On Thursday morning, February 24, 2022, Russian forces launched a widespread offensive across Ukraine, and overnight at least 22 cities, including the Ukrainian capital Kiev, and 47 military bases capable of receiving aircraft were bombed and shelled. After destroying the air network, the Russian military invaded from the eastern side of Ukraine, where there are many New Russians, in the early morning without pause, and from the Belarusian side in the north and the Crimean Peninsula in the south, crossing the border with countless tanks and plunging into ground and urban battles. The dire situation of an all-out war that would shake the world's security order after the Cold War between East and West broke out in just one night. President Vladimir Putin easily broke through the fragility of the Iron Curtain between the East and West.

   There is no sign of interference or hesitation in its aggressive stance, which ignores the wave of international condemnation and sanctions. Russia's latest attack is the largest military action since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, if not larger. What exactly was the balance of power between the East and the West based on the military equilibrium between the nuclear powers? The military peace that the world has been engaged in through dialogue over a long period of time, with nuclear weapons at its core, is a false image in the sand in front of President Putin.

The latest attack was launched shortly after Putin recognized the independence of two separatist regions in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. In a televised speech, Putin described the attacks as a special military operation to demilitarize Ukraine and protect the people of the region and Russia. In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cut diplomatic ties with Moscow, declared martial law, barred all males between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country, and ordered an armed response. Ukrainian authorities have announced that they have lost control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, although their forces are fighting Russian troops on several fronts.

In response to Ukraine's willingness to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a U.S.-led military alliance with more than 30 member nations, Vladimir Putin was incensed, fearing that NATO forces would seek to expand their influence further east. The fact that Russian troops invaded not only from the eastern border of Ukraine, but also from the Belarusian side in the north, and took over Chernobyl early on, contradicts this trend. But therein lies another purpose: to ascertain whether or not Ukraine was secretly developing nuclear weapons at Chernobyl. Furthermore, if Chernobyl were to fall into the path of war, the risk of radioactive contamination would naturally increase on the Russian side. At this point, there is not a shred of classified information about Ukraine's nuclear program, but Russia is a country that is very good at manipulating information. Depending on Russia's manipulations, it may use the fact that Ukraine developed nuclear weapons at Chernobyl as an excuse to appeal to the world with fake news about Russia's legitimacy.

Immediately, the rest of the world began to take steps to isolate Moscow by imposing aligned sanctions. The European Union imposed sanctions that dealt a major blow to the Kremlin's interests and ability to finance the war, and NATO President Jens Stoltenberg said Russia had shattered the peace in Europe. Germany blocked a natural gas pipeline, French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency phone call with Putin and offered to maintain stable relations between the two countries on an ongoing basis, and U.S. President Biden announced sanctions targeting and freezing financial accounts in the financial system and high-tech sector controlled by Russian oligarchs. Biden announced sanctions to freeze the financial system and high-tech sector accounts controlled by Russian oligarchs.

At first glance, it looks as if Russia has made the whole world its enemy, but for Russia, these series of measures are only as painful as the demonstration of the West compared to the seizure of Ukraine. In fact, with the backing of China, which has turned into a sleeping lion with the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics to be held next month from March 4 to 13, this level of monetary policy will not shake Russia's massive assets in the slightest. As an even stronger financial sanction, there is the freezing of the SWIFT network, of which the world's major banks are members, but since the freezing of the Russian SWIFT code will cause major losses to the Western countries that are trading partners at the same time, if it is prolonged, only Russia and China will remain, and there is a risk that the Western countries will fall into a global depression. In addition, most of the developed countries are busy preventing the spread of coronaviruses in their own countries. In such a situation, China, which is currently working with Russia to host the Olympics, is the country with the most successful coronavirus countermeasures in the world. In addition, Russia has already succeeded in developing four types of new coronavirus vaccines, which will be commercially exported to Eastern countries from 2021, earning the country a large amount of money. The astonishing new technology of the Russian-made vaccine "Sputnik V" is that it has been proven to be effective in preventing a wide variety of coronaviruses by providing immunity with just one dose of vaccine without any additional doses. In the history of mankind, war has never ceased where there is a nation. It is not surprising that Putin, who is planning to restore a strong Russia to power, sees the current world situation as a great opportunity to do so.

If there is one field in which humanity has made the greatest effort and technological breakthrough in the last 100 years, it is medicine and military science. However, in 2020, the whole world is at the mercy of the inability of medicine to compete with the invisible new coronavirus of 0.2 microns, and in 2022, the invasion of Russia has reminded us of the military impotence of maintaining peace through the mutual assurance of nuclear weapons. Now, the whole world is watching this war between Russia and Ukraine with anxiety. And the war-torn Ukraine is calling out to the whole world for help. Just as Hong Kong was taken over by China in 2020 despite worldwide condemnation on social media, and the U.S. troops were withdrawn in 2021 We can only watch with bated breath as Ukraine is swallowed up by Russia, just as Kabul in Afghanistan fell in a matter of days.

24/Feb/2022 CNN: https://www.cnn.co.jp/photo/35184007-41.html