How Russia-Ukraine war, food insecurity and Covid-19 have made the world a more dangerous place in 2022

In addition to sparking a humanitarian crisis and reviving the nuclear threat, the war in Ukraine is causing widespread food shortages and has stifled cooperation in the fight against climate change
With the pandemic still raging, global events have coalesced to create a perfect storm

Wang Wen

Published: 9:15am, 8 Apr 2022

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The escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict into a protracted war has heightened many other threats facing the world. According to Russian government reports, the Ukrainian army launched its first raid on Russia on April 1, which, if confirmed, means that the conflict may have entered the stage of counter-attack.

On the surface, it is a military struggle between Ukraine and the western and southern theatres of Russia. In essence, it is an all-out manifestation of Cold War confrontational thinking in Eastern Europe, as well as fierce retaliation by Russia against the endless strategic expansion of Nato, led by the US.

Nato has meddled in Europe’s security, Ukraine is the result

Short of formally sending in troops, the US and Nato have used almost all means of mixed warfare – financial sanctions, an information blockade, intelligence support, satellite navigation and air and space technology – to comprehensively strangle Russia.

In the more than 40 days since the war began, the West has imposed more than 5,000 sanctions on Russia, which is 1.5 times the number imposed by the United States on Iran in the past 40 years. More military assistance and financial sanctions from the US and Nato are on the way.

This is undoubtedly adding fuel to the fire, provoking Russia to fight back. In particular, US President Joe Biden’s call for President Vladimir Putin to be removed from power puts Russia’s very survival at stake.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed that, in the face of an “existential threat”, Russia may use nuclear weapons. Putin cannot tolerate failure, and Biden is unwilling to give in, which may push Russia to use nuclear force.

Indeed, a growing number of scholars believe there is an increasing likelihood of a third world war erupting, while many are weighing the possibility of the outbreak of nuclear war. The situation is moving in the direction of planetary disaster.

Other crises are also emerging. The war has forced millions of Ukrainian farmers to leave their homes and abandon the spring harvest, resulting in a decline in Ukrainian agricultural exports. Ukraine is one of the world’s leading suppliers of agricultural products, with its wheat and corn accounting for 10 per cent and 15 per cent of global exports respectively.

Yemenis displaced by conflict receive food aid at a camp in the war-ravaged province of Hodeidah on March 29. Ukraine supplies nearly a third of Yemen’s wheat imports, heightening fears of a famine. Photo: AFP

Fourteen countries rely on Ukrainian wheat imports for more than 25 per cent of their supplies. Bangladesh gets 21 per cent of its wheat from Ukraine, while in Libya, Ukrainian wheat accounts for almost half – 43 per cent – of the total supply. Without adequate and affordable substitutes, developing countries are likely to experience famine.

In addition to food insecurity, the rise in energy prices as a result of the war has slowed production worldwide. The US, European Union, Argentina and Turkey all face serious inflation problems; inflation rates in Europe and the US, for example, have reached their highest levels in 40 years.

If this trend continues, will Elon Musk’s prediction of an economic crisis “maybe happening around spring or summer 2022, but no later than 2023” become a prophecy?

Over the past two years, more than 6 million people have died from Covid-19. Many Western countries have opened up to the world again and announced they will no longer isolate coronavirus patients. But, as a World Health Organization expert warned in January, Europe is being too optimistic; the pandemic is not over.

Indeed, since March, the number of infections and deaths has risen, and thousands of people are still dying from Covid-19 every day. Many have put their faith in vaccines and “living with the virus”. But will this approach prevent more deaths? Can vaccines keep up with the speed of virus mutations? All this is still unknown.

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No one expected the hottest global topic of 2021, climate change, to be all but forgotten in 2022. But the Ukraine war has put the brakes on international cooperation and split the world in two, killing chances of uniting to save humanity. Icebergs are melting, sea levels rising, small islands are disappearing and natural disasters are becoming more frequent. Mankind seems to be getting ever closer to climate apocalypse.

There’s a grim mathematical calculation that has become popular on the internet: the sum of every two digits of the starting dates of World War I (07/28/1914), World War II (09/01/1939) and the Russia-Ukraine war (02/24/2022) are the same: 68. This is merely a coincidence, but it serves to draw comparisons between the dangerous evolution of the war in Ukraine and the two worst wars in human history.

Two Ukraine war scenarios and what they mean for US-China power rivalry

Looking back through history, tragedies usually derive from five events: war, famine, economic crisis, disease, and climate-related disaster. In the spring of 2022, who could have anticipated that, with the outbreak of war, these five factors would all once again resonate. The world may be on the eve of its most dangerous moment.

What should we do? Perhaps it is time to revisit US president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words: “More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.”

Wang Wen is a professor and executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China