Opinion | Ukraine war a reminder to Asia to move past its old rivalries and insecurities
- The sinking of the Ukraine-built Russian warship Moskva highlights the fratricidal nature of the conflict and its historical underpinnings
- While Asia is being projected as the engine of the future, its principal stakeholders have inherited security dissonances they must work hard to resolve
Nevertheless, the damage and destruction has been considerable. Casualties among those involved in the fighting number in the thousands, while millions of people have been displaced within Ukraine or fled the country. As of April 15, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had recorded 4,633 civilian casualties in Ukraine: 1,982 killed and 2,651 injured.
There is no end in sight, either, with one commentator warning that the US and Nato will support the war to the “last Ukrainian”. There is also anxiety that, if cornered, Russian President Vladimir Putin could resort to using nuclear weapons.
On April 14, CIA director William Burns cautioned that, “Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons.”
But he also added a note of reassurance, saying that despite the “rhetorical posturing” by the Kremlin, “we haven’t seen a lot of practical evidence of the kind of deployments or military dispositions that would reinforce that concern.”