What At All Makes Big Nations Want To Swallow Smaller Ones?

“Ukraine” is a name that brings happy memories to me. One of the first hotels I ever stayed in, on a visit to the Soviet Union, was Moscow's Hotel Ukraina.

My first-ever friendships with Russians were made in the nice restaurants and bars of the Ukraina.

It was there that I learnt how to order order kufe -s'molako; (coffee with milk); or kakao [cocoa] orchai's-molako [tea].

One particularly humorous old waiter taught me how to indicate to a waiter or waitress – in mime! through the deft use of the fingers – that I wanted a shot of vodka!

Apparently, in rural Russia, vodka is best served by grinding a little bit of pepper (and salt?) from a grinder into the glass, before pouring the vodka in.

So, if one cupped one's palm and imitated the act of pouring something from a grinder into a glass, an experienced waiter would not only understand what one was ordering, but also, would recognise one as a “ vodka connoisseur” and serve one the very best brand of vodka available!

As an African making his first visit to the Soviet Union, I astonished – and amused, in no small measure – many a waiter by demonstrating mastery of this esoteric way of ordering vodka. It became a secret between us, for they appreciated that “the sign” was known only to those Russians who had been brought up in the “rustic” areas of the country, where the best vodka is brewed. They would call colleague waiters to watch me make the sign. Fortunately, I didn't drink much, or I would have turned into a dipsomaniac. (I only ordered vodka when I was feeling cold. It always worked!)

Now, the Ukraina got its name from the Soviet leader who was in power at the time the hotel opened in 1957 – Mr Nikita Khrushchev. He came from the Ukraine himself!

I had met Mr Khrushchev on an earlier visit, so Ukraine was firmly etched onto my sub-conscious mind. And when I got a chance to visit the then Soviet republic called Ukraine, I took it like a shot.

I had two Ghanaian friends who were studying veterinary science and engineering at at a polytechnic in what was then called Kiev (the 'Kiyiv' of today). The two friends made sure that I had a very good time in Kiev. They took me to spend a splendid afternoon at a nice bar on the beach-front of the Dnieper River. The beach was very clean; with immaculately-kept white sand.

With such happy memories of my visits to Russia, I must confess that I am really heart-broken that Russia is visiting such unconscionable death and destruction upon both the people of Ukraine, and upon the Russian soldiers sent to kill the Ukrainians. It's as tragic as twins turning on each other and fighting to the death – in a suicide pact manufactured in hell!

It is true that Russia's feathers have been badly ruffled by the short-sighted and unnecessary “triumphalism” with which some of the Western countries have greeted the collapse of the Soviet Union. I foresaw this more than two decades a ago – in a speech at a UN World Press Freedom Day celebration at UN Headquarters in New York, in May 1999, warned against it.

https://www.un.org/press/en/1999/19990503.OBV92.html

I had observed that the West was trying to seduce many of the countries that were formerly under the Soviet “sphere of influence” into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). I urged the Western media to discourage this, because NATO was a “militarypact” and if too many countries close to the former Soviet Union joined it, Russia would feel “threatened”. And since Russia possessed thermonuclear weapons, she would become a danger to the whole of the world if she felt threatened by NATO!

With two top members of the editorial teams of the Washington Post and the New York Times sitting on the panel with me, I remarked that it might seem “simplistic” of me, but that I was worried that if the “triumphalism” in the West went on, Russia might be tempted to create a “new version of the Warsaw Pact”.

That, I pointed out, would create a situation whereby, instead of the world benefiting from the so-called “peace dividend” we all expected from the end of the “Cold War”, we would experience a probably worse form of the “Cold War”.

A “worse Cold War”? Yes – because Russia would be able to prove to the world that when Mr M Mikhail Gorbachev took the peaceful intentions towards Russia of the late President Ronald Reagan and Mrs Margaret Thatcher seriously, he had been either deceived. And new leaders of Russia would potentially fume at the West for its duplicity.

Indeed, when Mr Vladimir Putin assumed supreme power in Russia, “Macho” man that he reportedly is, must have drawn a red line in the sand and promised his ruling group that “If NATO attempts to cross this line, we shall fight NATO!”. By appearing to offer NATO membership to Ukraine, NATO crossed that red line.

Unfortunately for the world, the current ruler of Ukraine at this particular time is a guy every bit as much a victim of fantasy as Mr Putin is. Mr Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, was a TV film actor before he was elected President. He had won many Ukrainian hearts and achieved a great deal of popularity in a role he played on the TV screen – as 'President'!

But nobody seems to have old him that in the real world, politics is a very different thing from how politics is played in film-scripts.

In film-scripts, one doesn't often encounter, as an opponent, a man whose entire working life has been devoted to finding out the secrets of individuals and nations. Would you play politics with James Bond? Well, Putin is infinitely worse than James Bond. Bond at least had 'M' to control him. Putin, on the other hand, is both Bond and 'M' combined!

Besides, the history of humankind demonstrates that given the chance, large countries like to swallow smaller ones. For instance, after the First World War (1914-18) the Austria-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Montenegro, & Serbia became parts of other countries. Czechoslovakia was created out of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. From 1939 to 1945, Czechoslovakia, on its part, was partially incorporated into Nazi Germany and ceased to exist as a state, though it had a “government-in-exile” in operation.

Germany lost most land as a result of World War I.

Countries that no longer exist, as at 2021, are:

Former Country Collapse Year

North Yemen and South Yemen 1990

Ottoman Empire 1923

Persia 16th century

Prussia 1945.

World War 2 (1939-1945) made matters worse!

It's because of the inability of humankind to be quite rid of territorial ambitions that the United nations Organisation was formed after World War 2. Its aim was to settle border issues between nations peacefully and prevent them from erupting into THERMONUCLEAR war. This system is called “Mutually assured destruction” (MAD).

Indeed, a terrible “rehearsal” of the end-game (“MAdD”) occurred in 1962: over the “Cuban missile crisis”.

But that was sixty years ago and appears to have been forgotten. Unfortunately, millions of people will have experienced the worst misery possible, before the current 2MADNESS” ends. If it does.

The question is: what can anyone gain from all that misery inflicted mostly on innocent people, including women and children?