Ukraine Dispatch 16 | On the Brink

Ukraine Dispatches

Volume 1 2022

I

It is over. It is gone. The post-Cold War world that ended when the Berlin Wall came down, itself ended on Thursday 24 February 2022.

Whether we accept this or not, we are already in the icy blast of the Second Cold War which, for the Sovereign Nation and People of Ukraine is an already violent and repugnant hot war, and likewise for the sovereign nations and peoples of Poland, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Hungary and Georgia. It matters not that seven of these independent nation-states are also members of NATO. Vladimir Putin desires only one thing. To recreate his nostalgic yearning for the former Soviet Union. He cares not for life, save his own, and sees no reason not to wage war in exactly the way in which the Soviet Union did, initially in cahoots with Nazi Germany, and then when that country invaded the Soviet Union, against that country.

These free and independent nations know too well that Putinism intends to claw them all back into a backward Pariah state, whose only friends are similar pariah states who yearn for totalitarian rule, who want the glories and feasts of ‘the West’ but not the responsibility of freewill, openness and democratic freedom that thrives upon differing opinions, dissent, and then finding common ground and cross-party consensus.

Putinism is this century’s return to the last century’s Hitlerism.

II

It is wrong to assume that we can, without a doubt, rely upon the United States of America.

Repugnant to Western Europe would be the return of Trumpism to the Whitehouse. If nothing else in these terrifying 26 days, we Europeans have most certainly learned that.

Yet, even now, on Day 26 of the War in Ukraine, despite a sort of bi-partisan consensus between Republicans and Democrats in the USA, we read that there are republicans who are not wanting to say too much against Putin in case Trumpism returns and they find themselves unaligned if that ‘abhorrence’ should return to the oval office.

To those men and women, even now, I say this.

Go away. You are gutless, mindless people,
who think only of your own welfare,
who shout from lecterns
at idiotic stage-managed primaries,
who give all the utterances of people
who genuinely believe
perfumes follow their posteriors.

God help us if Trumpism returns. If it does we will by mid-century, see America breaking up into its individual states again. Simply put, that must NEVER happen! Putinism and Pingism would run riot, across the entire globe.

III

It is too soon for the Russian people to realise or to even comprehend what has been done in their name, what lies, deceit and treachery have befallen them. It will be many years before the dawn of reality alights upon them. Intelligent middle-class Russians see no wrong in their ‘special military operation’. One lady, bejewelled and immaculate, speaking fluent English to the BBC’s Russia Editor in Moscow, repeated again and again, that ‘there is not one political prisoner in Russia’, this in reply to Mr Rosenberg’s request for her comment on the sham trial, conviction and 9 years maximum security sentence by video link this morning.

Recalling George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and the central character Winston Smith, an ominous adjective sprang to mind … brainwashed.

When, in the cold light of Russian dawn, reality sets in, these people will hang their heads in shame and realise only too well why their nation, overnight, became the pariah state of the world. For they will not be permitted to think of Ukraine as a ‘one-off’. Rather, like putting on kaleidoscopic sunglasses, the terror inflicted upon nation after nation over 30 years will race by and blind them, causing them to freeze.

What is this we have done?!?

It is of their own making. Only a few can naturally cope with the freedom and democracy that we, in the West, take for granted. For the vast majority of the Russian people, autocracy is the preferred way of life, someone in authority telling them what to do, what to say, what not to say, what to think, and what not to think. In short, the archetypal definition of mindless automatons.

They have brought upon whole nations such dread, such evil, such terror, that history will stand them in the dirty little unkempt corner alongside Nazi Germany and all the other dictators, including their revered Stalin, who have spelt disaster for humankind.

Grozny, Aleppo, two Chechnyan Wars, subjugation of Georgia, subjugation of Syria, threats of military and political consequences to Finland, and threats of invasion to the Baltic states, those free, independent, peace-loving Democratic Peoples of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Similar threats to Denmark and Sweden. A very direct and ominous threat to Poland.

Who are these benighted Russian people?

Have a read of the superb long-read article by Allan Little of BBC News published on Sunday, 20 March, part of which reads as follows:

IV

The Western democracies have not been "paying attention" to the nature of the menace that has been incubating on their eastern frontier.

But Putin, too, has seemed complacent.

First, he believed the West was in chronic decline, weakened by internal division and ideological rancour. The election of Donald Trump and Brexit he saw as proof of this. The rise of right-wing authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary was further evidence of the disintegration of liberal values and institutions. The US's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan was proof of a waning power withdrawing from the world stage.

Second, he misread what was happening on his borders. He refused to believe that a series of democratic uprisings in former Soviet Republics - Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-5) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) - could possibly be authentic expressions of the popular will. Because each was aimed at removing corrupt and unpopular pro-Moscow governments, it seemed self-evident to the Kremlin that these were the work of foreign intelligence agencies, the Americans and the British in particular - Western imperialism's forward march into territory that was rightfully and historically Russia's.

Third, he has failed to understand his own armed forces. It is clear now that he expected this "special military operation" to be over in a few days.

Russia's military incompetence has astonished many Western security experts. It brings echoes for me of a smaller, more containable, but nonetheless devastating war, in former Yugoslavia.

In 1992, Serb nationalists launched a war to strangle the newly independent state of Bosnia at birth. They argued that Bosnian identity was bogus, that Bosnian statehood had no historical legitimacy, [and] that it was really part of Serbia. It is exactly Putin's view of Ukraine.

Like Russia today, Serb forces enjoyed overwhelming firepower superiority. But they often stalled wherever local non-Serbs put up resistance. They seemed unable to seize towns or cities - unwilling to fight street-by-street on foot. The Bosnian defenders were initially very poorly equipped - I remember boys in tennis shoes in the trenches of Sarajevo with one AK-47 between three of them. But they defended their capital for nearly four years. There is a similar resolve in the young men volunteering to defend Kyiv.

So instead of taking the cities and towns, the Serbs laid siege to them - surrounding them, bombarding them, [and] cutting off water, gas and electricity. It is already happening in Mariupol. Besiege a city and cut off its water supply, and within 24 hours, every toilet is a public health hazard. Citizens have to go out into the streets to find water standpipes and fill up receptacles just to flush their loos. Cut off the electricity and you freeze in your own home. Soon the food runs out. Is that what the Russians intend for Mariupol, for Kharkiv, for Kyiv? To starve them into submission?

But nearly four years of this cruelty gave Bosnian nationhood a founding narrative of resistance, suffering and heroic struggle. Ukraine's identity, too, will be strengthened further by the way Ukrainians have fought. Ukraine's Russian speakers have not felt "liberated" by the invasion. The evidence is that they, too, believe in Ukraine as a sovereign state. Putin's war, aimed at reunifying what he sees as two parts of the Russian nation, is already having the opposite effect - strengthening the will of most Ukrainians to seek a destiny free from Russian domination.

“Putin’s war, aimed at reunifying what he sees as two parts of the Russian nation, is already having the opposite effect - strengthening the will of most Ukrainians to seek a destiny free from Russian domination.”

— Allan Little, BBC News, March 20, 2022

V

Today, President Biden issues a clear warning to Putin, of whom he has already, rightly, called a war criminal, that should Putin use chemical and/or biological weapons, then there will be “severe consequences”.

On the one hand, one feels reassurance. On the other hand, one is acutely aware that the West is playing its game again, turning its toes inside its boots as it bristles sanctions, for fear that Vladimir Putin might go chemical, biological or even nuclear. The West has a proven track record of being “all mouth and trousers”. Think red lines, think President Obama, think not following through. I still have enormous respect for President Obama, and always will do, but that was the lowest point of his presidency, for he set the bar, and he signalled to President Putin just how far Vladimir Putin could go. He gave him, in effect, a green light.

VI

It is time to come to the military aid of Ukraine under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Article 51 is separate and distinct from Article 5 of NATO.

“ Nothing in the present Charter
shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence
if an armed attack occurs
against a Member of the United Nations,
until the Security Council has taken measures necessary
to maintain international peace and security.”

— UN Charter, Article 51

VII

The alarmists and defeatists, those who shout loudest from the back of the furthest most line from the front line, argue that as Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, then it will simply use its veto in that capacity.

As a lawyer, I can understand the argument. But let us exercise our minds a little.

Imagine had Adolf Hitler been a founding member of the League of Nations, imagine he had not walked out, and imagine that at the time he invaded Poland, Nazi Germany was the president of the League of Nations. Even the thought causes one to retch.

I suspect a point would have been reached when the hapless ‘president’ would have been frog-marched out of the chamber. I tire of lawyers who argue every ‘jot and tittle’. I quote that scripture deliberately (i). Who bite their nails and insist that as Russia is a founding member of the United Nations, and therefore a permanent member of the five-member security council, nothing can be done!

But that is like religious people who argue a thousand and one ways of applying some ancient religious text. I saw it in Israel.

Ken, you must NOT turn the light switch on.
For that is work. And it is the Sabbath.
You must make sure the timers are set in time each Friday.
Now get a grip.

That was in French Hill in Jerusalem.

I have no patience with such idiocy, in the same way as a carpenter had no truck with those who said that when his followers plucked ears of corn to eat while walking through the field, they were, God Forbid, working on the Sabbath. Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath …(ii) I recall the carpenter replying.

Quite!

The UN Charter is made for the benefit of Nations and individuals, not nations and individuals for the UN Charter. Thus, the Rule of Law, and indeed the Rule of Equity, requires the immediate suspension of Russia’s presidency of the UN, followed literally within moments, by Russia’s permanent ejection from the UN by a simple majority. Yes, by a simple majority. That, in one sweep, silences troublesome China.

When law-abiding people turn to the most violent means of achieving their goals, they lose the right to dictate terms.

Russia has shown itself unworthy of being even a member of the United Nations. It is a pariah state. And thus, it will remain for a very long time to come, certainly way beyond my lifetime.

VIII

Vladimir Putin’s days are numbered. The writing is on the wall.(iii) And judging by the letter written by his predecessor Mr Medvedev (the stop-gap Russian president that enabled Vladimir Putin to become prime minister before, once again, stepping back into Stalin’s left boot and Hitler’s right boot) yesterday in advance of President Biden’s arrival in Brussels and thence on to Poland, very dark days lie ahead for the Russian People.

Whenever speaking at a funeral within my family, or when invited to do so at funerals further afield, I used to say,

there is darkness now
but in the morning comes light,
a new dawning, a fresh beginning.

For All The Russias I can say only one part and know full well that I will not see the second part in my lifetime.

There is darkness now … … …

(i) Gospel of Matthew 5: 18
(ii) Gospel of Mark 2: 27
(iii) Daniel 5: 5-12

22 March 2022
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© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022