Dr. Donald Agumenu, a peace ambassador and leadership specialist, has urged Ghana's government to come up with an evacuation strategy for Ukraine before it's too late.
Dr. Agumenu, speaking only hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin began military action against Ukraine, said the lives of a community of Ghanaian students, nurses, physicians, and craftsmen in Ukraine were in jeopardy and needed to be rescued with swift action.
"We've dispatched our troops." The government must implement a full-scale evacuation strategy as soon as possible. There are a lot more Ghanaian students there. Several of them began sending urgent letters home. "We must save them," Dr. Agumenu said, adding that residents would most certainly be caught in the crossfire as the situation escalates.
The US and its European allies have been adamant for the last three months that any military action by Russia in Ukraine would be met with uncompromising force. Russia has also claimed that it has begun military operations in Ukraine, as it has previously said.
"I have taken the decision to carry out a special military action," President Putin announced on national television. Its mission will be to protect those who have been persecuted and genocided by the Kyiv administration for the past eight years. We shall strive for demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine in order to achieve this."
Dr. Agumenu believes that an open conflict would have disastrous effects for the global economy and peacebuilding efforts, and that international leaders should act now.
"As Putin exalts the war on Ukraine over traditional diplomacy at a time when global powers are imposing diplomatic sanctions, leaders must look beyond the typical diplomatic approach to avert further escalation."
"Continual provocations have the potential to create a dreadful atmosphere for global peace and security." The complexity within that axis, Russia's interests versus those of the US and NATO, are things we must keep a close eye on in the sake of mankind."