ICHEOKU says Ukraine is not the first country and will not be the last country to be ever invaded by a more powerful foreign military force. It will also not be the first country to ever be heavily bombarded from the air, causing many deaths, massive destruction of infrastructures and also a heavy displacement of its local population.
What is going on in Ukraine presently has gone on before in many other countries and will most likely still go on in more countries in the future, long after the current hostilities in Ukraine are concluded. Many people are asking why the current obsession with the Ukraine invasion when other previous invasions, both those carried out by the same Russia as well as those carried out by America, did not receive much attention.
According to them, the world is so affixed to the present invasion of Ukraine as if it is the end of the world or the first time ever a far more powerful country is breathing down fire on a weaker small country. There is also a noticeable difference in the manner the invasion is being "wall to wall" reported, the rush to evacuate Ukrainians, providing them with every assistance imaginable including quick resettlements throughout Europe.
The disparity in treatments is now fueling the growing murmur of white bias and racist preferential treatment of Ukrainians simply because they are white people. Some critics even point at the different treatment meted to black African students studying in Ukraine who were discriminated against as they also fled the same war, including being denied boarding access on evacuation trains and also refused entry at the Polish border.
If the different treatment was due to white people's acute racism and their regard of white skin as superior and more important than other skin colors, why then did other previous Russian invasions of Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea, not attract the same level of global condemnation of Russia and support for Ukraine? Why did Georgia's invasion by Russia not attract the same amount of world sympathy, Georgians are white people too? So, there was a good reason for the galvanized global opposition to the military campaign of Russia in Ukraine, short of racism and white bias.
The most plausible explanation is the pathetic reason given by President Vladimir Putin for the havoc which he is currently wrecking on Ukraine. How can any sane leader of a country, on a whiff, declare another country illegitimate and then take such destructive steps of levying a vicious war on the country to achieve his objective. The Russian strongman unequivocally stated that he does not recognize Ukraine's existence as a sovereign and independent country, forcing the world to take notice.
It would have been a different story had President Vladimir Putin claimed that President Volodymyr of Ukraine was a drug dealer or was facilitating terrorism on Russia by providing safe haven and corridor for enemies of Russia to carry out attacks on Russia from Ukraine soil. If he had given even a minuscule of rational reason, manufactured or genuine, and then sought to topple such a government, the world would have looked the other way or at least curbed their enthusiasm and not be as hysteric as the present.
He simply asserted that he does not recognize Ukraine as an independent and sovereign country and then took steps to dismantle it and annul its existence with a premeditated invasion. According to him, Ukraine is part of Russia, adding that he will never accept an independent Ukraine living side by side with Russia as that violates his conscience and understanding of history. He also did not care that Ukraine has been in existence for a long time, for more than 30 years as an independent and sovereign country.
This is where Putin's cookie of aggression crumbled as the world woke up to say that it is unacceptable for one man to decide to unilaterally "nullify" a country by fiat of his indignation. It is the brazenness of this illegality that shocked the conscience of the world to rise up to challenge Putin's declaration of war on Ukraine to achieve his objective to annul the country. A galvanized world has said no to Putin and have now practically isolated Russia in condemnation of what their president did.
Which sensible and conscionable person would accept such an international brigandage or in any other way, find any rationality in it. To accept what Russia is doing in Ukraine is to give license to every big country in the world to wake any one morning and decide to swallow its smaller and weaker neighbor. It is the law or lack thereof, of the jungle, that President Vladimir Putin is trying to brutally impose on Ukraine by indiscriminate bombardment.
Such lawless action is not an acceptable behavior in a civilized world and should be fought with every tool available, including putting Western boots on the ground in Ukraine as sanctions alone are not yielding the desired and expected result. Bullies need to be stopped and they only respond to force. President Vladimir Putin is a bully and his Russian military is now terrorizing and bullying Ukraine around, trying to bombard it into submission, subjugation and annexation.
Those complaining that there is a double standard in the condemnation of Russia's invasion and not America's many invasions, should understand that the Ukraine invasion is different. It is not an ordinary invasion as Russia is trying to dismantle the country and absorb it into Russia. Other invasions have always been targeted at the leadership of a country but never at the country itself. To question the right of a country to exist is an attack which resonates among every independent and sovereign country.
So yes, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine 2.0, there were America's invasions of Cuba, Grenada, Haiti, Panama, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Russia also previously invaded Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova seizing territories therein. Germany also carried out its own invasion of Europe. But in none of these invasions was the primary objective to nullify the victim country and put them out of existence.
This is the reason the current invasion of Ukraine is different and has attracted a generalized world condemnation than other invasions. Those complaining about a Western hypocrisy and bias against Russia because of the barrage of condemnations and sanctions, should see the distinction; and then adjust their indignation against the West accordingly, as not even Adolf Hitler's Germany did in Europe what Vladimir Putin is trying to accomplish in Ukraine. Viva Ukraine. Long live President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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