VOGUE CONUNDRUM


SM netizens are vexedly agog with the President and the First Lady of a war-hit country finding time for a magazine photo shoot. Why, should their eyes be perpetually ruborous and lachrymose when a guy perched upon a nuclear stockpile is wont to toggle with the buttons of gas and grain?...

As the war enters the sixth month with no end in sight, Russia has had no qualms using starvation as a bargaining chip, her agreement to the brokered grain deal last Friday surprising many. And not before long, she hit the port of Odesa the next morning...

While this could put Putin's aspirations as the leader against West's domination into some disarray, the propaganda has takers in Middle East and Africa, much due to sentiments dating from the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Western support for Israel. The Russian FM hopes to turn the food shortage issue to her advantage, the narrative being the West et al are imposing an unipolar world order...

While it is true that a quite a few quarters believe that the West is the unsuspected villain of the Ukraine-Russia war, it would be fair on all counts to widen the observatory prism to include the Russia-Ukraine's strained relationship since centuries...

Ukraine chose democracy on 24th August 1991 much to Kremlin's chagrin, as the  centuries old intertwined destinies broke away. Putin, perhaps with a dream to rebuild the former Russian Empire, set out on his expedition on 24th February 2022...

Despite so many similarities and proximities, the tinge of some animosity has been discernible, perhaps on the lines of UK and Ireland, or India and Pakistan...

The famine of Holodomor is an indelible scar for Ukraine. The territorially unambitious Ukraine is an eyesore for Putin, unable to digest the idea of a democratic neighbour veering to the EU and the West...

Annexation of Crimea in 2014, (something that the West failed to take seriously - some say timidity) supporting separatists in Donbass region after the ouster of Yanukovich in 2013, assisting Belarusian president charged with rigging in 2020, sending troops to Kazakhstan early this year, and opting to use Ramzan Kadyrov in the current conflict are issues that hardly enhance the credibility of the Russian supremo...

The world failed to see a "post Kuwait 1991" scenario during the "post Crimea 2014" which perhaps emboldened Putin to take on NATO's alleged "advancement" along with his seemingly flimsy claims of de-nazification and de-militarisation, genocide, and that Ukraine isn't a real nation etc...

The war has created a new hero in the form of President Volodmyr Zelenskyy. Refusing a Russian exile-safe passage and an US evacuation, Zelenskyy said, "The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”...

An epitome of grit in troubled times and target numero uno for the Russian military, I would dare say that irrespective of how the war pans out for him, Zelenskyy is likely to be remembered as one of the greatest leaders of this century...

🙏🙏

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