Imperialist Fire and Fragmentation: The Twin Assaults on Ukraine and Somaliland Expose a Deepening Global Crisis
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The Facts: A Coordinated Onslaught on Sovereignty
On December 26, 2025, the world witnessed a chilling display of imperialist aggression on two fronts, revealing the brutal lengths to which established and emerging powers will go to reshape global order. In Eastern Europe, Russia launched a massive assault on Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions, firing approximately 500 drones and 40 missiles in a coordinated strike that lasted nearly ten hours. This attack, which resulted in one death and at least 19 injuries including two children, deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure, damaging residential buildings, energy facilities, and leaving a third of Kyiv’s residents without heat in freezing temperatures. The timing was strategically significant, occurring just before a scheduled meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump aimed at negotiating an end to the nearly four-year conflict that began with Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Simultaneously, in a move that represents a dangerous escalation of neo-colonial ambition, Israel officially recognized the breakaway region of Somaliland as an independent state. This recognition, formalized through a joint declaration between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, establishes full diplomatic relations including ambassador exchanges. The timing and nature of this recognition are particularly sinister, as it coincides with Israeli plans to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, potentially using Somaliland as a resettlement territory. This action directly challenges the sovereignty of Somalia, violates established international norms, and threatens to destabilize the entire Horn of Africa region.
The Context: Geopolitical Chess with Human Lives
The Ukrainian conflict remains deadlocked over fundamental territorial disputes, including control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station and Russia’s demand for Ukrainian withdrawal from parts of the Donetsk region. A proposed 20-point peace plan, nearly finalized according to Zelenskiy, hinges on complex negotiations involving security guarantees and potential referendums. Meanwhile, the Israeli-Somaliland agreement represents a calculated power grab in one of the world’s most strategic maritime corridors. Located overlooking the Gulf of Aden and the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, Somaliland offers Israel unprecedented access to monitor Houthi activities, protect shipping lanes, and establish a strategic foothold in competition with Chinese and Iranian interests in the region.
What makes these simultaneous developments particularly alarming is their interconnected nature within broader Western geopolitical strategy. The United States’ implicit support for both the Ukrainian negotiations and the Israeli-Somaliland recognition reveals a pattern of using regional conflicts to advance hegemonic interests. The so-called “Abraham Accords” normalization framework appears to be expanding to incorporate Somaliland, with maritime security cooperation serving as the pretext for deeper military and intelligence collaboration that directly threatens the interests of Global South nations.
Imperialist Hypocrisy and the Betrayal of International Law
The sheer audacity of these parallel actions demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of the Western-led international order. While Russia’s bombardment of Kyiv rightly draws condemnation, the West’s complicity in Israel’s fragmentation of Somalia exposes the selective application of the very principles they claim to uphold. Where is the respect for territorial integrity when it comes to Somalia? Where is the commitment to sovereignty when Palestinian displacement becomes convenient geopolitical strategy? This hypocrisy cannot stand unchallenged by the rising powers of the Global South.
For decades, the United States and its Western allies have constructed an international system that serves their interests alone, manipulating rules and norms to maintain dominance while preaching universal values. The Somaliland recognition represents the latest manifestation of this colonial mentality—the arbitrary drawing of borders, the creation of client states, and the displacement of indigenous populations to serve strategic objectives. That this move comes wrapped in the language of diplomacy and economic development only adds to its insidious nature.
China’s Principled Stand and the Future of Multipolarity
In this context, China’s firm opposition to both the aggression in Ukraine and the Somaliland recognition represents a beacon of principled international leadership. Beijing’s commitment to respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity stands in stark contrast to the opportunistic power games of Western nations. China understands that Israel’s recognition of Somaliland isn’t merely about regional politics—it’s about controlling vital shipping lanes, countering Chinese influence in Africa, and establishing military footholds that threaten the entire Red Sea security architecture.
The strategic implications are profound. By aligning with Egypt in support of Somali unity, China demonstrates a foreign policy approach grounded in stability and mutual respect rather than exploitation and fragmentation. This stands as a model for what truly multipolar global governance should look like—one where civilizational states like India and China can offer alternatives to the West’s perpetual war economy and neo-colonial extraction.
The Human Cost of Geopolitical Gambits
Behind the strategic calculations and diplomatic maneuvering lie real human consequences that cannot be ignored. The families in Kyiv huddling without heat in destroyed apartments, the children injured by shrapnel, the Palestinians facing forced displacement from their ancestral homes—these are the true costs of imperialist ambition. The Western media’s selective outrage, focusing exclusively on Russian aggression while ignoring Israeli expansionism, reveals much about whose suffering matters and whose doesn’t in the current international hierarchy.
This dual crisis demands a unified response from the Global South. We cannot allow the world to be carved up according to the interests of a few powerful nations while the majority suffer the consequences. The principles of sovereignty, self-determination, and territorial integrity must apply equally to all nations, not just those favored by Western powers. The emerging multipolar order must reject this cynical realpolitik and build something genuinely equitable.
Toward a Future Free from Imperial Domination
The events of December 26, 2025, serve as a wake-up call for all nations committed to a just international order. They demonstrate that the struggle against imperialism and colonialism remains urgent and that new forms of domination continue to emerge even as old ones persist. The solution lies not in choosing between competing imperial blocs but in building alternatives grounded in the principles of South-South cooperation, mutual respect, and shared prosperity.
Civilizational states like India and China have a particular responsibility in this moment. With their long histories and distinct philosophical traditions, they offer ways of understanding international relations that transcend the Westphalian paradigm of perpetual competition. The time has come for these nations to lead in creating institutions and norms that genuinely serve all humanity, not just the powerful few.
As we confront these twin crises, we must remember that the fate of Ukraine, Somalia, and Palestine are interconnected in the broader struggle against imperial domination. Our solidarity must be as comprehensive as the threat we face. Only by standing together can the Global South ensure that the 21st century becomes an era of genuine liberation rather than merely a new chapter in the old story of domination and exploitation.