Ukraine became a sovereign state in 1991 when the Soviet Union ceased to exist. In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea, despite the fact that it was integral part of the Ukrainian state since 1995. The same year a civil war erupted in the Dombas, the eastern part of Ukraine, with one part of the population advocating secession and the rest maintaining loyalty to the Ukrainian government. Russia provided military and diplomatic support to the secessionists.

The conflict rose to new heights on 24 February 2022, when contrary to all predictions, the Russian army invaded Ukraine. The intention was clearly to topple the democratically elected government of Ukraine, led by Volodymir Zelensky and put in place a pro-Russian puppet government. Ukraine would have returned to the pre-1991 situation: a country nominally independent but in effect completely dominated by Russia. The same recently happened in Belarus, a country bordering Ukraine.

The plan failed. Ukraine offered fierce resistance to the aggressor and continues to do so up to this day despite the slaughter of thousands of civilians and massive damage to infrastructure. Countless Ukrainian schools, hospitals, orphanages and recently the Odessa cathedral have been bombarded by the Russian army, actions which are defined as war crimes in international law.  During the last winter, the Russian regime tried to freeze Ukraine to death by targeting its power stations. The recent explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine which produced a massive flood, a crime which, from the information we have, can only be attributed to the Russian army, is another example Russia’s ruthlessness. So far, Ukraine resists. Reportedly, 54 per cent of the territory conquered by Russia during the first week of the invasion has been regained, especially in the Kharkiv and Kherson areas. Both armies have suffered heavy casualties.

 

Why the war in Ukraine?

We shall probably never know precisely why President Putin decided to invade Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The war is being fought not only on the battleground but also on the economic and ideological terrains. It is a total war. While President Putin has formulates a few reasons for what he euphemistically terms a “special operation”, analysts point out that his discourse keeps changing.

The first reason President Putin alleged was that Ukraine represented a risk to Russia’s security because of Ukraine’s desire to join NATO. This allegation is hardly convincing. Neither Ukraine, not any European country, or even the United States, have any interest in attacking Russia or even Belarus. In fact, before the war the common doctrine was that by doing business with Russia one would bring peace to Europe. Ironically, it was  Putin and his entourage and nobody else who gave NATO its current strength. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO was less and less popular among western countries. The various European governments were reluctant to spend money on defence. Without the war in Ukraine, NATO might well have disappeared. Now, it is gaining strength, with two Nordic countries –  Finland and Sweden – pplying for membership. One day Ukraine may also become a member of the organisation. The advantage is that NATO is bound to provide military support to members of the alliance when they are under attack.

Another false idea is Ukraine had to be “denazified” as President Putin put it at the beginning of the war. He still uses this language from time to time. It is correct to say that, during World War II, the western part of Ukraine made an alliance with Nazi Germany to oppose Russia which had caused enormous harm to the population. It is also true a certain number of neo-Nazi groups exist in Ukraine. But they are rather marginal. There are also neo-Nazi groups in Europe. Russia does not seem to bother about them. We should also remember that the current president of Ukraine, Volodymir Zelensky, is a Jew. To present him as a neo-Nazi is odd to say the least.

The main reason for launching an attack against Ukraine seems to have been Russia’s imperial nostalgia. Putin and his supporters have said in public that the dismantlement of the Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991 was an error. According to them the former Soviet Republics still belong to Russia. Ukraine has a complicated history. The Ukrainian identity only developed in the 18th century. For many years what is Ukraine today was shared between Poland, Austria and Russia. While Russian propaganda claims that Ukraine is part of Russia, most Ukrainians, even those who speak Russian, vehemently reject this.

A related reason is the weakness of Russia’s economy prior to the invasion of Ukraine. While Ukraine is a relatively poor country, struggling to get rid of the corruption that plagues it since the Soviet time, it is one of the world’s top agricultural producers and exporters. It produces corn, wheat and sunflower in great quantities. Russia also produces food, especially in the south of the country, but not enough.  Colonizing Ukraine would have resolved this problem. To complicate the picture one should note that vast conglomerates, owned not only by ex-Soviet oligarchs but by multinational corporations linked to the West, control Ukraine’s agriculture. This was another incentive for the war.

This brings us to what is the main reason for the conflict. Since Ukraine became independent in 1991, Victor Yanukovych, a man who favoured the Russian interests, served two terms as President, the first time after having been elected in dubious circumstances and the second time in a free and fair election but followed by a pro-Russian sequence for which he had not been elected. On both occasion, massive pro-European popular protest took place: the so-called Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Maidan movement in 2013-2014. Both were successful, despite heavy repression. New leaders came into power, the last one being Volodymir Zelensky.

 

Russia is an autocratic country behind a façade of democracy. .There is a profound difference in the political culture of the two countries, with Ukraine resolutely moving towards liberal democracy, something that is completely unacceptable to the Russian elite. Those who courageously fight for democracy in Russia like Alexei Navalny are severely repressed. Hundreds of thousands of western-minded Russians have left the country in 2022.

 

The impact of the war in Ukraine on South Africa

Like China, India, Brazil and a number of African states, South Africa has refused to condemn the invasion of Ukraine. It claims to adopt a neutral position despite evident signs of alliance with Russia, in military matters for example, which irritate its western partners. In June, President Ramaphosa led a delegation of African leaders to Ukraine and Russia in a vain attempt to end the conflict through mediation.

The war in Ukraine is having negative economic repercussions on the entire world including the African continent. Ukraine is one of the biggest producers of wheat in the world, but since the war, it is only able to export a fraction of its previous production. For a few months, Russia allowed Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea corridor but recently refused to renew the agreement, at the risk of worsening the shortage of food in the rest of the world, particularly Africa. Russia on the other hand is unable (because of economic sanctions) or unwilling (in order to weaken the European economy) to export gas and petrol. As a result, the price of these two commodities has skyrocketed, in this way affecting the South African consumer is directly.

South Africa, Putin and BRICS

In May 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague indicted President Putin and the Russian Children’s Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the abduction of an estimated 19,000 Ukrainian children to Russia, mostly from occupied eastern part of the country. They received new identity documents and were compelled to adopt the Russian language and culture. The ICC pre-trial judges said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that [both] suspects bear the responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population”.

Since 2010 South Africa is a member of an economic forum called BRICS (Brazil – Russia – India – China – South Africa). BRICS is meant to forge closer relationships between five countries which have in common not to be aligned with the United States, Europe and Australia. It an expression of the multi-polarity of the world today. One can say that as such it is a project that has merits.

On 22-24 August 2023 South Africa will host the annual BRICS summit. The war in Ukraine has put the South African government and its president in legal quagmire for a few weeks. As signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, South Africa was expected to act on the warrant of arrest issued against President Putin for ordering the illegal abduction to Russia of an estimated 19,000 Ukrainian children. If South Africa had arrested Putin, it would have alienated itself from its BRICS partners. If it had not, it would have signalled that South Africa does not respect the rule of law and cannot be trusted to honour international treatises Nobody would have taken South Africa’s claim to be neutral in the conflict seriously. In retaliation, the US might have refused to renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which grants South African products duty-free access to the American market.

The drama is now over.  On 19 July, President Putin notified South Africa that he would not come in person to the BRICS summit but rather send his minister of defence to represent Russia.   What exactly happens, nobody knows.  Was Putin afraid of being arrested after all?  Did the South African government convince him that his coming would have weakened the country and by extension BRICS? The truth may emerge one day. What the recent crisis has showed is the precariousness of South Africa’s international position and the divisions in its midst on how to deal with a regime which has illegally invaded another one and committed serious war crimes.

 

The reasons alleged for South Africas neutrality

Until the BRICS affair, there was hardly any debate on the war in Ukraine in South Africa. Information about the conflict is scarce. For many it remain an “European problem”.  The debate, when there is one, goes along the usual political divide with the EFF and the RET faction within the ANC favouring Russia and those on the other end of the political spectrum expressing solidarity with Ukraine.

Those who argue in favour of neutrality contend that as a neutral country South Africa would. be in a better position to broker an agreement between the two warring parties, which will bring peace and reconciliation. This is the position of President Ramaphosa, of President Lula from Brazil and of Pope Francis.   In favour of this position, one can say that any form of communication, formal or informal, between Russia one hand and Ukraine and his European supporters on the other hand through intermediaries of good will may reduce the tension, which is very high at the moment, and save lives. If Russia had a forum to express its legitimate grievances (without massive disinformation as it has done so far) some form of de-escalation may be possible.

This being said, what would be the agenda of such a meeting? Of which peace are we talking about? Should Ukraine accept, for the sake of peace, to cede a sizable part of its territory illegally invaded and annexed by Russia? Will Ukraine’s capitulation really bring peace? Is it not more likely to incite Russia to take the aggression further in a year or two and attack another country? This is what Poland is fearing from example.

It it not more reasonable to say that the only basis for a lasting peace is the unconditional withdrawal of the Russian troops from Ukraine including Crimea? If Russia fears, rightly or wrongly, that its security is at risk, this point can be discussed. But not the right of a country to invade another one in total impunity.

During apartheid, the consensus among activists, Christian or not, was that there was no reconciliation without justice. This was the key message of the Kairos Document. Is Ukraine not in a similar position? There is some similarity between this situation and the one we experience today in Ukraine.

A second issue, more complex, is that of double standards. Some, among the advocates of neutrality, argue that the West – and by extension Ukraine which, in its majority, is pro-European – also attacked other countries, for example Iraq in 2001 or Libya in 2011, not to mention the colonial wars. Why then should we support Ukraine if its godfather, the European Union (and the United States) also acted as an aggressor and committed war crimes?

Looking at the current situation from a global perspective, we cannot help noticing that the war in Ukraine reveals a deep fracture in the world. When a vote was taken on the war in Ukraine in the United Nations in February 2023, 141 countries voted in favour a resolution condemning the invasion, 5 against and 35 (including South Africa) abstained. This shows that a significant number of countries, mostly in the South, de facto accept the invasion of Ukraine. For Russia, this is a major diplomatic victory. What we see here is a manifestation, in a not-so-disguised way, of an anti-colonial agenda.

Elements of a Christian response

It is important to take into account this anti-colonial sentiment. The Western powers do have their own contradictions. They are not well placed to give a lesson on democracy to their former colonies.

Yet, if we were to suggest a Christian response, we could return to the argument. We could say: why do countries which suffered from French, British and American imperialism, accept without protest that Ukraine is subject to Russian imperialism, that its infrastructure is destroyed and that thousands of civilians, including women and children, are murdered day after day? Is sending away children against the will of their parents and families, as Russia has been doing in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, acceptable from a Christian point of view? Is the truth for the North different from the truth for the South? Is not the refusal to condemn the aggression of Ukraine a form of collaboration?

The Christian churches have indeed a long history of collaboration with oppressive regimes. But they also supported those who fought for justice and democracy. South Africa is an example. In the 1980s, many Christian leaders condemned apartheid and actively fought against it by supporting the Mass Democratic Movement. The Ukrainian people wants to maintain their independence and are paying a heavy price for it. Why should the churches not offer them full support? Praying for the return of a real peace in Ukraine is something that can begin right away!

Another issue is that of sovereignly. Would we, South Africans, accept the invasion of our country by another country, and allow it to be annexed in defiance of all international laws? This is exactly what the apartheid regime did with Namibia. What was the church leaders response at that time? Wasn’t it to vociferously condemn the unjust war in Namibia? Why are we not doing the same today on behalf of Ukraine?

At this point, we do not know what will happen. Public opinion, including the churches, may have something to say on this crucial matter.

Conclusion

The war in Ukraine raises three issues which cannot leave the Christian churches indifferent.

  1. Peace and neutrality. It clear that peace should return in Ukraine as soon as possible. But can one foster peace by being neutral? During apartheid, the Kairos Document responded to the question by a clear No.  Christians were called to take sides. “Your yes must be yes and your no must be no” (James 5:12). The counter argument is that some countries or some role-players must remain neutral in order to be effective mediators. But if that means accepting the unacceptable, we have a problem.
  2. Democracy and the rule of law. At the core of the conflict in Ukraine is the question of democracy. Russia is an autocracy with no press freedom, no right to dissent and extreme violence against critics of the government. Since 1996, South Africa is governed by a Constitution that many see as one the most democratic in the world. The war in Ukraine is a war about democracy and the rule of law. Condoning the aggression of Ukraine implicitly means that democracy can be violated anywhere with total impunity.
  3. Sovereignty. The war in Ukraine is also about sovereignty. Russia is invading Ukraine against the will of its inhabitants. Their resistance with all the means at their disposal proves that the Ukrainians do not want to be Russians. If Ukraine becomes Russian against it will, which country will be the next? That will be a dangerous precedent, not only in Europe but elsewhere in the world including in Africa.

 

Philippe Denis (Prof)

KwaZulu-Natal Council / University of KwaZulu-Natal

Pietermaritzburg

 

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