Ukrainian servicemen sit atop armored personnel carriers driving on a road in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Photo / AP
Ukrainian servicemen sit atop armored personnel carriers driving on a road in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Photo / AP
The New Zealand Government has been urged to leverage its strong international standing to rally small and middle-powered nations to voice their opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
International relations expert Robert Patman this morning told the AM Show that New Zealand had "a lot of skin in the game".
"This is a tremendous assault not just on the sovereignty of Ukraine but to every other independent country.
"We can do quite a lot diplomatically.
"New Zealand has won a lot of political capital in recent years in response to the terrorist atrocity in 2019 in Christchurch and also the way it's handled Covid-19. So the Ardern Government has some standing internationally.
"We should use that standing to rally smaller and middle powers to voice stronger opposition to what the Putin government has done."
He said while the Putin government wouldn't take notice of a diplomatic joint statement which New Zealand may have helped put together, the Russian people needed to hear the message from the rest of the world that their leader has lied to them about the Ukraine situation.
"It's very important that we do our bit in raising awareness internationally of how unacceptable this action is in the 21st century."
Patman said New Zealand's vision of moving towards a non-nuclear world was taking a backward step as a nuclear-armed Russia invaded a non-nuclear Ukraine.
Any sanctions would take time to work but could be very significant, with some measures effectively cutting off Russia from the financial system to some degree.
At the same time, Putin had large international monetary reserves with the recent rise of oil.
Patman said there was a threat that the conflict could spill over into neighbouring countries.
"This conflict has the potential to spill over. Many Eastern European countries have deep hostility towards Russia under Mr Putin and strongly support the Ukrainian democratic government.
"We can't rule out the conflict will spread."
Smoke billows over Kyiv after Russian air strikes on the Ukrainian capital. Photo / The office of the President of Ukraine
He said there was a tremendous imbalance between the military capability of the Russian and Ukrainian forces.
"If we look at other conflicts, the United States had no problem overwhelming Iraq within three weeks in 2003 but that did not stop a full-blown insurgency breaking out which eventually pushed the United States out of that country in 2010."
Patman said while Russian forces could overwhelm Ukraine in the "not too distant future", that did not mean they would achieve the objective of making Ukraine a benign buffer state.
