Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has disclosed that Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee told Russian authorities to halt the Ukraine invasion during a recent official visit to the former Soviet Union state.
Although Ghana is a part of the Non-Aligned Movement, Mr. Ablakwa intimated that the two-member team without mincing words emphasized the need for a war-free world and the significance of halting the destruction in Ukraine.
Narrating what transpired during the visit on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana to host, Dr. Randy Abbey on Friday, July 28, 2023, the NDC lawmaker said;
“But we were clear in our engagement with them that we [Ghana] are a Non-Aligned Movement. We’ve always stood for peace and stability and there’s no substitute for global peace and we think that (they call it a ‘Special Operation’ in Ukraine.) We think that the Special Operation must really be brought to an end.”
“There’s been an untold hardship, loss of life (sic), pain, anguish, and the world doesn’t need war. So we made it clear that we really (sic) really wish that they end that Special Operation. It is the wish of a lot of African people, we represent, that we will have a fair and just world.” Mr. Ablakwa added.
Ukraine Invasion
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War which began in 2014. The invasion has killed tens of thousands on both sides. Russian forces are responsible for mass civilian casualties and for torturing captured Ukrainian soldiers. By June 2022, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced. More than 8.2 million had fled the country by May 2023, Europe’s largest refugee crisis since Extensive environmental damage, widely described as ecocide, contributed to the 2022 food crises.
Prior to the invasion, Russian troops concentrated near Ukraine’s borders, as Russian officials denied plans to attack. Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” to support the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, whose military forces were fighting Ukraine in the Donbas conflict, claiming the goal was to “demilitarise” and “denazify” Ukraine. Putin espoused irredentist views, challenged Ukraine’s right to exist, and falsely claimed that Ukraine was governed by neo-Nazis persecuting the ethnic Russian minority. Russian air strikes and a ground invasion launched at a northern front from Belarus towards Kyiv, a north-eastern front towards Kharkiv, a southern front from Crimea, and a south-eastern front from the Donbas. Ukraine enacted martial law and ordered a general mobilisation.
Russian troops retreated from the northern front by April 2022. On the southern and south-eastern fronts, Russia captured Kherson in March and Mariupol in May after a destructive siege. In April, Russia launched a renewed battle of Donbas. Russian forces continued to bomb military and civilian targets far from the front line, including the energy grid through the winter. In late 2022, Ukraine launched counteroffensives in the south and east. Soon after, Russia announced the illegal annexation of four partly-occupied oblasts. In November, Ukraine retook parts of Kherson Oblast. In February 2023, Russia mobilised nearly 200,000 soldiers for a new offensive in Donbas. In June 2023, Ukraine launched another counteroffensive in the southeast.
