world order. President Yeltsin had to deal with America as a free nation in the absence of the USSR. What would be new Russia’s policy with regard to America? Yeltsin wished for global peace, solidarity and brotherhood. He sought America’s hands to reach that goal jointly. He went to America in February 1992 to address the joint session of the US Congress where he said, “Soviet Union is no more and so cold war enmity has to be renounced”. America should now treat Russia as it treats Germany, Italy and Japan. All three were America’s arch enemies during the Second World War. Yeltsin sought America’s hand for friendship. But what was America’s response? Early in 1992, a document was produced in the White House by Paul Wolfowitz, then under-secretary of defence. Sometime later this document was leaked to the New York Times. It asserts that the US must always be a superior power and the document describes Russia as a bear that might get up on its hind legs again and growl. Thus, American hostility and suspicion towards the new state of Russia never did ebb. 

Second, now let us turn back to the Gorbachev era. He was a reformer in his thoughts and actions. The East Germans appealed to him to allow them to unite with their kith and kin of West Germany. They requested Gorbachev to allow them to take down the Berlin wall. Gorbachev consented to an assurance by James Baker, the US secretary of state, that NATO would not move an inch eastward if the Berlin wall was removed. But this promise was broken by the US just four years later. Nato took in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1996 as members. America thus betrayed Russia by breaking the promise that it gave to Gorbachev. This was a blatant breach of trust. The famous American diplomat George Ken- nen said then ‘this is the beginning of a new cold war. 

Third, the trouble over Ukraine actually started at Nato’s Bucharest summit where President George W Bush persuaded NATO to include Ukraine and Georgia. Putin then warned that Ukraine may join Nato but it would do so without Crimea and Donbas. America ignored Rus- sia’s redline. 

Fourth, in February 2014, the US-fostered uprising in Ukraine forced pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovych to flee the country. It was immediately followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea and the civil war in Donbas. 

Fifth, the Trump administration sold huge amounts of arms and ammunition to Ukraine to crush the rebellion in Donbas. In July 2021, America and Ukraine conducted a joint military operation called Operation Sea Breeze and just four months later, in November 2021, a US-Ukraine strategic partnership was signed. Thus, the US paved the way for the Russian military to get in and maraud sovereign Ukraine. Putin is a villain, but the villainy of the US and the West should never be forgotten.