Report: Tazeen Akhtar | Pictures: Asif Farooq
ISLAMABAD — The speakers at a book launch organized by the Embassy of Russia in Islamabad shared a different perspective of the Russia-Ukraine conflict that has been rarely seen in mainstream media and that brings the other side of the picture before the people. This perspective portrays the West as war-mongers with hegemonic designs and a hateful attitude towards Russia for no reason. This side also shows that the West, including the US, is responsible for what is happening in the region while Russia was always ready for peace with a shared security arrangement.
The Embassy launched the book “Ukraine War: Beyond the Headlines – An Alternative Narrative on the Russia–Ukraine Crisis” authored by journalist Munir Ahmed, with a preface contributed by former Head of ISI, former Ambassador to Germany and Saudi Arabia, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) R. Asad Durrani.
Ambassador H.E. Albert P. Khorev, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, former President of Azad Kashmir and Ambassador Masood Khan, Dr. Almas Haider Naqvi and Dr. Gul-i-Ayesha Bhatti also shared their observations on the book that is actually a non-Western perspective about the crisis. Ambassadors of Belarus and Ethiopia and the Chargé d’Affaires of India were also present on the occasion.
Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed: The West Cheated Russia | NATO not Needed
Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed shared many examples that elaborated European hubris against Russia. He detailed when and where the EU cheated Russia.He said the Maidan coup d’état in 2014 was a classical CIA operation.
He gave four examples:
1. German Chancellor James Baker asked Gorbachev to support German Unity and in return NATO would not expand towards the East (the Russian side).
2. President Putin and President Bush Jr. met before 9/11. Putin showed his readiness to join NATO but the other side rejected this gesture.
3. The Nord Stream pipeline was the guarantee of energy sufficiency for Europe constructed by Germany and Russia. It was destroyed by whom? It was revealed later that Western agencies were involved in this sabotage.
4. The Putin-Trump summit in Alaska was important for peace-building but the American media reacted harshly making hue and cry, “Why Trump is meeting with Putin?”
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He said American journalist Seymour Hersh did a complete investigative story with proofs on the involvement of Western agencies but no American newspaper was ready to publish it. He said the Western media is a war-mongering media. The proud West does not like Russia.
He recalled his visit to Brussels and mentioned a document he saw there on the NATO 2030 Doctrine. Two enemies were noted in the document: 1- Russia, 2- China. He asked on a lighter note, why China that is 10,000 miles away from EU?
Mushahid Hussain was very vocal and clear on his views. He said NATO lost its justification after the end of the Cold War. Now the European Alliance is desperate to prove its necessity. For that, they create threats and enemies as they invented “Islamic Fundamentalism” in the past.
He said it is all about the Military-Industrial Complex that has become a monster now. It is all about war economy. The people are against this design. The protests in the capitals of Europe are in the same connection. He said America is in decline. What French President Macron said that it is the end of three hundred years of hegemony. Macron referred to the US.
Sardar Masood Khan: Need for Reconstruction and Compassion
Sardar Masood Khan discussed mostly what are the agreed-upon points that the war should come to an end and the societies of both sides need reconstruction. He said the damages on both sides deserve our compassion. The West is supposed not to go into war anymore.He highlighted the importance of Russia in the world regarding its centrality as a food and energy supplier.
He mentioned Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council. Pakistan calls for dialogue between Russia and Ukraine.He said Pakistan has direct interests in peace between the two rivals. The interests are for safe commercial navigation, economic security and recovery of the communities on both sides.
He recommended a new phase of bilateral relations between Russia and Ukraine may be initiated by both parties.
Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Asad Durrani: NATO Lost Mandate – Failed in Bosnia
Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Asad Durrani discussed the same points in the preface of the book. He says, “NATO had virtually run out of its mandate after the dissolution of the Soviet Union but in the good old spirit of Parkinson’s Law, it went looking for yet another pretext to exist. But the ploy failed the very first test when NATO turned out to be irrelevant in the Bosnian crisis.”
“The Minsk Agreement that had brought the 2014 crisis to an end was rescinded by Kyiv. Before the ‘invasion’ there were credible accounts that some pro-Nazi militias were killing a large number of ethnic Russians in the eastern part of Ukraine. Cross-border violations were also reported.”
Gen. Durrani said problems arise when countries with no sense of history even after they have suffered in Vietnam, Middle East and Afghanistan continue to opt for the worst again and again.
During Q&A, on NATO, Durrani said the European Alliance failed in Bosnia.He said Pakistan’s support for the Taliban was not a wise decision as Pakistan had to undergo international pressures and faced hardships for them. Pakistan was sanctioned. Terrorism was inflicted.
He said TTP helped the Taliban in the Afghan war. Therefore, the Taliban will not act against them. Pakistan cannot blame the Taliban for TTP activities on this side of the border because when they are inside Pakistan, it is the duty and responsibility of Pakistan to tackle them.
Author Munir Ahmed: No Think Tank was Ready to Launch the Book
The author Munir Ahmed argued that the war cannot be understood by starting the story on Feb 24, 2022. The book goes beyond battlefield updates to examine the historical roots of Russia-Ukraine relations and Ukraine’s competing visions since 1991, NATO’s eastward expansion after 1999 and 2004 and the failure to build an inclusive European security order after the Cold War, Russia’s stated security concerns and US strategic interests, the role of information warfare, sanctions, economic costs, failed diplomacy and missed peace opportunities.
He said no one, including any think-tank in Islamabad, was ready to collaborate with him for the launch of the book. Senator Mushahid offered him on the spot to provide the venue.
Ambassador H.E. Albert P. Khorev: The EU, particularly France and Germany, and the UK are Responsible for Abandonment of Minsk Agreement
Ambassador H.E. Mr. Albert P. Khorev in his address noted:”At a moment when the Ukraine conflict is too often reduced to slogans and simplified explanations, the book is an attempt to examine its historical roots and causes, geopolitical dimensions and far-reaching consequences and deserves serious attention.”
He said the book is, without exaggeration, a significant contribution to the academic study of the most serious European security crisis since the Second World War. The book is meticulously researched, drawing upon official documents, UN reports, statements from international organizations and verifiable factual data that are readily available in open sources but deliberately ignored by Western mainstream media. Its structure is both chronological and thematic, tracing the historical roots of the conflict, the course of the special military operation and its broader geopolitical and economic consequences.
Dedicated chapters examine food security, energy markets, the situation in the Black Sea, the role of NATO, the future of European security and the emergence of a multipolar international order. The concluding portions bring the discussion up to developments in 2026, including the Ukrainian terrorist attack in Starobelsk and Ukraine’s provocations targeting personnel at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.
“What makes this book particularly valuable from an academic standpoint is its refusal to accept the dominant narrative at face value. Mr. Munir Ahmed documents, with substantial evidence, how the Western media and political establishment constructed a one-sided and often completely falsified picture of events, from the staged provocations at Bucha to the fabricated allegations about ‘thousands of deported children’ to Russia,” Ambassador shared.
Here is what the Ambassador detailed on the book and about the conflict from Russian point of view;
“He correctly identifies the root causes of the conflict: NATO’s relentless eastward expansion, the violation of commitments made to the Soviet Union and Russia in the early 1990s and the unconstitutional coup d’état in Kyiv in February 2014, which installed a regime that immediately declared war on its own citizens in the Russian-speaking Donbass.
Russian Position on Responsibility
The Ambassador said the Russian position has consistently been that the present conflict did not emerge overnight, nor can its origins be explained by looking exclusively at February 2022. For decades, Russia’s legitimate security concerns were disregarded. NATO continued to expand eastward, while the prospect of Ukraine’s membership in the alliance increasingly threatened to undermine the principle of indivisible security in Europe.
The events of 2014, the subsequent uprising against Maidan in Donbass as well as the unwillingness of the Kyiv regime and its Western sponsors to implement the Minsk agreements deepened the crisis and, in the end, inflamed it.”NATO, the European Union and their Kyiv puppet regime bear the primary responsibility for the continued fighting and for the worsening of European security. It was NATO that refused Russia’s December 2021 proposals for legally binding security guarantees – proposals that were constructive, comprehensive and aimed at preventing exactly the situation we face today.
It was the EU, particularly France and Germany, and the UK, that, instead of encouraging Kyiv to implement the Minsk Agreements, effectively endorsed the abandonment of the only viable path to a peaceful settlement. And it is the Kyiv regime that, in March 2022, walked away from the Istanbul peace talks – under pressure from then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – when an agreement was within reach.””Consider the irony of the present situation.
Ukraine was meant to be a battering ram aimed at destroying Russia’s statehood. Instead, it has become a boomerang hitting Western economies. The European Union now faces deindustrialization, energy shortages and a cost-of-living crisis that has not been seen in decades. Its leaders have no constructive, future-oriented vision. Their democracies – if one can still call them that – are in a deplorable state.
Russia observes increasing authoritarian trends: censorship of alternative voices, criminalization of dissent, persecution of those who question the official narrative. The very principles that the West claims to defend are being trampled by the West itself.””We are not fighting for territories.
We are fighting for the security of our borders and for a stable European security architecture based on the principle of equal and indivisible security. We are fighting against the rise of neo-Nazism, against the glorification of Hitler’s accomplices, against the systematic discrimination and killing of the Russian-speaking population in the Donbass and other regions. Russia possesses the resources, political will and public determination to achieve the objectives set.
We have made this position clear.””At the same time, Russia remains committed to the possibility of a political and diplomatic settlement that addresses the underlying causes of the crisis and provides sustainable security guarantees. Meanwhile the Western countries continue to fuel the fire by supplying more sophisticated and deadly weapons to Ukraine.”On Food SecurityOne of the most important themes addressed in the book is global food security.
The Ambassador said:”Our friends and partners from the world majority – from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America – know very well that Russia has never shied away from dialogue on this pressing issue. When the Black Sea Grain Initiative was on the table, Russia participated in good faith. And what happened? The West failed to implement the promised provisions and the deal collapsed – not through Russia’s fault, but through the inability and unwillingness of Western countries to honor their own commitments.”
Misunderstanding on Food Security by Ukraine and Russia
Ambassador presented a comparison on the topic as, Kyiv’s contribution to global food security is significantly overestimated by the Western media. In the year 2025/2026, Ukraine accounted for only 7 percent of the global wheat trade. Russia’s share during the same period was 23 percent. On barley, the figures are 5 percent for Ukraine and 20 percent for Russia.
And here is the key detail: around 70 percent of Ukraine’s agricultural exports go to the European Union and other Western countries – not to Africa or Asia. The grain is not going where the humanitarian rhetoric claims it is going. It is going to the wealthy markets of the ‘golden billion’.”
“So let us be clear about who actually helps feed the world and who profits from global food insecurity. The figures I have provided demonstrate why it is misleading to portray global food security as dependent exclusively on Ukrainian exports. Russia is a major agricultural producer and exporter, and our capacity to supply international markets is essential to the stability of global food systems.
Western sanctions against Russia together with efforts to target what is referred to as the so-called ‘Russian shadow fleet’ – a term that has no legal definition in international law – pose a far greater threat to global food security than Russia’s actions in the conflict.”
“The most important and effective tool for ensuring global food security today is to apply pressure on Kyiv to stop attacking commercial ships in the Black Sea. These are not military targets. These are vessels carrying grain and oil, crewed by civilians. Such attacks represent a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and create a direct threat to the freedom of navigation. Yet the Western media presented these strikes as ‘justified military tactics.’ This is cynical in the extreme.
Pakistan’s Neutrality
Ambassador said, at the same time, he expressed sincere appreciation to the Pakistani leadership for its balanced approach to the Ukraine conflict – what is often described as positive neutrality.We value Pakistan’s independent assessment of international developments, its commitment to dialogue and its understanding that complex conflicts cannot be resolved through pressure and polarization alone.
As a reliable supplier of energy, agricultural products and fertilizers, and an important regional stakeholder, Russia stands ready to continue working with our Pakistani friends to address food security challenges, expand economic cooperation, promote regional stability and help build a more equitable international order.”
