THE world continues to be gripped by and concerned about the situation continuing to unfold between Russia and Ukraine that also involves the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the United States and former Soviet republics bordering Russia.

But events thus far this week have shown, yet again, what a difference a day can make.
On Monday (February 14), the US warned that its intelligence showed that Russia had enough troops in place to invade Ukraine on Wednesday (February 16), and Washington withdrew its embassy staff, and called on Americans to evacuate, followed by 11 other nations; on Tuesday (February 15), Russia announced that its military drills were over, and it had started withdrawing troops from its border.

However, on Wednesday (the predicted Doomsday), instead of calling on Ukrainian citizens to head to bunkers and shelters to avoid Russian bombs raining down on them, President Volodymyr Zelensky decreed a national holiday, and asked his people to fly national flags — to celebrate peace!

Moscow having outmaneuvered its European and American adversaries on both the military and diplomatic battlefields, Washington quickly changed the narrative on Wednesday, demanding “proof” of troop withdrawals, saying “150,000 Russian troops still surround Ukraine”, and suggesting that Russia “can still invade at any time”.

Indeed, on the same day Russia was supposed to have been invading Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin was hosting German Chancellor Olaf Sholz in Moscow to talk peace.

The new German Chancellor had been preceded by French President Emmanuel Macron, with similar visits to Kyiv, all aimed at avoiding a war that only Washington’s intelligence sees coming.
President Zelensky never actually warmed-up to all the war-talk, pointing out instead that the hysteria being whipped up by Washington and its NATO allies about a likely Russian invasion was actually harming and hurting, not helping Ukraine’s economy.

Likewise, Germany, which, like Ukraine, has pipelines from Moscow supplying over 40 per cent of Europe’s gas at prices between five and seven times less than charged by American or European competition.

Russia and Germany are also knee-deep into the Nord Stream 2 project that adds a second pipeline to supply even more Russian gas to Europe, a project ready to be launched, but which Washington is using as a proxy in its political battle to preserve US military hegemony in Europe.

The US has threatened to “stop Nord Stream 2” (if Russia “invades” Ukraine) and has deployed over 3,000 troops across the Atlantic in the biggest show of force in Europe, even while Ukraine has refused to accept foreign troops, and NATO cannot offer to help directly, as it’s not a member.

Ukraine, the EU and NATO want to guarantee they can defend Ukraine, but also say they prefer a diplomatic solution, while the US — by far the most-powerful NATO member and largest single contributor — has basically taken charge of their response to a situation unfolding on European soil, in ways that don’t please all.

Many European governments, indeed, feel sidelined or sidestepped by Washington, as President Biden continues to directly and unilaterally engage President Putin, and arrange summit calls with and between EU and NATO leaders — not involving Ukraine either.

NATO, always anxious to justify its continuing existence beyond the end of the Cold War, again resorted to painting pictures of “inevitable” military conflict with Russia, while quietly expanding its influence eastward.

Ukraine is now finding things too-out-of-hand and too-far-gone to tone down the rhetoric, or stop US troop movements in Europe.

President Putin made clear at Tuesday’s press conference with Chancellor Sholz that Moscow was not satisfied that any of its security issues that were raised had even been considered by the EU and US, NATO and Ukraine — especially that Ukraine (the largest ex-Soviet republic after Russia and on its border) will not join NATO.

NATO won’t give such a guarantee, but President Zelensky was also reported on Wednesday as having suggested that Kyiv might be ready to suspend its application for NATO membership, if that’s what it’ll take to remove the millstone placed around its neck by NATO’s insistence on turning what started out as concern about Russian troop movements within Russia’s borders into a geopolitical trans-Atlantic European military headache of migraine proportions, also causing daily nightmares for Ukraine.

The geopolitics and military implications of a possible Third World War again starting in Europe ought to always be of concern to other regions of the world, including the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which, over the weekend, issued a related statement that called for “peace” and “respect” for Ukraine’s national sovereignty.

Yes, the region should be always concerned the situation between Russia and Ukraine can escalate into a global conflict of such enormity as to dwarf the overwhelming problems caused health facilities by COVID-19 in 2022, and the worsening Supply Chain problems that remind surviving West Indians in the region’s ex-European colonies of the perilous food shortages the entire region suffered during World War II (1939-45).

Regional concern also includes the possible consequences for the region’s trade and tourism ties with Europe, as well as implications for traditional oil-and-gas arrangements with individual CARICOM nations.

Fortunately, Guyana’s three-day oil and gas conference this week has already heard the good news that two CARICOM member states, Guyana and Suriname, with Brazil, have, since January 21, held trilateral dialogue on harnessing their oil-and-gas reserves for common regional benefit.

Guyana has the world’s handbook of oil-and-gas management (and mismanagement) experiences open to it, from as close as Trinidad & Tobago and Brazil, and as far as Germany and Ghana, as it plans the future of its growing oil finds.

And the way the energy sector is faring at the centre of the ongoing geopolitical wargames in Europe is another unfolding chapter in the ongoing Book of Lessons — for Guyana and the entire CARICOM region — about oil and gas as both a vital energy commodity and a weapon to fuel proxy wars.