According to media reports, a couple of days ago, in the basement of Ohmadyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, mothers and babies huddled on makeshift beds and blankets laid out on either side of the concrete aisle. On the streets, signboards normally used for traffic alerts showed the message: “Putin lost the war. The whole world is with Ukraine”.

Unfortunately, however, the whole world is not with Ukraine. That is why perhaps the Ukrainian president has expressed his frustration by asking the so-called allies, the US-led West, to either create a no-flying zone to help insulate Ukrainians from Russian air attacks or give his country the fighter planes to deal with Russia’s airpower. It increasingly appears that the West won’t do anything meaningful for Ukraine to effectively defend itself against the Russian onslaught. Hence the need for stepped up diplomatic and political efforts particularly through “co-belligerent” Belarus to end this war as early as possible.

Shahida Bukhari (Islamabad)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022