Putin’s war, which has to include the annexation of 20% of land in Georgia, as well as the questionable status of Russian ‘peacekeepers’ in Moldova, Armenia and Khazakstan, and the abduction of the population from those areas seized in Ukraine. Putin’s war must not be confused with the will or even the wish of the majority of Russian people. The many interviews which have been shown from the Russian streets of people declaring they are 100% behind the President must be taken with a pinch of salt. No-one wants to risk the imprisonment that would be the likely outcome of any dissension.
Let us contrast this with the process which is currently underway in the States with the indictment of the former President, Donald Trump, who himself is an extremist and every bit as deluded as the Russian leader. Neither, it must be added is Britain free from its own share of deluded leaders as Johnson comes under scrutiny for wilfully misleading parliament.
What this indicates, for me, is that we live in a time when those who have thrust themselves forward in the political arena are besotted with their own image of themselves to the extent of losing touch with the rest of humanity. Extremism is on the rise.
A similar situation occurred in Germany 84 yeas ago when Hitler decided he wanted to ‘unite the German people’ and seeing himself as some sort of liberator committed atrocities against his own populations, not to mention those of foreign lands over which he had no rightful claim. But it seems some political leaders never learn the lessons of previous years and instead learn only how to ravage populations more thoroughly.
However this was not to complain of Russian approaches in Ukraine so much as to indicate that the likely outcome of this war is to demonstrate to all politicians, and people at large, the unsafe nature of Nuclear power. As the dammed reservoir drowns the towns and villages of the lower Dnipro valley, threatening the loss of harvest from these fertile lands so also, it drains the supply of cooling waters for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. In a single action the Russian general has halved the production of electricity in that country, since the dam itself was a hydro-electric producer and now the nuclear facility has to be carefully managed to ensure that another Chernobyl style disaster does not occur again.
Fears had been expressed earlier in the conflict as Russian missiles fell close to the power plant and yet British ministers declare that nuclear energy is the saviour of the future and is currently considered by them, it has to be stated a view not shared by many, as ‘green energy’. This is similar to saying that food grown with fertilizers and pesticides is organic, because it is the fruit of a living thing.
One cannot speak of the depth of sympathy that goes out to the honest people who have lost their homes, property and livelihoods, not to mention lives, by this act of international terrorism. Yet one cannot hope, despite the bonhomie and boyish good will expressed by leaders of other nations, that the lessons will be learned and implemented in the rest of the democratic world.
