TheCable

Volodya, with your hands full in Ukraine and having to fend off punishing sanctions against yourself and members of your government as well as your country, Russia, from western countries, I doubt if you will get to read this article. But I have decided to write it anyway in the hope that somebody in the Russian embassy here in Nigeria will read it and make a summary of its content for the attention of your foreign minister, the baritone-voiced Sergei Lavrov. It may also be that the many Russian media platforms and those affiliated with them operating on the internet may pick it up and make something out of it.

But if none of these happens, what the heck, I would have done my wee bit for humanity by delivering the content to a global audience to note and perhaps initiate concerted action across the world in order to prevent the looming humanitarian catastrophe that will soon engulf us all as a result of the on-going war between Russia and Ukraine.

Volodya, I need not tell you that the world is already hurting from this war. The world economy is on a tailspin; inflation is ever rising and unemployment is too. Industrial production especially in the industrial powerhouses is plummeting. Commodity prices are reaching the roof and becoming unaffordable to people across the globe. Energy resources which power homes, industries, transportation and just about anything used for human convenience are getting scarcer and scarcer and when available, pricier and pricier.

Living standards are falling drastically as a result of the combined effects of all these abysmal economic indices. This is the grim picture of life as reported in the developed countries of the world. You can imagine what it is like in the developing countries, especially the bottom half whose incomes are too pitifully puny to make any significant difference at all.

To make matters worse, all indices and surveys point inevitably to the fact that the worst is still to come. It is clear that humanity is once again hurtling toward the sort of dangerous uncertainty that put us all to grief in the past.

All these happenings, I must say, are a result of the events in Ukraine. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic which raged before the events in Ukraine kicked in and laid the world low in all ramifications. The world economy suffered as certain critical sectors like transportation, financial services, trade and commerce virtually collapsed. But following the petering out of the pandemic and its worst effects, the world economy began to show signs of gradual recovery. And indications pointed to this recovery being sustained leading to hope that the world will once again bounce back rapidly.

Then Ukraine happened.

When Russia intervened in Ukraine, I had a very robust discussion with a friend of mine about the event and what it portended to the world. My friend was of the opinion that Russia will suffer for it as the West, led by the United States of America, will institute the severest of sanctions designed to punish and ultimately cripple the Russian economy. He said that the West will not only punish Russia economically, but they will also arm Ukraine with the latest lethal weapons that will enable them to roll back the Russians militarily leading to their utter humiliation. And he added that you, Volodya, will suffer the fate of Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini of Italy. He spoke of unbelievable things that your colleagues in the Kremlin might do to you for letting Mother Russia down this path of ignominy once it became clear to them and the Russian people that you were the one who led them to ruination.

As my friend huffed and puffed, I looked at him ruefully and told him that none of these was likely to happen either to Russia or to your good self Volodya. I said so with all confidence because I am privileged to know more about you and your ways than him.

My information about you came from a German journalist friend of mine with close links to the German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachristendienst, or BND for short. He told me in your days as an officer of the former Soviet Intelligence outfit, the Kommitet Gosudartvenoi Bezopasnosti or KGB for short you had a proven reputation as one of their very best officers. You were so good and ruthlessly efficient that you were trusted with some of the most complex tasks that had to be undertaken.

My German journalist friend told me that in the files of the BND you were listed among the very top Russian agents that operated in then East Germany. He further told me that one of the most complex tasks you undertook while based in the East German city of Dresden during the cold war was to help organise and monitor the visit of the East German leader to West Germany in the summer of 1987, the first of its kind between the two Germanies at the time. According to my German friend, the visit by the East German leader which you helped organised clandestinely back in 1987 from the Russian legation in Dresden was to test the plan by the Russians towards changing the entire Russian-controlled Soviet political, social and strategic superstructure in Eastern Europe which was showing deep signs of stress.

With a background like that, I knew that pulling off the stunt in Ukraine which you did was something you could have mapped out with your customary thoroughness and ruthless efficiency. And in leading your forces into Ukraine you would have anticipated the backlash from the West and planned countermeasures to blunt their effects on Russia.

Volodya, we are now in the fifth month of the Russian intervention of Ukraine and by and large, you have not only established a bridgehead into the country militarily, but you are also more or less in control of it. For all practical purposes, Ukraine is now under the suffocating hug of the Russian bear. And what is more, Russia has been able to ride out western sanctions and the military platforms that America and its allies supplied to Ukraine in the hope that the Russians will be driven out.

But all this has taken a toll on the world economy and if things continue the way they are we might witness a dangerous escalation of the situation to the point that one seemingly innocuous incident of miscalculation will plunge the whole world into a conflagration that we may all suffer from collectively. This is the crux of this letter which I want you to consider Volodya.

Essentially, you have reached the highest possible point you can reach in Ukraine as things stand now with the occupation of the Russian-speaking areas of the country. America and co will never allow Russia to completely swallow Ukraine. It is such a huge country and attempting such a misadventure will be near impossible not to talk of sustaining the occupation. It will be a long, hard brutal war of attrition in which the West will make Russia bleed profusely militarily and economically.

And the more the Russians seek to stay in Ukraine, the more the chances of their getting into a quagmire which heightens the dangers of a nuclear confrontation with the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Volodya, my honest advice to you in this regard as a contemporary of yours in the foreign service of our respective countries, Nigeria and Russia, is to appeal to you to pull back from the brink. Doing that will not be a sign of weakness or defeat, but of strength and statesmanship which the world needs at this moment.

You have sent a clear message to the Ukrainians about your zero tolerance for their ill-treatment of the Russian-speaking people there. Those extremist neo-Nazi hot heads in Ukraine who had dared the Russian might have now been given a bloody nose.

In all these, you have not only also sent a clear signal to countries in Europe that the Russian bear cannot be trifled with you have let the world itself come to see the famed resilience of mother Russia.

It is now time to cash in your chips in Ukraine Volodya. With your boots in Donetsk, you have earned the right to be a major determinant of the post-war settlement in Ukraine and the interest of Russia will have to be recognised.
If you announce a ceasefire now, you would earn the gratitude of a world hurting from the effects of the war in Ukraine. You will also position Russia to play a commensurate constructive role in shaping the new world order that is emerging from the ashes of the war in Ukraine.

Volodya, pulling out of Ukraine now, when it is convenient, is your best option under the circumstances. You would have demonstrated to the world that just as Russia is ferocious in anger when provoked, it can also be as benign in the well-known Russian tradition of Druzhba to the world.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, this is what the majority of the people of the world expect of you at this moment of much suffering and uncertainty. You started this thing and only you can end it effectively and satisfactorily.

I hope for the sake of your country and the suffering world at large you will come to do what is right and proper. And quickly too.

Until then I will say: “Do Svidanya”.