Silent Lonesome Man

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have heard how the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, bemoaned: “We have been left alone to defend our state. Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of Nato membership? Everyone is afraid.” His cry during the early days of the brutal, barbaric Russian invasion of Ukraine underscored that fear. Even though Russia has been repelled from much of Ukraine's north, the Russian troops had not been completely chased out of east and south. This has led to widespread public speculation, and the most popular has always been Taiwan to Ukraine. This comparison has only come greater and greater by size, and this is fuelled by many similarities, from political system to border. Yet, a much less popular comparison draws Vietnam, instead of Taiwan, as facing a dangerous dilemma more than Ukraine, first stressed by Derek Grossman before echoed by Filipino-Iranian columnist Richard Heydarian ....

When the United Nations voted for the resolution ES-11/1 condemning Russian invasion on 2 March, the outcome was not a surprise: Russian invasion was widely condemned. Moscow only got 4 votes against, while the rest were either neutral/absent or in favour. Among those who voted in favour, a significant portion of countries that advocated the pull out of Russian troops from Ukraine, were from Latin America and the Caribbean. Almost these countries here have expressed unwillingness to join the sanctions against Russia due to specific reasons - but the population here, enraged by Russian supports for autocrats and dictators in here, have used the invasion of Ukraine to fuel their angers - much to the dismay of the Putin's dictatorship in Moscow. The UN solution vote on 2 March 2022. Almost every Latin American countries voted in favour of condemning Russia. Vladimir Putin, to be precise, has little interests in going after Latin America, because of the region's rather different hi...

India is one of the very few nations in the democratic camp in the planet to have not denounced Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, in a surprise visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed him, albeit in a cold shoulder. But that still explains why India still views Russia too important. Despite the economic ties between two nations are minimal even compared to the size of India's trade with Japan and South Korea, Russia is the base of many Indian military hardware. Unexpectedly, Indians also have a lot of reason to love Russia - during the Cold War, while India was officially neutral, the country had leaned to Moscow following the 1971 war with Pakistan, an Indian victory. The United States was ill-remembered because of Washington's support for Islamabad, despite American popular rally toward the cause of Bangladesh. The Russian invasion of Ukraine had only emphasised the desperate. Putin and Lavrov have been running o...

When the advisor to the Ukrainian government, Mikhaylo Podolyak, made his statement worrying about Russia's intention to scale back from original invasion, he had also mentioned that the Russian MP from Moscow requested Russia to "denazify" other countries like Poland, Moldova and the Baltics on his tweet. While how far real it is is much for debate, Podolyak's tweet actually struck to our mind: Putin is planning for a greater war, and for more destruction, probably all of Europe. But while the rest of Europe is worrying about being embroiled to war, another sign that China is planning for a future war has been ongoing. Like Russia, China is led by a powerful dictator, Xi Jinping, who has accumulated power similar to that of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and maybe even more powerful than those two because he inherited a country, whose economy is standing 2nd in the world and deeply integrated globally, with a military far more powerful than that of Russia. Ever since...

In 1997, a book was published with the support within the Russian Ministry of Defence. This book was written by Alexander Dugin, a neo-fascist and ultranationalist Russian, whose worldview has been skewed and one-sided at best. But his book has become one of the best sellers within Russia and it has become the powerful tool of Russian military and political education that would go on to dominate the Russian government for next decades. That book? Foundations of Geopolitics. The book, written by Dugin, underlined one thing: alliances and annexation. In Dugin's argument, Russia's future has to be dictated in the hand of strongman, and to rout out every kind of American and British influence. He also called for Europe to be settled under Russian term, meaning Finlandisation, while encouraged, at least, the regimes of Turkey, Iran and China to be freed of doing actions as long as they don't antagonise Russia. To make the explanation short: Dugin encouraged Russia to take firmer...

On 29 May 2013, in the port city of Cam Ranh, the Vietnamese People's Armed Forces issued its declaration, establishing the country's first-ever submarine force. The submarine force Vietnam established was part of the country's ongoing modernisation effort, to catch up with its Southeast Asian neighbours that have the same force earlier, and also to deal with the much stronger Chinese submarine force. But while the submarine force was established in 2013, it was not until 15 January 2014, that Vietnam officially received the first submarine. A Kilo-class made. The Kilo class submarine was built by none other but Russia, the country that Vietnam has a good, old relationship. Vietnam bought the submarine squad in 2009 as part of their contract with Rosoboronoexport, and its future sailors were educated by the Russians. It succeeded just that. By that time, Vietnam had yet to get American lethal arms, due to weapon embargo imposed on her following the Vietnam War. Fast forwar...

When we look at various internet websites, notably YouTube or Twitter, about the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the surprise supporters of Russia invading Ukraine come from Africa. To be precise, many Africans, in particular, support Russia from the first days because of historical involvement in the continent. Yet, it is too easy to judge that the Russian assault on Ukraine is echoed by Africans, if you are too blind of geography. The continent is not monolith, and Africans are not just the dark-skinned. It also included the Afro-Malay sea surfers in East Africa, Arabised Blacks from Niger-Congo delta, the lively Southern African tribes with their warrior mentality, and even the North Africans of Amazigh, Arab and partially Turkish/European origins. Failure to understand that not all Africans supporting Russia may have exacerbated the differences, not just between Africa and the West, but also between Africans themselves. Sadly, these divisions have been long, if not sayin...

When Ukraine's Active Group released their survey about how do Russians view their country's invasion of its neighbour Ukraine, the result was a massive shock: 86.6% of Russians tolerate and support the potential assault on the territory of the European Union. In addition, the other results as followed could also examine this: 75.5% of Russians approve the idea of a military invasion in the next country. Moreover, according to the survey, 75% of respondents tolerate to a varied extent the use of nuclear weapons by their government. Only 13.4% of Russians have a negative attitude to the military invasion in other countries, 46% of respondents are absolutely sure that the Russian government should attack the EU, and 40.6% assume a permissible expansion of hostilities. In the same survey, three countries that according to the poll will be targeted by Russia are: Poland (75.5%), the Baltic countries, among which Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia (41%), Bulgaria, the Czech Repu...

When a TV channel revealed the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko's military and tactical plan to conquer Moldova , by blunder, the news shocked international community and showed the true extent of Putin's grand ambition. The Russian dictator's megalomania about imperialist conquest for the restoration of his Russian Empire, and the fact that he was targeting Moldova, a former Soviet state, could be seen as a reason why the Eastern European country immediately requested joining the European Union. This advantage Putin aimed to catch on while invading Ukraine, was lost. But that channel is not a normal channel. It's the country where it is stationed that matters the most for us. That channel is WION, an Indian right-wing TV channel recently accumulated a lot of watchers. So, how that channel comes to life, and, if anything, how would this channel play any major role in disrupting or, potentially, ruining the relationship between Russia and India? Establishment WIO...