TEHRAN (Iran News) – A Pakistani researcher believes that the Ukraine war in its essence is a conflict between Washington and Moscow while Ukrainians have fallen victim to this confrontation.
“While the U.S. supports Ukraine, the war in its essence is a confrontation between Russia and the U.S. where Ukraine has only become a casualty,” Mahrukh Khan tells the Tehran Times.
“No, one needs to be mindful that the West will never make Ukraine completely independent in a military sense by providing military aid whether, in terms of finances, equipment, hard/software, or training,” Khan adds.
The researcher says, “What Ukraine needs is active diplomatic support from around the world that the U.S. can garner along with support from NATO.”
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: What are the repercussions of the Russia-NATO conflict over Ukraine? Do you expect the birth of new world order?
A: The repercussion of the Russian NATO conflicts highlights the fault lines in the current international order that primarily favors the West and its partners and allies. There is a clear divide of interests, convergences as well as divergences in the Russian Ukraine crisis and how the blocs are being formed and regions and countries identified on their associations as well as tilt in the war. It further shows the depth of fissures between the U.S. and Russia that is the result of the international order as well as the international alliance system today. Whilst the current conflict will not give birth to a new order it will certainly crack open the vulnerabilities and faults in the current world order that has been earlier challenged by China.
Q: Do you expect the Ukraine war lead to a nuclear confrontation between Russia and Western powers?
A: While both the powers that are involved on the opposite end of the Ukraine crisis are nuclear-capable, the idea or estimate of the possibility of a nuclear confrontation on a limited scale cannot be avoided. Hopefully, sanity will prevail and the escalation however bad can be controlled before it leads to a nuclear confrontation only if the allies of both the U.S. and Russia move to a third party mediation either by a country or the UN and limit the increase in casualties and work towards the overall de-escalation.
Q: Do you think Western military aid to Ukraine is sufficient to confront Russia?
A: No. One needs to be mindful that the West will never make Ukraine completely independent in a military sense by providing military aid whether in terms of finances, equipment, hard/software, or training. While the U.S. supports Ukraine, the war in its essence is a confrontation between Russia and the U.S. where Ukraine has only become a casualty. If anything, more than aid what Ukraine needs is active diplomatic support from around the world that the U.S. can garner along with support from NATO.
Q: Russia has accused Washington of collaborating with Kyiv in chemical research. Your comment please?
A: When two major powers lock horns in a war it is fairly hard to identify where the propaganda begins and ends. While the U.S. has used accusation tactics in its war such as the Iraq invasion where it accused it of WMDs, Russia is no exception.
Q: What are the fallouts of the Ukraine war on regional players like Pakistan? Some analysts say Imran Khan is paying the cost of his visit to Russia.
A: The fallout of such conflicts is more detrimental in long term than in the short. Pakistan has been paying a hefty price for aligning with the U.S. during the Soviet war and the subsequent wars. Pakistan is already on a diplomatic tightrope with Russia and aligning with a single party will only increase its isolation from others. Diplomatic wisdom is to try and maintain a balance in its outreach to global conflicts and move to more mutually agreeable solutions that involve international organizations such as the UN as moderators.
