No. 239 – How does this End?

Dear James,

Yesterday Vladimir Putin attacked a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Bloodied, pregnant women staggered from the ruins. This was a war crime and it’s not over yet. Today there are reports that the Russians are ‘false-flagging’ the ‘discovery of ammonia supplies held by Ukraine' which may presage the use of chemical weapons by Russia. Depravity does not even begin to describe such actions. In 2012 Obama drew a red line on the use of chemical weapons in Syria. At the last moment he blinked and cancelled the missile strikes. Putin got away with it. Ten years later, the results can be seen in the Ukraine of today. Appeasement only delays the inevitable.

This is Putin’s war. Unprovoked and brutal, it is the result of a twisted history and an imagination isolated from reality. It has been forced upon the world by a fanatical personality suffering from classic delusions of grandeur and personal impregnability. No one dares criticize him. Those who do are either in jail (Navalny) or dead (Boris Nemtsov, Alexander Litvinienko and countless Russian journalists either poisoned or shot). Putin is a dictator. And he’s desperate, frustrated, bitter and running out of options.

Cornered despots are no longer rational. Part of Putin’s playbook is to escalate and to double down on the escalation. Even when the once infallible Russian army has been shown to be weak and incompetent. The ’40 mile convoy’ stuck north of Kiev is stalled due to poor logistics and low morale.  The Ukrainian air force is still flying, the Russian communication systems are dreadful – the killing of Major General Gerasimov on Monday was probably due to the Ukrainians picking up his radio signals. The great Russian army has made little progress for a week while its supply chains are constantly under Ukrainian attack. While Putin’s stock is plummeting, in Volodymyr Zelensky the free world has found a new hero. Canary yellow and sky blue have become the latest version of those ‘Colour Revolutions’ that Putin so abhors. All of which will madden the despot even more.  

But Putin still has options. The bombardment of schools and hospitals - mediaeval warfare on an industrial scale - is only the latest. Next come chemicals and then finally the nuclear arsenal. One day soon, unless the sanctions cause Putin to be removed very soon, the West will have to confront him at some point in his marauding adventures. We must be ready to face down his ultimate escalation, the nuclear threat.

Strong men cannot lose. They either win or they self detonate and try to take as many down with them as possible. In other words, if Putin loses, we all lose. So the West continues to say it cannot take the risk of confronting Russian aircraft. I’m afraid that this not only seems weak, it is weak. Those Russian aircraft are flying over an invaded nation and we‘re giving them a free pass. It’s the modern form of the Rheinland in 1936 or the Sudetenland in 1938 and we say we can do nothing?  

There are similarities between Putin and Hitler. Both were victims of nostalgic nationalism, the fantasy of returning to ‘golden ages’ of their respective nations. In Germany Hitler demanded ‘Lebensraum’ or living space, to accommodate the ‘master race’. Putin requires the reabsorption of Ukraine into his vision of a reconstructed Russian empire. Both men, fuelled by false patriotisms, took on the risks of escalation based on their perception that democracies are essentially weak.

Today Boris’s bumbling elbow greeting of world leaders and NATO’s refusal to ‘take the risk ‘ of imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine is almost embarrassing. This is not just a war about the Ukraine. It’s a war about the choice between free democracy and authoritarianism. At the moment the brave Ukrainians are absorbing the punch. Very soon, unless someone removes Putin very quickly, we will all have to do our bit in this existential fight. We can no longer hide behind the fear of escalation to the final confrontation. It will be seen as weakness.

James, I hate the thought of nuclear war and I say this with a heavy heart, but until we bring Putin to the point reached during the Cuban missile crisis of 1961, we are delaying the inevitable. Only then will Putin be revealed for what he is. Irrational madman or rational pragmatist. Whichever way it goes, Xi Xinping will be watching. Taiwan is next on the agenda. And with that the question of how we all live. In a free society or in a police state?

Call me a Cassandra on this James, but today, more than ever in the last seventy years, we need courage, real leadership and the generosity of free spirits everywhere. Poor, inadequate Boris needs to ‘man up’ and Mrs Patel needs to go! 

BH – Your Concerned Constituent.