Is the world going to witness its third war- Should Africa be worried?

The Russia-US standoff in recent months over the conflict in Ukraine could result in a full-blown confrontation if the world sits down unconcerned and watches things escalate further and further. And if war did happen, the world will witness serious catastrophic events which could be worse than what happened between 1939 and 1945 before the USSR, led by Joseph Stalin, eventually defeated Hitler's army in the east and raised its flag in Berlin.

Ever since the western-backed Maidan Revolution illegally overthrew Ukraine's constitutionally elected Pro-Russian President Victor Yanukovich in February 2014, things have never remained the same to date. The series of events that followed the coup not only had a serious global economic impact but have also drastically changed the political map/landscape of Ukraine, at least for now, if not forever.

Crimea, the former Russian region which was transferred to Ukraine by the Ukrainian ex-USSR leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to return to Russia for fear of the country falling in the hands of the notorious far-right ultra-nationalists and neo nazis, some of whom have taken over the administration in Kiev in the aftermath of the revolution. Two other regions, Donetsk and Luhansk also held separate referendums and chickens out of Ukraine.

The hailing of the coup by the western powers, and the pouring into the capital (Kiev) of their politicians and statesmen shortly after the takeover, were clear evidence as to who the main architects of the coup were. All those who mattered in the western world ascended on the capital city, Kiev, including even opposition leaders.

Shortly after the coup, the son of America's vice president assumed a top position in an energy firm. The opposition leader, the late John McCain, and many other western politicians showed up at one time or the other. The restructuring of Ukraine's economy was subsequently entrusted to the western powers whilst every decision affecting the country was made in faraway Washington.

The Russian authorities, having closely followed the events, had no other choice than to swiftly grant Crimea's request to re-join Russia. However, Moscow did not grant the request of those two other regions, so they declared themselves separate republics.

The reabsorption of Crimea into the Russian Federation and the secession of the two eastern regions were not only a big blow to the US and its NATO allies but, according to some political analysts, they also reminded the western powers that their days of staging illegal regime-change coups and waging illegal regime-change wars were about to be numbered, adding that "this has taught them a bitter lesson that they will never forget in their lives in a hurry". The US and its European allies, having suffered such an embarrassing humiliation, imposed a number of face-saving sanctions on Russia to which Moscow swiftly responded with retaliatory measures.

Unconfirmed reports had it that Kiev had nicodemusly blamed the European Union and the Us-led NATO (then headed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen) for the loss of Crimea and of the two other breakaway regions due to their improper handling of the situation in the capital, and had therefore exerted pressure on these powers to do in order to return those regions to Ukraine. There was no evidence at that time to support these reports, but the meeting, held in Newport in Wales in the UK back in November 2014 by the NATO bloc as to whether or not they should go to war with Russia, could shed some light as to the credibility of the reports. Also, the standoff that took place between Russia and the US/NATO in the last two weeks of April 2021, and Ukraine's own President Zelensky's statement that the US was going to help Kiev to take back the lost territories from Russia, might, perhaps, give solid credence to the story.

Kiev's use of force to return the two breakaway regions to Ukraine resulted in a brief civil war until a ceasefire agreement, known as Minsk agreement, was reached to defuse the tensions. Four countries, known as "Normandy 4", signed the agreement. They are France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine. Ukraine has flagrantly violated its part of the agreement thus creating tensions between Russia and the US with the west, as usual, blaming Russia for the tensions.

Ever since the conflict began the US has openly been arming the Ukrainian government with lethal weapons to crack down on the breakaway regions (predominantly Russians and Russian speaking people). In addition to this, the US and its NATO allies have increased their presence in Ukraine, Poland, and other eastern European countries, and have been holding military exercises close to Russia's borders in Ukraine, the Black Sea, and some Baltic States. Hundreds of military experts and officers, drawn from the US and its NATO allies, are already in Ukraine. To them, it is normal for 30 countries to conduct military exercises close to Russia's borders, but they consider it sacrilegious when Russia conducts military exercises inside its own borders.

NATO's military exercises close to Russia's borders had always been of much concern to many observers who expressly cautioned the West of the repercussions of these exercises should something actually go wrong. Their fears were eventually confined when on the 7th of August 2018, a Spanish pilot accidentally fired a missile during NATO drills in Estonia, which fell very close to Russia's borders. To date, no world organization has raised a question over the incident which has called the very existence of NATO into question.

It was therefore not a surprise when some European leaders boldly expressed their disillusionment about NATO and advocated for a better-defined continental defense system. The French president, Emmanuel Macron once said, “NATO is experiencing 'brain death'" while former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel said, "Europe should have an integrated EU military". On 3rd January 2022, Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the French Leftist Party and presidential hopeful, called for the country to pull out of the NATO alliance and partner with Russia to avoid getting dragged into a new cold war. Another French presidential candidate, Eric Zemmour, said "Paris should be friends with Russia and stop being a tool for the United States". Lastly, the Croatian president has made it unequivocally clear that his country will withdraw its troops from NATO should a war erupt between the alliance and Russia.

When Donald Trump took office in 2017, tensions cooled down a little as the Crimean (Ukrainian) issue was not among his top priorities. But with the return of Joe Biden, who was then the number 2 man when the crisis started, tensions have escalated far beyond the level at which they were when Barack Obama was in office. This has raised suspicions that Uncle Joe is back to clean up the mess which he and Obama created in 2014, and that is (1) to get the breakaway regions back to Ukraine through the use of force, and (2) to provoke Russia into a war that he thinks could return Crimea to Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly raised concerns over America's eastwards expansion of its NATO bloc and the deployment of its missiles close to Russia's borders. According to Russia, such a move by the US threatens its security and citizens. The Russians also argue that after the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, the US promised not to expand its NATO beyond Berlin, but contrary to its own words, the US not only continued to expand the NATO to Russia's borders, but it has also almost entirely encircled it. However, the US keeps on assuring Russia not to worry since the NATO expansion is for defensive purposes while the deployment of missiles is to deter Iran.

For defensive purposes? And to deter Iran?

If defensive purposes are their main reasons for America's expansionism, why then did it attack Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria? Did any of these countries attack a NATO member? And if deterring Iran is the reason for the deployment of its missiles, why should Washington use Russia's borders as its Teshie-Nungua shooting range? Who, in their right senses, will believe this Kweku Ananse Story, especially if one considers that the US which has encircled Russia with its NATO bloc is the greatest enemy is Russia's greatest enemy.

All these stories were not enough to prove their honesty to Russia's President Putin. In fact, how can he even trust the very people who have insulted him and lied about him and his country many times, and have even made him look like the evillest person on earth? How can he trust a country that has the worst track record in world history when it comes to foreign policies? How should he trust the United States of America that has caused massive global destructions over the last two decades, and for that matter, has lost its own credibility and respect in the sight of everybody? Putin sees both the US and NATO as "greedy wolves in sheep's clothes" ready to collectively attack and devour his country one day.

Readers may understand Russia's situation very well when they consider the following scenario:

Assuming Ghana has an arch-enemy country from a faraway continent that has come to encircle by settling up military bases and destroying missiles in Cote D'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Togo, and Benin. In addition, it holds military drills with these countries in the ocean close to our Atlantic waters.

How will we Ghanaians feel? Won't we feel threatened in every way with such developments? Isn't the writing crystal clear that our country, Ghana, is the main target, and we could soon be attacked if we fail to take the necessary steps to address the issue? And if they ignore our concern, don't we have the right to act decisively?

These are only a few of the predicaments in which Russia finds itself. There is an adage that "he who wears the shoe feels where it pinches". Russia has a genuine concern that should be addressed not only by itself, but also by the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, World Leaders, and other peace-loving World Organisations in order to diffuse the tensions.

It isn't only Russia that the West has deceived into making decisions that went in their favor. The US and its European allies, which are the epitome of deceit and lies even to the distaste of their own citizens, have also deceived the entire world many times and still continue to do so. Typical examples were the lies they told to make cases for their invasion of Iraq and Libya. In both cases, they said, "There will be no regime change". But what did we witness? They killed both leaders and changed their regimes.

America's ambition to drag Ukraine into NATO through a regime change coup turned out to be a failed adventure so deadly and disastrous that, unless it puts an end to it, more innocent European lives will be lost. Already nearly 14,000 people have been killed as a result of the civil war in the east of the country. More than 270 passengers were also killed when on the 17th of July the Malaysian passenger jet, MH17, on which they were traveling was shot down in the war zone.

As it has been said earlier, Joe Biden wants to use force to return the Crimean Peninsula, Donetsk, and Luhansk to Ukraine, but this approach seems to be going against him. Some European countries don't want to engage in any war with Russia. The Trump administration's trade wars with its own European allies, its use of threats, orders and ultimatum, and its decision to leave the Iranian nuclear deal, pushed some of these allies into the warm waiting arms of Putin.

They, therefore, want to leave the bloc, re-establish the cordial relationships which they hitherto enjoyed with Russia prior to the Maidan Revolution and form new economic partnerships with Moscow. So it is highly unlikely that they will fully back America to start a confrontation with Russia that could result in a disaster that nobody is prepared for. They want a stable Europe. In fact, they just don't want America to shed more European blood in pursuit of its own anti-Russian agenda.

America's image has already been tarnished by unjustifiable wars, regime change coups, and the brutal assassination of leaders who challenged their rule of law. Also, its standoff with Russia in April 2021, its defeat on Sunday, the 15th of August 2021 at the hands of the Taliban, and the present crisis have further complicated matters for the US which, for nearly 30 years, was the sole Superpower on earth.

What Americans need at the moment are Rescuers of their country's image and not Presidents of Wars whose actions could lead to WW3. Nobody wants to witness that. The world has still not recovered from the devastation caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic that has already claimed nearly 6 million lives. We don't want any more deaths. We, therefore, appeal to President Joe Biden to be the Rescuer of America's image and not its sinker.