A frantic call to Vadim
Albert Einstein’s words, ‘I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones’ were ricocheting in my mind while speaking on the phone with Vadim, a former classmate and resident of Kyiv. Russian President Putin had recognised the two Russian-supported, separatist-controlled enclaves in eastern Ukraine as sovereign territories just a few hours earlier.
I am concerned for Vadim, his family, his country and the world. Once again, one of the world’s strongest militaries has unleashed terror and destruction on a neighbour at the direction of a diabolical dictator obsessed with regional dominance. Democracy, globally, has been diluted.
Globalism, powered by the Internet and other technological advances, boosted the living standards of populations around the world in the past three decades. Individuals today live healthier, longer and more comfortable lives than their parents and grandparents did. Sadly, a new era of authoritarianism, as painfully demonstrated in the past few days, now threatens vulnerable countries and those who experienced the most significant gains from globalism.
Vadim and I were graduate students in the mid-1990s in the UK, soon after the break-up of the USSR. A bright, well-informed man, he was there with his wife from Belarus on a British scholarship. A few weeks before returning to Punjab, I learned how desperately the couple had repeatedly tried and failed each time to make the host country their permanent home.
When we reconnected on social media several years later, I learned that he and his wife had divorced and he had relocated to Kyiv from Minsk. What he said during our recent phone conversation reminded me of Einstein’s words.
‘Phase-I of this war has been on for the past eight years when they occupied Crimea,’ he told me. ‘At that time, the world was quiet, including America, because Trump was afraid of Putin. Our worries were basic items, like bread, pasta, beer and meat, but not now in phase II, everything is available in abundance because we are a solid agricultural country. We are ready to defend ourselves. The only things now sold out are the guns. But not to worry, we will fight with whatever we can lay our hands on,’ he said.
I have some knowledge about the region that once was the Soviet Union. In my primary, middle and high school years, I read many Moscow-based Progress Publishers’ translated books, cheaply available in Patiala’s Model Town market. Also, I have many friends from the region.
Why Ukraine? Why now? ‘He (Putin) wants to be the god of this part of the world,’ he said. ‘Now, outside Moscow, Russians don’t even have toilets. Through government-controlled media, he tells Russians that Ukraine and its people are responsible for their every pain, suffering and misery.’
Hope this madness ends soon.
