Ukraine Dispatch 13 | To the People of Ukraine
Ukraine Dispatches
Volume 1| 2022
IN THIS terrifying War, this deliberate, planned, vicious and cynical invasion by Russia on a peace-loving Democratic People, a Sovereign Nation, a People that have no desire for war, the People stand as one, united, alone.
I speak as a Briton. I am English born and know the effect upon my family of two world wars, the absence thereby of four family branches, and I recall my parents and grandparents explaining to me how dark and terrifying those long days of 1940 and 1941 when Britain stood alone, and one person rallied us. His name stands as a titan in global history.
Today, we see in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Winston Churchill’s natural successor, for just as Churchill had a grasp of global geopolitics when much of the world preferred to stand on the sideline, encourage our stance, and oh so slowly begin to supply us with the means to stand firm and fight back, so too, President Zelenskyy now weighs up in the balances not only the plight of the People of Ukraine but sounds, very accurately, strident alarm bells to the free world; indeed, to those in the unfree world if they have a chance to hear the truth, that Ukraine’s fight today, is our fight tomorrow.
It is a certainty. Nothing will now stop this wanton aggression of Vladimir Putin, a man that has become, overnight, an archetypal Adolf Hitler, the very man who without warning or provocation, invaded his beloved Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. The bestial acts that followed upon the hapless people of Ukraine and of Russia, Putin begins to parallel.
Putin uses the same siege tactics as Hitler. He is a student of Hitler.
There is no need for President Zelenskyy to arrange for mass crowds, gatherings by order, the usual telling remark of all totalitarian regimes without exception.
No. Quiet, radiant, a family man, a husband and a father, a man of peace, of vision, a man who understands life. He stands in the Capital, he speaks directly to a solitary camera, no props other than his beloved City, the warmth of the streetlights conveying an inner peace. Yes, truly Churchillian.
People of Ukraine, the British People stand with you.
We know that our armaments are being received by you, and we are very proud that we have worked with your armed forces since the unlawful invasion and occupation of Crimea. If the truth is known, regardless of what our politicians say, the man and woman in the street want to give you air cover. Like you, we are a democracy and entrust the decision-making to our politicians, but that does not mean we always agree with their decisions.
We, the British People, understand fully the need for you to have security and that is why we welcome the security cooperation between the United Kingdom and Poland and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This stands separate from NATO.
Just as Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin grabbed landmass for themselves and brutalised the nations of those lands, so Putin is doing the same and peers far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
We know he is intent on invading Moldova. Nothing will satiate him.
Speaking of Russia’s invasion of your Country, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, warns that this has been an ‘electroshock for NATO’. It has indeed.
This morning, we learn that our former prime ministers, Gordon Brown and Sir John Major are firm in their belief that Putin must stand trial for war crimes but using the same format as the 1945-46 Nuremberg Trials. For Putin will crumble and fall. Just as Hitler crumbled.
But the price for Putin’s fall is unimaginable.
Just as Hitler turned with unmitigated fury upon the hapless German People in the last weeks of the war, so Putin will turn on the hapless Russian People and has already started the process two nights ago with his diatribe on state television.
What a pariah state Russia is. People were ordered to attend a football stadium rally. What a difference between a dictator, on the one hand, soulless, cruel, and bestial, and the quietude and enormous presence of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The British foreign secretary, the Rt Hon Liz Truss MP, is absolutely right when Ms Truss calls out Putin for what he is:
A liar
A man who has no intention of meeting President Zelenskyy, and
A man who is using the so-called ‘progress between both sides negotiations’’ merely to regroup his ill-led, ill-fed, ill-organized Russian forces
The United States Defence Department estimates that over 7,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives thus far. This is Day 25 of the special military operation that would be over in three days, at the most a week. Based on that estimate, that suggests that 280 more Russian soldiers are killed to date. The numbers will be higher. But Putin is doing what Hitler did. To both evil men, lives were and are meaningless, cheap and worthless cannon fodder.
The hapless Russian People meanwhile believe every line, every word, uttered by their state-controlled TV news. The result? When a Ukrainian tries to reason with his Russian relative, his cousin loses his temper on the phone in Russia, shouting that Putin is a king and a god.’
A god?!?
What is it with the hapless, ring-nosed led Russian People that this week, twice I have seen them refer to Putin as a god? What occupies their minds to think and even talk such rubbish in this 21st Century?! It is as daft and preposterous as believing that Jesus is somehow stuck inside a box and locked up in every catholic and orthodox church the world over.
Watching the highly respected Dateline London just now, the BBC Correspondent Clive Myrie (just returned from covering the War in Ukraine) made a very interesting observation regarding the forthcoming meeting of NATO foreign ministers and which will be attended by President Biden. We know that the no-fly zone is off the table. We understand why. It should not be. But Mr Myrie suggested that we may well see a shift in NATO’s position, a more positive position towards Ukraine, for there are many layers, he said, below the no-fly zone.
At the day’s end, Putin is a loser. He will undoubtedly wreak havoc in Ukraine.
Whether the West likes it or not, whether my own countrymen like it or not, Ukraine IS the opening gambit of World War III, a factor that will weigh heavily upon us when Russia does that which Ukraine has been warning us all along.
Ukrainians, I end with this one plea. Please do not give up Crimea. Crimea is part of Ukraine. Let not the terrifying sacrifice of Mariupol be in vain.
Thank you for listening.
19 November 2022
All Rights Reserved
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022
Written 19 March 2022
The banner image is a screenshot via Smart TV and is reproduced by kind permission of BBC News Live 24
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
