Ukraine Dispatch 3 | Ukraine Invaded by Russia This Morning

Ukraine Dispatches

Volume 1 24 February 2022

I

RUSSIA’s INVASION OF UKRAINE in the early hours of this morning, Thursday 24 February 2022, will mark Vladimir Putin’s high point and ultimate low point.

In the grim reality of this cold February day, we come face to face with a dictator. On Monday night the world watched a 65-minute rambling diatribe of alternative history. We know what Putin is about.

His intention is clear and predictable to the point of certainty.

He intends to restore, as he sees it in his befuddled mind, the rightful position of Russia on the world stage, in the affairs of Europe, and to completely realign the present European order.

II

Whether we realise it or not, here in the United Kingdom, our front line is actually that line drawn along the eastern borders of our NATO allies. Many of those states were in the former Soviet Union, which Putin desires to recreate. That was a very clear red light, a warning, to all of us.

NATO has, today, confirmed that it has activated its Defence Plan, which extends greater authority to commanders in the field, and underling that Article 5 stands:

Any attack upon one NATO state
is deemed to be an attack
on all NATO states.

Should this happen, and it will, then the world is plunged into World War III.

III

It is chilling to see Putin’s carefully choreographed address - clearly made several days ago when one observes the suit, shirt and tie he is wearing - that any interference will be met with a response the like of which we have not seen. One can only presume that the man threatens to use nuclear weapons.

Right now, the People of Ukraine are the only Nation bearing arms in defence of their sovereignty. We must stand by them with all means possible.

IV

This evening, the world saw that which is not now customary. A totally united British Parliament. Here is the steel and resolve that underpins these island peoples.

We must now do all we can to assist Ukraine. We must provide humanitarian aid, we must be prepared for the influx of refugees, and we must continue to supply defensive weaponry. This is difficult. It is not beyond Putin’s mind to see that when, for example, we do this by means of Poland (which has a 332-mile-long border with Ukraine), then this is the ‘interference’ he warns of. His invasion of Ukraine today tells us how close we are to world war.

V

Let there be no mistake. The world that closed last night as we turned out the lights, is now gone. We have a new and frightening world. We have a new reality. We have a new normal.

We Have a New Normal

Let there be no mistake. The world that closed last night as we turned out the lights, is now gone. We have a new and frightening world. We have a new reality.

Putin has sown the seeds of his downfall. Dictators always enjoy initial success followed by their long-term inevitable downfall.

In time, the Russian People will begin to wade through the mass of disinformation they are being fed and see the reality of what Putin has done. But that will not be overnight. It took Nazi Germany 12 years to realise how duped they had been, and even then, only because they had been forced to surrender unconditionally to the Allies.

Putin does not do anything in their name. No one knows what is going on in his head. Putin neither cares nor bothers about the Russian People. Those engaged in peaceful protests today in twelve cities have all been arrested.

He seeks only to recreate an old empire. He is an imperialist, seeking imperial power, repugnant in this 21st Century. His ‘friend’ on his southern border, his political compatriot, also seeks imperial power.

VI

In the 20th Century, a problem in a faraway country of which we knew little, Bosnia, witnessed the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and lit the fuse to ignite the outbreak of World War I.

In the 20th Century, a problem in a faraway country of which we knew little, Czechoslovakia, led to appeasement in 1938, a declaration by a dictator, Adolf Hitler, that he had no other territorial ambitions, all the while planning what history now reveals as the complete subjugation of Europe, and which led to his invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and World War II.

In the 20th Century, Josef Stalin made his ambitions clear in 1946, and Winston Churchill explained in a way that all of us could grasp … that an “ ‘Iron Curtain’ had descended from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic” thereby acknowledging the new reality about which the West had been so unwilling to recognise, namely, the onset of the Cold War.

As the President of Ukraine has rightly pointed out in his Address to Ukraine today, ‘a new iron curtain’ has descended, and NATO needs to take sombre note, for this is a clear warning that Putin has territorial ambitions far, far beyond Ukraine.

VII

In this 21st Century, we have to learn the lessons of the 20th century.

We have, for years, presumed that the horrendous land battles that characterised the first half of the 20th century were over. This morning, we awake to the new reality that they are not.

Britain’s total armed forces currently amount to 190,000 (including 40,000 in the Reserve). Russia invaded Ukraine this morning with armed forces amounting to 190,000.

VIII

The People of Ukraine stand alone. They fight alone. In this country, we knew what that felt like in 1940, especially in our lowest moments when the United States was secretly negotiating with Canada to secure the British Fleets without informing Winston Churchill. And I suspect there will be the doom and gloom voices in this country now, arguing that Ukraine is finished.

Do not make the mistake that Ukraine is Russia or that Russia is Ukraine.

Do not underestimate the will and resolve of the People and Sovereign nation of Ukraine.

Ukraine has a very proud and independent history that reaches far beyond the twisted thinking and rambling of that man in the Kremlin, and of even that man’s heroine, the despotic Catherine the Great.

We MUST do all we can to help the people and the Nation of Ukraine in this grim and grievous hour, for I have an awful feeling that history will record this date as the opening gambit of World War III.

24 February 2023
All Rights Reserved

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2023

Photo by zhan zhang on Unsplash

First published 24 February 2022