On the day Israel bowed to the global call for a ceasefire against Hamas in Gaza, Russia fired the largest salvos of drones into Ukraine’s densely populated capital city, Kyiv.
Israel commenced a 4-day ceasefire with Hamas on humanitarian grounds, to allow access to relief materials and for the transport of hostages held by Hamas to Israel. Israel had maintained that Hamas’ release of hostages was the only condition on which it could ceasefire.
Israel freed more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the released hostages.
Though Russia was a loud, if not lead, voice in the vote for a ceasefire in Gaza, the country’s recent acts in Ukraine belie its newly earned pacifist credentials.
Also, Russia’s latest attack against Ukraine on Friday contradicts President Putin’s conciliatory tone while discussing Ukraine two days before. His words were termed the “most pacific comments” towards Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
Responding to his G20 colleague's abhorrence of his country’s continued destruction of Ukraine in a meeting on Wednesday, President Putin verbally regretted the tragedy of the war he started.
“Some colleagues have already said in their speeches that they are shocked by the aggression, the ongoing aggression of Russia in Ukraine. Yes, of course, military actions are always a tragedy for specific people, specific families, and the whole country. And, of course, we must think about how to stop this tragedy.
“By the way, Russia has never refused peace negotiations with Ukraine. It is not Russia but Ukraine that has publicly announced that it is withdrawing from the negotiation process,” excerpts of a video of Putin’s remarks at the Virtual G20 Leaders Summit showed.
Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, responding to G20 colleagues’ query of his government’s unrelenting aggression in Ukraine
What Putin did not say is that Ukraine’s diplomats refused to sit at the table with their Russian counterparts because “Vladimir Putin simply cannot be trusted to keep his word.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said, “Putin is a habitual liar who promised international leaders that he would not attack Ukraine days before his invasion in February 2022,” an Atlantic Council article noted.
While Putin’s government may be a verbal world peace advocate, Russia may lose its professed reputation for peace faster than it gained it if it does not match peaceful words with kind action.
Russian Hostilities and the Kyiv Crossfire
Putin’s latest onslaught on neighbouring Ukraine is anything but kind. A BBC report called it the “biggest drone attack on Kyiv since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last year.
“Officials said more than 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones were fired at the capital - all but one were shot down. With Russia's dwindling missile stocks, Shahed drones are seen as a cheap alternative. They are slower than ballistic missiles and have a distinctive wingspan.
“As ever, even if a missile or drone is intercepted, the falling debris can be lethal too.”
The latest Russian drone strike on Kyiv heavily damaged a kindergarten
Thankfully, no life has been lost in the crossfire between the Russian attack and the Ukranian defence missiles.
BBC reported that “there have been no reported deaths from this attack, but at least five people were injured, including an 11-year-old child”, and according to Kyiv's mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, a kindergarten was among the buildings damaged.
Earlier, Dataphyte noted that “Casting a grim gaze over Gaza, over torn human nerves and tons of rubble, Russia, and indeed China, championed the humane cause to reclaim our sanity at a time when the world seems to have lost its soul.
“Russia, China and 118 other countries voted for a United Nations resolution demanding Israel to stop the carnage that Hamas started”
UN Vote For Israel to Cease Retaliatory Attacks on Gaza
Yet, Russia is more defiant to the voices of 141 countries calling for peace in Ukraine than Israel’s defiance to the voices of 120 countries suing for peace in Gaza.
UN Vote for Russia to Cease its Invasion and Aggression against Ukraine
Besides, “Israel's bombing of vulnerable people in health facilities still trails behind Russia’s violence against vulnerable people during its invasion of Ukraine,” Dataphyte noted
Dataphyte then exhorted that “Russia’s preachment for peace and global protests for mutual pity on hostages and displaced people in Gaza would yield more fruit if Russia immediately repents of its defiance of the global order to stop its costly show of might in Ukraine.
“The literal and graphic figures of human suffering and sorrow in Gaza must not blind us to the souls of innocent children and harmless people who perish daily in Sudan and Ukraine due to the same reckless acts of war.
“Mortality, morbidity and all layers of human misery thrive when we situate them in a balance of power between the West and the East, Arabs and Jews, Muslims and Christians, and other false balances that perpetually return one’s own local group superiority.”
Released Hostages and the Gaza Ceasefire
Two weeks ago, we wished for a ceasefire in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan and hoped it would come true within a week. Today, we have parts of our hope fulfilled.
The closing words of the data dive read: “We hope to read next week that Russia and Israel have ceased hostilities in Ukraine and Gaza and that Hamas has released all its hostages. What a wonderful weekend that will be!”
Now, we have gotten some of the requests in twice the amount of time. Yet we owe this response, as slow as it may be, to the unrelenting media coverage and the attention that the world gave to the people of Israel and Palestine.
The full media coverage of the events in Israel and Gaza since October 7 fueled the world’s outrage at the carnage perpetrated as Israel unleashed its rage on Gaza, the home base of Hamas, its closest enemy.
Israel and Hamas have finally paused fighting for four days in the first instance. This has brought freedom to dozens of Hamas hostages in Gaza and scores of prisoners in the West Bank.
Repressed Coverage of a Continent under Fire
The emphasis has been on the Western media’s biased coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war over the war in Gaza and not the absence of reporting at all. That indifference, that insignificance, and the absence of news coverage that follows is reserved for Africa and the humanitarian catastrophe that follows its many armed conflicts.
In his Future Perfect piece on Vox, Bryan Walsh made it clear that “It is a mistake to attempt to weigh one atrocity against another. The death of a child, the loss of a mother, is a tragedy no matter where it occurs.
“Yet the attention the world pays to these crises has been far from equal and has little connection to the scale of the tragedies. With 46 million people, Sudan’s population is more than three times that of the combined number of people living in Israel and the Palestinian territories. When a crisis like this civil war comes to a country of this size, one where an estimated 35 percent of people are living on less than $2.15 a day, the humanitarian consequences are proportionately terrible.”
Profile of the World’s Neglect of the Crisis in Sudan
According to the Norweigan Refugee Council, “The war in Ukraine has highlighted the immense gap between what is possible when the international community rallies behind a crisis, and the daily reality for the millions of people suffering far from the spotlight.”
The agency noted in its World Most Neglected Displacement Crises 2021 Report that “For the first time, all of the ten crises are on the African continent.”
Profile of the World’s Neglect of the Crisis in Congo Democratic Republic (DRC)
Source: The World Most Neglected Displacement Crises 2021
These 10 war-torn countries with the highest numbers of fatalities and crisis-ravaged children and women in the world are the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burkina Faso, Cameroon, South Sudan, Chad, Mali, Sudan, Nigeria, Burundi, Ethiopia, in decreasing order of neglect. The situation has not changed a lot since then.
Profile of the World’s Neglect of the Crisis in Nigeria
Source: The World Most Neglected Displacement Crises 2021
The Norweigan agency submitted that “The speed at which the UN, the EU and other international partners acted in response to the war in Ukraine should inspire the same urgency for solutions and support to the most neglected crises of our time.
“Increased awareness about these crises is an important first step towards action.”
It appears the world is making progress with the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflicts, compared with its neglect over a worse unmitigated catastrophe on the African continent.
Thanks for reading this Data Dive. We hope to read next week that the UN and the world’s mainstream media have shifted their concerns to the fate of children, women and people suffering from the adverse effects of artillery fire and gunfire on the African continent. Have a serene weekend. Ceasefire!