It is im­por­tant to dis­pel the mis­con­cep­tion that T&T, lo­cat­ed thou­sands of miles away from Rus­sia and Ukraine, will be un­af­fect­ed by the con­flict be­tween those two Eu­ro­pean na­tions.

As an en­er­gy and petro­chem­i­cal-pro­duc­ing econ­o­my, this coun­try will face the long- and short-term ef­fects of the con­flict, which is al­ready send­ing the prices of oil, gas and petro­chem­i­cals like am­mo­nia high­er on glob­al mar­kets.

Prices had been trend­ing up­wards ever since rough­ly 190,000 Russ­ian troops be­gan gath­er­ing on Ukraine’s bor­ders and oil prices, now mov­ing past US$100 a bar­rel, are al­ready the high­est they have been in about sev­en years.

That up­ward trend has to do with the fact that Rus­sia is the world’s sec­ond-largest crude oil pro­duc­er and ex­porter. It al­so boasts the world’s great­est nat­ur­al gas re­serves, so sup­ply dis­rup­tions caused by this war will have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the glob­al en­er­gy mar­ket.

There will be pain for Caribbean coun­tries still strug­gling to re­cov­er from the ad­verse ef­fects of COVID-19, as high­er oil and gas prices could plunge those economies in­to fur­ther de­cline.

While there might be a boost in rev­enue for T&T’s en­er­gy in­dus­try from high­er com­mod­i­ty prices, there is a sig­nif­i­cant down­side. There could be more stick­er shock for con­sumers who are al­ready feel­ing the ef­fects of high­er ship­ping costs which in­creased by more than 500 per cent in the past year.

That sit­u­a­tion, the re­sult of sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions trig­gered by the pan­dem­ic, will be ex­ac­er­bat­ed by Rus­sia’s un­pro­voked in­va­sion of Ukraine.

Be­yond pos­si­ble eco­nom­ic fall­out, there are the larg­er geopo­lit­i­cal con­cerns from which nei­ther T&T nor Cari­com as a whole are im­mune.

This could be the largest war in Eu­rope since 1945 in­volv­ing one of the strongest mil­i­tary pow­ers in the world, with its well-trained and equipped mil­i­tary and some 6,000 nu­clear weapons.

Our small is­lands have no re­al voice or in­flu­ence in the sphere of geopol­i­tics, but Cari­com’s call for “all par­ties in­volved to ur­gent­ly em­bark on in­ten­si­fied diplo­mat­ic di­a­logue to im­me­di­ate­ly de-es­ca­late hos­til­i­ties and work to­wards a sus­tain­able peace” is very much in line with state­ments from oth­er na­tions and eco­nom­ic blocs in the free world.

The re­gion’s am­bas­sadors have al­so been en­gaged in diplo­mat­ic ef­forts to de-es­ca­late ten­sions, in­clud­ing a meet­ing ear­li­er this month with Ukrain­ian diplo­mats to the Unit­ed States and the Unit­ed Na­tions to dis­cuss the im­pli­ca­tions for glob­al peace and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

Even as those ef­forts con­tin­ue, it is im­por­tant to keep a wary eye on ac­tiv­i­ties in­volv­ing Russ­ian al­lies in the re­gion. At a meet­ing with US of­fi­cials last month, the head of a Russ­ian del­e­ga­tion, Sergei Ryabakov, would not con­firm or ex­clude Rus­sia send­ing “mil­i­tary as­sets” to Venezuela and Cu­ba, its clos­est al­lies in the re­gion.

Cari­com coun­tries have diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with all the key play­ers in the cur­rent con­flict, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States and NA­TO (North At­lantic Treaty Or­gan­i­sa­tion) mem­ber states.

But with the US ramp­ing up sanc­tions against Rus­sia, reprisals can­not be ruled out in fields far re­moved from the im­me­di­ate ar­eas of con­flict. There will be con­cerns about T&T’s clos­est neigh­bour, Venezuela, which is heav­i­ly in­debt­ed to the Vladimir Putin ad­min­is­tra­tion for bailouts pro­vid­ed dur­ing its on­go­ing eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal tur­moil.

T&T is not in­su­lat­ed from the Rus­sia-Ukraine cri­sis and will have to care­ful­ly mon­i­tor all de­vel­op­ments on that front.