It’s over 1000 days since russia invaded Ukraine and, with the third anniversary rapidly approaching with no end to the deaths and destruction in sight, I sit here and wonder just what the hell is in the minds of those who are the key players in all this.
It is just a handful of people who can bring this to a conclusion. Putin, of course, either has to decide or be persuaded to cease the attacks. He is not going to decide just like that, waking up one morning and concluding that he’d done enough and might as well bring the troops home. So he’ll need to be persuaded. And the only way persuasion will be effective would be if he were about to lose something. People aren’t important to him so it would be land or the ability to defend russia effectively.
Ukraine has a chunk of land in Kursk which they’re just about hanging on to but I doubt they’ll manage for much longer. So there’s not much in the land department that Ukraine can take. That leaves defence facilities, buildings where systems are installed and where they’re managed, which may well be different in these days of remote control and the weapons installations and storage buildings themselves. Someone will know where every one of these is and will have shared this information by some means or another and one would hope that the co-ordinates are already specified in suitable target summaries within NATO.
I think that every one of these needs to be hit very soon. Not in an obvious way. One important miss and there would be the certainty of russia identifying the source of whatever missiles hit and some remaining silo or storage facility would fire back and all hell would be let loose. The hits need to be carried out by means that are not so obviously identified and using Russians to do the job would make response tricky to manage. There must be thousands of people in russia who are totally fed up with what’s been going on, even if they only see one side on Russia Today or whatever program they’re permitted to watch these days. These people can surely not want to take control of Ukraine, have no desire to rape and torture and kill innocent families just across the border and they certainly have no desire to be citizens of the first nation to fire a nuclear weapon in anger. My guess is that a good number could be persuaded to assist in the task of switching off vital links to services and cancelling response abilities in return for some impressive financial and other rewards from a grateful world later.
I suspect that it is not necessary in every instance to blow up some place but rather incapacitate it.
That’s what’s in my mind but I doubt that’s in anyone else’s. We’re looking at the moment to Biden and team in the USA and a few decision-makers in NATO countries and the organisation itself. I don’t see Biden doing anything more, nor the vast majority of NATO countries. They had the chance to do something useful 1000 days ago and did nothing. They have not even honoured commitments to Ukraine made in clear language in previous years when Ukraine agreed to give up the nuclear weapons stored in the country and again after russia seized control of Crimea. It makes me sad that my own country has not kept its word and how we have all run scared ever since January 2022 and that fright has taken root in so many of our population too.
So what is in the mind of many of our decision-makers is fear. Quite simply they’re frightened to do anything other than hope that someone else will do something instead.
The move that is in everyone’s minds but which no-one dares talk about is the one we should have made, in unison across NATO, at the very start: send in masses of troops and sufficient weapons and material to show russia that they have no chance of making any worthwhile progress in Ukraine.
It may well not even have been necessary to attack any russian troops or positions, merely demonstrate that the whole of NATO and the USA and best part of the British Commonwealth was going to stand firm. No way would russia have attacked any of the NATO troops as they know only too well that their country would be annihilated. Yes, some places and maybe many thousands of people in the ‘West’ might also suffer terrible loss in such an exchange but russia would die for certain before more harm was done and that would be the end of that.
I wonder too how the good Russian people, and there are plenty of them, feel about their countries relationship with North Korea? I am pretty sure that if someone asked them to vote as to which nation they would like to have as a special chum for the future not one would have ticked the North Korea box! But there we have it now. Many thousands of North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine in the name of the Russian Federation. Not only that but there is now the madness of russia donating technology to North Korea to help them defend themselves. Now we all know just how unpredictable the leaders of North Korea are. They have about as much knowledge of the planet and other nations as the snails in my garden. Read any material published by them and it makes little or no sense, just massive propaganda or constant moaning about their South Korea neighbour. Of all the countries in the world, russia chooses to support North Korea? I used to argue with people who tell me that Putin is mad but I do have to wonder sometimes just how he can justify this. Imagine him waking up one morning and chatting with his generals about the war.
“Oh, I’ve just done a deal with Kim Jong Il.He’ll give us some troops and in return we’re going to help him defend his country.”
“So if Kim tells you he’s being attacked by South Korea you’ll fight South Korea?”
“Er . . .”
“‘Cos you know Kim is always telling people he’s being attacked by someone, usually South Korea. The bloke’s mad, you do realise? You’re getting into bed with a crazy twerp who is in charge of probably the most introvert nation on the planet and the last place anyone else on the planet wants to live. You can’t even tour the place without being guided by someone and the vast majority of the population are living hand to mouth with little by way of possessions.”
“I’m not getting into bed with Kim . . .”
“But you’ll still get screwed!”
I am struggling to make sense of how we have arrived at this debacle of a world position. I started wondering what was in the minds of those who might feasibly do something to sort this out. I have to conclude thinking that the only people who can end this are the good Russians themselves. They need to be brave enough to speak out in the communities and question what is really happening. I don’t mean mass demonstrations but subtle infiltration of committees where decisions are taken and maybe there will be some who can change the stance of people close to Putin and rescue their nation from this madness.
If they don’t then I predict that russia will never be forgiven for the atrocities and breaking international law and rules for decent treatment of one’s fellow man. They’ll have one ally in North Korea and will find themselves dragged into some conflict with yet another country before long as a result, becoming more and more absent from meaningful world activity and trade, their people less respected or trusted. Despite the considerable mass of the Russian Federation, it will have as much influence on the world as North Korea has on a good day, which is zero.
Some deal will be struck in due course by men too frightened to stand up for what is right. And while Ukraine families mourn their loss and the West helps rebuild what russia destroyed, russia and russians will fade from view to the vast majority of people in the rest of the world. It is sad because there are some good Russians.
After the last war, the phrase everyone remembers is: We shall not forget.
And yet we will.
