Ukraine what now

Now, today it has been announced that Germany will allow its Leopard tanks owned by NATO countries to be exported to Ukraine and in addition will supply a dozen or so of its own. The UK has promised 14 tanks and possibly the USA will send some Abraham tanks. The stated assumption is that Ukraine will, with the assistance of these tanks, take back land that Russian forces have occupied and push them back to the border including retaking Crimea.

In order to consider the future we must also consider the past. When the Soviet Union broke up agreements to maintain peace were soon made between the ‘West’ (meaning the behest of the USA) and the emerging democracy of Russia. One agreement was that nuclear weapons based in the old Soviet of Ukraine would be removed and in exchange NATO would not advance through the new free nations of the Balkans and Ukraine. Over the years this agreement has been broken by the West as they steadily approved NATO membership of the old Soviet nations and advanced ever closer to the borders with Russia. Behind NATO followed the EU. This is all an obvious threat to Russia’s security. With new governments in Ukraine including a coup accompanied by overtures towards the West when previously it had very close ties with Russia, Putin could see the threat closing in on Russia as Ukraine had the great sea ports of the Black Sea including Crimea. He expressed his alarm eventually turning to threats that were ignored and was basically pushed into annexing Crimea and finally invading Ukraine. I suggest this was a deliberate plan of the West.

We must now throw in a few facts, most of which are not disputed when even a sliver of honesty is about. Ukraine is one of the world’s most corrupt countries not only government but also in business, it’s endemic and Zelenski is not immune making it fertile ground for capitalism. Next, the people of eastern Ukraine are largely of Russian origin and a happy mix of Russian/Ukrainian and have gone about their lives in a spirit of neighbourliness with those over the border. Indeed movement across the border for trading, family, friendships were the norm. Ukraine has never been one big nation but made up of several ethnic groups, the ones to the east being, as I said, Russian and a majority were opposed to the Ukrainian government moving closer to the West, NATO and the EU. They decided to secede and form their own regional state which was opposed by the government Kiev and eventually shelled by the army. Russia assisted secessionists which given their closeness in ethnicity is understandable but still held back from actually going over the border and absorbing Donbass and Donetsk into the Russian Federation as requested by the majority of the people.

The West seeing a perceived opportunity to weaken Russia (Capitalism requires weak subservient states) maybe as Russia had a bad pandemic, agitated the situation, building up Zelenski while goading Putin until he had virtually no choice but to move into the Eastern region and war soon followed as predictable as a sunrise.

So where are we now? We have over a quarter of a million people dead which probably means a million injured, countless cities and towns destroyed, 3 million Ukrainians living in exile, agriculture severely curtailed meaning hunger for many in the developing world and rising prices elsewhere. The West has supplied vast monetary sums to the corrupt government and a steadily increasing supply of weapons and ammunition. Not only this but the destructive fire power supplied has also been escalating with tanks just being the latest example. It can easily be argued that the West is also testing weapons with the lives of Ukrainians as neither Russia could ‘win’ and take over the entire Ukraine nor can Ukraine ‘win’ against the might of Russia. With every consignment sent the risk of open warfare between the West and Russia rises with all the imagined horrors that could mean. That we haven’t as yet arrived at that terrible confrontation is as much down to Putin’s self control as it is to luck.

Trident Replacement

This new government is quite obviously incapable of thinking things through as can be seen by the Child Benefit debacle but they have excelled themselves on Trident.

Liam Fox has just announced that they will be replacing the Trident nuclear missile system at a cost of £20bn. Yes £20bn at a time when we are told there are huge cutbacks in social services to be made. We all know as well that a government estimate for cost usually doubles particularly when it comes to defence spending.

Even the most fevered mind would be hard put to come up with a scenario in which a British Prime Minister would actually give the order to destroy 10’s of millions of people. As for being an independent system everyone knows that it depends entirely on the USA for the missiles and for the guidance system that can be switched off at any time. Even the regular refurbishment of the nuclear warhead carried out at Aldermaston is done by an American owned company.

Apart from France no other mainland European country has these weapons; are they all shaking in their boots because they haven’t got some? I suggest not, they are spending their £20bn plus on better lives for their citizens.

Finally this decision  is nothing more than encouragement to countries, like Iran, to develop their own nuclear capability on the grounds that if Britain says that they are essential for it’s defence then it must also be essential for theirs. There was an acronym for this idea during the cold war; MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. The madness goes on.

Nuclear Progress?

President Obama of the USA and President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia have signed an agreement to reduce their respective stock of nuclear weapons. This is of course to be welcomed and it’s a START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) However, let’s not get too carried away. Currently they have well over 2000 nuclear bombs each and they have now agreed to reduce the numbers to over 1500 each; progress, yes but still sufficient to destroy the entire globe.

The time must be right for the UK to contribute by not replacing Trident which has never been ‘independant’ anyway while at the same time saving us a massive £70 billion that we can certainly do with in the present economic climate.

G20 March

Today at the G20 march in London the police estimate 35,000 people braved the cold winds and warnings that there might be ‘trouble’ to make clear what the people want from this meeting. By the way, going from my experience of marching with CND you can probably double that number.

Various groups issued statements and the most impressive for me was the one issued by ‘The British Muslim Initiative’ which I am happy to copy below. It is clear, precise and encompasses all the wishes expressed by the other groups.

“While the world looks with horror at the hundreds of billions of pounds being thrown at shoddy financial establishments to bail them out and to cover for huge executive bonuses, very little mention is made of the hundreds of billions that continue to be pumped into the global war machine that claims thousands of lives every day.

“Unless occupation in all its forms is seen as a repugnant manifestation of human greed and desire to over-power… and unless we see to it that poverty, disease, illiteracy and social injustice are properly and responsibly addressed, we will never be able to resolve the crisis that engulfs the world through the failure of its major financial policies and institutions.”

Cold War Hots Up Again

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered plans to be drawn up for a nuclear ‘umbrella’ to protect Russia from a potential attack along with more nuclear submarines and a space shield.

So here we go again, embarking on yet another arms race, creating tension, fears and an appalling waste of natural resources that no one can afford. So predictable when at the US behest, all the little countries that were formally part of the Soviet Union clamour to join the EU and NATO with their eyes on the financial inducements on offer.  US anti missile missiles are to be based in Poland just west of Russia along with promises of cash and NATO membership to Georgia to the south and so on. No wonder Russia feels increasingly threatened.

Western governments and their media will of course point the finger at Russia and it’s new President but the truth is plain to see for anyone with at least one brain cell.