Ukraine has veritably become an exporter of instability across the Global South.
Andrew Korybko
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova sharply criticized the Ukrainian Embassy’s official response
to India’s arrest of six Ukrainian mercenaries (and one American whose
involvement they left out) who are accused of violating national
security legislation. According to local media reports, they were tasked
with training Indian-designated terrorist groups in Myanmar in drone
warfare, which readers can learn more about here. The present piece will review and analyze Zakharova’s reaction.
She
began by describing the abovementioned crimes that the mercenaries were
accused of committing before noting how the embassy’s response
conspicuously omits them, instead attempting to deflect from the scandal
by insinuating that Russian media distorted the facts to divide Ukraine
and India. In her view, “The incident clearly shows that Zelensky’s
neo-Nazi regime is a core exporter of instability worldwide…reaching as
far as regional conflicts in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast
Asia.”
Zakharova elaborated that “Russia has repeatedly
issued warnings about the risks associated with the large-scale
militarisation of Ukraine by NATO and the EU. Weapons supplied to it are
inadequately accounted for and may surface anywhere. Today, Kiev is a
major supplier of weaponry and military technologies to the global black
market, including military product supplies to Latin American drug
cartels and training terrorists in Africa.” She also noted its deployment of drone experts to West Asia.
Zakharova concluded by “urg[ing] the World Majority
to take a good look at the destabilising activities of the agonising
Kiev regime which Western countries use as leverage against Russia and
other countries around the world.” Reflecting on her sharp criticisms,
she was right to draw attention to Ukraine’s attempted deflection in
attempting to frame this mercenary-terrorism scandal as a Russian
infowar plot. She also made a powerful point by bringing up Ukraine’s
connections with drug cartels and terrorists.
With all due respect to her, her response could have benefited from quoting what Zelensky said in late January per his official website:
“Ukraine needs a dedicated, strong intelligence unit capable of
operating abroad at a level comparable to the world’s best combat
foreign intelligence agencies. Your perspective lies in external
operations – not just influence, not just the collection of data or
recruitment of agents, but real combat and other asymmetric operations
that are essential to protecting Ukraine’s interests.”
The
importance of emphasizing this quote from Zelensky’s official website is
that it puts to rest the false claim that Ukraine’s mercenary activity
across the world is supposedly so-called “Russian propaganda” since its
leader is calling on his own intelligence officers to focus on foreign
“asymmetric operations”. This in turn lends more credence among
observers to Russia’s prior reports about Ukraine’s connections with
drug cartels and terrorists, which in turn does the same for the latest
mercenary scandal in India.
Nevertheless, Zakharova’s reaction to
Ukraine’s official response to India’s arrest of its mercenaries went a
long way towards exposing its attempted narrative deception and
reminding the world of how Ukraine is now exporting instability across
the Global South, with South-Southeast Asia being the latest target.
Whether Zelensky approves these operations just for cash even if they
sometimes conflict with US interests like this one might, however, or
secretly coordinates them with Trump remains to be seen.