“I will not talk to anyone who calls this war a ‘conflict’! Bye!” The angry response surprises me. I’m typing a message on Facebook chat while I dash through a street in Odesa, buying last minute supplies for my trip to Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv. A mutual friend has told me to get in touch with a contact she knows there. “Hi, Nataliya,” I type. “I’m interested in covering the work you’re doing documenting Russian war crimes in this conflict.”
Thus I am introduced to Nataliya Zubar, amateur painter, knife aficionado, Ukrainian patriot, and fearless monitor of Russian war crimes in her home city of Kharkiv. When this war is finally over, it is the work of people such as Nataliya that will ensure Ukraine is able to settle its accounts.
She continues: “I am very picky about who I talk to. I sent to hell CNN and lots of other media organisations who have asked for my help.” After some back and forth, she accepts my apology for the unthinking slip, and we decide to meet in Kharkiv. As I go to log off, she sends me a final message, clearly keen to ensure I don’t make another faux pas: “Here is a huge chunk of Ukrainian text all about me.”
I scan through it. It is indeed comprehensive, detailing a life of activism in the service of Ukraine. Later on, when we speak, she explains her problem with the word “conflict”. It was, she says, used instead of war for the past eight years. “It undermines the gravity [of the situation in Ukraine]. Every war is a conflict, but not every conflict is a war. “
She continues: “Once, some foreign researchers edited my testimonies and replaced war with conflict.” She pauses. “Fucking people.”
***
Sometimes, at night, I fall asleep and dream about being blown up. It is, I think, a legacy of all the shelling I’ve heard. For some reason, it’s always my fingers that feature. I feel the blast tearing them from my hands. I feel the base of the joints tingle. I’ve thought about why it’s them and not something more vital like, say, my head, and think it’s because I use them to write. They stand for that that primordial part of me from which I most derive my identity.
If you want to see the effects of bombing, go to Kharkiv. “We call this ‘the city of broken windows’,” says Nataliya as we drive through the centre of the city, with her colleague Oleksiy and the journalist Jen Stout. The city usually has a population of around 1.5 million people but right now its central streets are pretty much deserted. Shops and restaurants are boarded up. I’ve already been told it will be tough to find a working ATM.
Bombs have ravaged the cityscape; buildings have chunks missing from them. One block on the corner of Moscow Prospekt and Constitution Square looks like a row of crumbling teeth: depleted and riddled with gaps. Where buildings haven’t been directly hit, shockwaves from the bombs have smashed windows of those nearby.
Saltivka used to be one of the largest residential areas in Europe (Jen Stout)
The Battle of Kharkiv began on the first day of the war. The city is just on the Russian border, where, on 24 February, Russian forces crossed from Belgorod. They clashed with the Ukrainians, before fighting moved to the northern suburbs. Then they started bombing.
In the early days, many thought the city had fallen. “Those clowns sent text messages to everyone saying we had surrendered, and I got loads of messages telling me to flee,” Nataliya snorts.
The Russians used planes to pound the city. As well as damage, they sought to use what Nataliya calls “acoustic terror” — forcing people to flee due to the relentless thunder of their bombing. According to Hanna Shelest, Director of Security Programmes at Ukrainian Prism, the Russians were always going to go hard for Kharkiv. “Obviously it’s a centre of industry, but more than this it controls the access to Luhansk. Take Kharkiv and you control the whole East,” she says.
Nataliya tells me how she started documenting Russian bombing. It was late evening on 9 March, and she was in her house during yet another air raid. People had been telling her to use the bomb shelters during the air raids, but she ignored them. The Russians weren’t going to drive her underground. As far as she was concerned, they could just fuck off.
But then two rockets hit the shopping mall just 120 metres from her house. The blast was immense. Her world shook. “What the fuck am I doing in here?” she thought to herself. “I need to get out there and help.” And she did.
“From day one, we focused on documenting Russian crimes within the proper Ukrainian criminal procedures. What we do is take photos and videos of destruction to civilian infrastructure. The office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine formally opens criminal proceedings and they delegate the right to conduct the investigation to the Ukrainian security services, which then reach out to citizens to help them to collect their evidence. This is where we come in.”
Nataliya Zubar: “I could kill you” (Jen Stout)
The day after the bombing, Nataliya shot her first video. Now she is taking me through the worst of the damage. On the morning of 1 March, a Russian 3M54-1 Kalibr missile struck the Kharkiv Oblast Administrative Building in Freedom Square. The building’s structure still stands, but inside it’s been devastated. I step through the ruins. The ground has become a vista of undulating grey rubble: it’s like being on the moon. Beneath this lies an array of detritus from civilian life: cups, plates, coffee pots and cutlery — everyday life smothered by violence. I look up: the floors have collapsed, and I can see straight up through the building to the sky. Nothing says industrial warfare like death dropped from hundreds of feet in the air.
Nataliya explains the tactics behind Russian bombing. They target three things. First, administration centres to stop the effective running of the city. Then it’s communications. We drive to a residential block that looms over a large hole in the ground, beneath which I can see a series of thick cables and wires. It’s as if someone has lifted up a flap of the city’s skin to reveal the veins and arteries beneath. “Electricity and internet cables,” she explains.
The third thing Russia targets are emergency services. As we pass by yet more destruction, I remark that I was recently in Mykolaiv and was shocked by how large the bomb craters there were. “Ours are bigger!” snaps Nataliya.
There is a clear pattern of targeting emergency services (Jen Stout)
Nataliya wants me to see a final bombsite before we get out to the frontlines in the areas beyond central Kharkiv. We pull up at a State Emergency Services station. It’s carnage. The building is in ruins; in what I assume was once a courtyard sits a crater so large that the remains of several cars lie in it. Nataliya looks around. “Belgorod is just 40km away,” she says. “This sort of stuff will always be a threat until we demilitarise Russia, or at least a part of it,” she says thoughtfully.
“Is that really plausible?” I reply.
“Believe me, there are a lot of people here who want to give it a go.”
***
“Welcome to hell,” says Nataliya with a broad grin. It’s about two hours later and we are entering Saltivka, a large residential area located in Kharkiv’s northeastern region, where the fighting is relentless. She is wearing a white helmet and has also put on a compass wristwatch. Most of the shelling is coming from the north, she explains, so we need to navigate accordingly. We pass through a succession of empty checkpoints. “Hmmm.” Nataliya pauses. “If they’re empty, it means they’re probably taking cover from shelling.”
If Saltivka is hell then the northern part of it is its ninth circle. Here, the Russians are shelling from two sides, while Russia is just over 20km away. The sound of artillery is, if not constant, frequent. It’s both ingoing and outgoing — they are fighting as we walk.
I stop outside a ruined building, black smoke still billowing from its windows. Suddenly, I hear a scratching sound and from beneath a concrete slab emerges a kitten. It scampers over to its mother and siblings. Cats are a constant feature of bombed-out ruins on the frontlines. Unlike dogs, which are too nervous, they don’t mind the sound of shelling. “You never see a thin cat in a warzone,” says Nataliya. Later, we pass a dead pigeon on the road. “They, on the other hand, just drop dead. Their hearts literally burst from the roar of the shelling,” she explains with mild contempt. “It’s why they had to stop using carrier pigeons in the First World War.”
“You never see a thin cat in a warzone” (Jen Stout)
Almost everyone has fled North Saltivka, though a few have chosen to remain. I speak to a blonde lady who refuses to leave her cats. She spends most of her life in a bunker in the basement of her apartment block. She takes me through a dank maze of rooms, one of which still contains a huge Soviet-era map spread across the wall. As we leave, Nataliya tells me that the lady complained the cat food she has is of terrible quality. “I’ll try to bring her some better stuff next time,” she says.
Later, in a gazebo on a patch of green outside an apartment block, a safe distance back from the front, I meet with Nataliya’s friend Vitaliy, who runs a volunteer organisation raising money to buy necessities for civilians and the army. I ask him how he feels about all this — gesturing around us. He’s phlegmatic. “Every Ukrainian born in the last 100 years has had to fight for their freedom,” he says.
All the while, Nataliya is filming things with her phone on the end of what looks like a yellow selfie stick.
“That looks heavy, Nataliya,” I say jokingly.
“Yes, it is. I could kill you with it, actually.”
***
Later that day, I sit in a cafe while Nataliya tells me more about her history. I joke about her ability to kill me with her selfie stick. “Yes, and I also have a knife,” she says, producing a colossal steel blade from her handbag.” I laugh. “It’s a Finnish knife,” she says indignantly.
The day’s work finishes, and I go with Nataliya to her house where we sit in her living room, drinking tea served by her husband. “Here is a painting that I am doing about the war,” Nataliya says, pointing to a small canvas sitting on an easel. I see vigorous brushstrokes in bright colours: it is vivid and energetic, with an almost childlike quality of simple honesty. It is just like Nataliya.
“Lovely,” I say. “It’s not lovely yet,” she retorts. “We haven’t won yet.”
I leave and make my way back to my hotel. My thoughts drift to earlier in the day, when Nataliya’s colleague Oleksiy had pulled a steel Ukrainian Trident — the country’s national symbol, the Tryzub — from the rubble of the emergency services station bombsite. I lie on my bed and, once again, I drift in and out of sleep. I start to dream once more and I see Oleksiy holding it out in front of me. “Look,” he says with a grin. “Ukraine rises again.”
***
Watch David in Saltivka here:
David Patrikarakos is UnHerd‘s foreign correspondent. His latest book is War in 140 characters: how social media is reshaping conflict in the 21st century. (Hachette)
Another remarkable vignette on the Ukraine war from David P. You courageously put yourself in harms way but take care so that those fingers can keep tapping out these reports for everyone’s enlightenment of the actual situation.
It’s a pity Unherd readers choose to comment on geopolitics instead of lauding the bravery of these people including that of the writer, and his front line insights.
Even worse, to downtick your comment, as will probably happen to this one. Two world wars is enough for Europe. No more wars and an end to the inscessant threats should be every European’s priorities. If it takes the US/Nato to achieve this then so be it since the EU has no capability, just weakness and divisions. The US is by far the lesser of the evils on the planet and Europe without their intervention in WW2 and rebuilding support would not be what it is today and for the last 70 years of prosperity.
Although the writing is excellent and the scenes he describes are vivid, ALL war is hell, not just this one. Huge craters and toppled buildings are nothing new in war.
I’m struck by how much Nataliya seems to relish her role. It’s almost as if she might have been a miserable person until all this happened, which now gives her life meaning.
Remarkable insight into someone you don’t know and have never met.
Raymond Inauen
2 years ago
You become speechless when you realize how little the Russians care for the Ukrainians. The parallels with the WW2 and the shelling back then send chills down your back. There seems to be a deliberate attempt at trying to either kill all Ukrainians or at least force them to flee and leave the country forever. That the Russian army still uses the same tactics of bombing first without discrimination is a sign that they don’t care much or respect anything. Human life isn’t valued high, culture and property even less.
The Russians have always been thus. The Germans had to have their bellicosity burned out of them, but there are a lot more Slavs. The future is uncertain. The neo-cons in the US want war to remove the Russian threat for good.
Philip LeBoit
2 years ago
May I gently try to redirect the energy of this discussion, to honor the heroism of both the writer, who is striving to truthfully convey what he is seeing, and a different type of hero, Nataliya Zubar, who is fighting against great odds for justice that may never come. In a world in which most issues are far more complex than meets the eye, I think these two courageous people deserve our thanks.
As of 9th May official figures say there have been 3459 civilian deaths in the war in Ukraine.
According to a report on the BBC from May 2013 there were 461,000 deaths as a result of the US lead war in Iraq in which the UK and other western countries were involved.
ALL war is bad no matter who the aggressor is, and all lives are important no matter what skin colour they may have, what religion they are, or which continent they live on.
“Can we not use diplomacy instead of guns”.
You should ask that of the 412 British MP’s who voted for the Iraq War, despite the farcical claims that the ‘Saddam Beast’ had WMD.
Additionally your comparative analysis of the casualties so far, show that Mr Putin is a rank amateur when it comes to killing, and particularly in comparison to Butchers such as Blair & Bush.
I am no expert but I suspect that the Bush-Blair partnership, with a sizeable contribution from Hilary Clinton and Obama, account for far more citizen deaths in the 21st century than Putin.
That is in no way a defence of Putin, definitely not, but is it not important to realise that a massive percentage of the world’s population does not see ‘the West’ as white knights coming to the rescue?
Is it right that we invade countries killing hundreds of thousands using shock and awe tactics (that is what we called it) when we disagree with them, or ‘suspect’ them of something, and yet criticise other countries for doing the same, but killing a small fraction of that number?
If Putin was wrong (and I think he is) then what do you call our invasions of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan and why are our politicians and generals not facing charges of war crimes.
Q “what do you call our invasions of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan?”
A: Waging a war of aggression.’We’ executed both Keitel & Jodl*for such at Nuremberg in 1946.
(* German Field Marshals.)
(11.25 BST, Second attempt to answer your question.)
How many deaths were directly caused by those nations though? I’m not defending the Iraq war, however most deaths were caused by the sectarian violence that was unleashed rather than the bombs and bullets of western nations, whereas all Ukrainian civilian deaths have been killed by Russian aggression
Butchers Bush & Blair knew full well that their completely unprovoked attack on the ‘Saddam Beast’ would unleash a sectarian blood bath that would emasculate Iraq for the foreseeable future.
It was/is all part of the narrative to remove a regional/ theatre power from the cauldron of Middle East politics, in the vain hope of bringing peace and stability to the area.*
None of this off course, exculpates that pillock Putin from his own murderous campaign in Ukraine.
14,705 (13%) of all documented civilian deaths were reported as being directly caused by the US-led coalition (which included the major involvement of the UK and at least 1,200 of those were children, possibly many more as we don’t know all the ages of those who died.
From the UK point of view it was worse than Suez but not quite up to Mau Mau standards.
martin logan
2 years ago
Ukraine and the world are dealing with a mass psychosis created by Putin. He has de-humanized Ukrainians. And once that happens, Russians see virtually any war crime as acceptable, even laudable.
We must do everything possible to weaken and then destroy this regime.
I’m afraid you are deluded in believing that there would be a lasting “cessation of hostilities”. The grievances would all be left in place and simply reactivated later by Putin (or some successor) at a time of their choosing when the Ukraine was less prepared and the West less motivated. It is better to address the root causes now.
Russian colonialism has left large ethnic Russian groups scattered across Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and the Central Asian states. A new Putin can always come along and try to exploit these just as Germany did in the late 1930s.
There is as an example a significant Hungarian minority in Western Ukraine. But Hungary has not invaded Ukraine.
The fact that all these countries have voluntarily joined NATO (or wish to) tells you everything you need to know about whether Russia is a good neighbour.
Kicking the can down the road as you suggest seems fundamentally immoral to me.
Peace treaties and (often difficult) negotiations have been and always will be part of conflict resolution. To take that off the table appears immoral to me – every day more and more people die. As dire as Putin is, the situation is complex as wars usually are. Unfortunately the US wants this war and too many people are making apologies for their behaviour.
‘The US wants this war’. Evidence? Why didn’t it choose to go to war with Russia then at numerous times over the past post-Soviet 30 years, when Russia was weaker than it now is? The US has huge problems which we discuss endlessly. There may be some parts of the ‘military-industrial’ complex that welcome selling expensive weapons, but US society is notably un-bellicose, perhaps even naively so. Only a minority of the population even say they would defend their own country from invasion. You can’t maintain that the US is simultaneously decadent and effete AND warlike.
The US elite – the swamp – are driven by money. A proxy war is perfect – the US do not want a war on their own turf. They pump money and arms into Ukraine and their politicians talk war on camera. The US don’t want to get their hands dirty, so yes, they are decadent, effete and warlike. You put it so well!
The American public has been primed to hate Russia over the past 20 years. Our elite ‘anti-Trump’ class has been pushing the Russia hate hard since 2015 – 2016. So much so that it’s now a meme – ‘everyone I dislike is a Russian agent’. You can’t understate how much our media and the antiTrumpers pushed the anti Russian rhetoric. It was just over the top how much Russia was used to disparage President Trump. So now if anyone calls for peace or cooler heads, it’s seen as heretical b/c ‘oh you love Trump and Putin’. There is no critical thinking going on about the consequences of escalating this conflict.
Also, we are large enough to have significant numbers in both the neo-cons and the ‘soyboy’ factions.
However, the fact is that the US isn’t pushing for a peace settlement tells us a lot about motives and intentions.
Why wait until now? You need opportunities and motive. You couldn’t convince the public if we were still in Afghanistan and Iraq that expanding those wars and going after Russia was a good idea.
However, a lot of our leadership has believed that we need to get rid of Putin and damn the consequences for 20 plus years. They tend to be very aggressive on this point during Presidential debates and in elections for other Federal offices. They assume we would win because we are ‘number one’ and exceptional’ and that we should be evangelists for democracy and freedom around the world and we should rule the world. If that isn’t evidence, I don’t know what is.
They can’t stop saying ‘we need to be more aggressive with Russia.’ Trump was a bit different in that he would actually talk to Putin and not try to bully him at every turn. He wasn’t a pushover, but he also made it clear that he wanted to avoid war with Russia. Most of our politicians simply don’t make similar statements.
Perhaps you should actually give proof that Biden, after the Afghanistan debacle, two years of Covid, and a recession, “wants this war.”
Yeah, I know they planned it all. They lured Putin into making totally unreasonable demands. They also knew that the Ukrainian army was much stronger that it looked. They then knew that Putin’s initial plan would fail. It was all a clever trap.
The US is all-knowing and all-powerful. That’s why they are still in control of Vietnam and Afghanistan.
It must be comforting to know that one can rely on a few certitudes in a world that has otherwise been very uncertain for, oh, 6000 or 8000 years at least.
See my comment above. Also might I add that Biden is patently senile (and corrupt), so why you suggest that he is making any decisions is laughable. He is well off the rails.
At this stage what is there to negotiate?
If someone kicks in the door of my house and takes over my living room and kitchen, you will presumably say “Stop trying to drive him from your house, stop fighting and negotiate!”
Negotiate about what? Do I let him keep my living room in return for him giving me access to my kitchen, that would be an acceptable outcome, would it?
Absurd.
It is unfortunate that some people argue without knowing anything about the subject, which seems to be the norm today. Everyone can have an opinion, but please make it an informed opinion.
When you say, “what is there to negotiate”, you completely ignore the last 10 years of warning from Putin about NATO encroachment to his Western borders. Even though I think Russian oppression is extremely wrong, and it would be wonderful if they suddenly reversed 1000 years of history, and accept the decadent western lifestyle, they have a right to govern as they see fit. There is nothing sudden about this war. Your analogy about someone suddenly kicking in your door is completely incorrect.
You are right that Russian expansion has not been sudden – we have had under Putin the brutal destruction of Grozny, Aleppo, the invasion of Crimea, the Donbass and now this full-scale invasion. An excuse for a war is not a reason, or at least not a ‘reasonable’ reason. NATO poses no threat to Russia, and Putin knows it. So far no one has risen to the challenge to explain the fundamental difference between Putin’s aggression over the past 20 years and Hitler’s in the 30’s. The same bogus grievances and hysterical attacks on the West and neighbouring countries (Poland provoked Nazi Germany, don’t you know?), combined with the belief that all Russian / German speakers must be brought into the empire (whether they want to or not).
The comment about ‘decadent Western lifestyle’ is firstly completely irrelevant, and secondly, laughable – most Russians in fact want to emulate such a lifestyle! I wonder just who ARE all these Russian plutocrats who love to live and shop in the West? Why don’t they prefer their own virile native culture?
NATO touches just 6% of Russias borders. However that will change as more nations look to get themselves under NATOs defence agreement due to Putins actions in Ukraine
Why are peace negotiations absurd? Take NATO off the table. Is your ‘acceptable solution’ that people fight until hundreds of thousands more are killed? That more cities are destroyed? That the situation escalates to nuclear? Ramp it up, why don’t you.
The idea is absurd because neither of the parties is ready to negotiate, and neither one believes he can get what he wants by means of negotiations — yet. That you disapprove of those positions is irrelevant.
Mathieu Bernard
2 years ago
“Ukraine rises again.”
Brings to mind the opening line of the Ukrainian national anthem: “Ukraine has not yet perished,” which apparently they ripped off from the Poles (“Poland has not yet perished”), nearly verbatim, in 1862. Both nations (fledgling Ukraine at the time was the territory of the Cossack-led Hetmanate) nearly disappeared as the Russian imperial monster marched ravenously westward in the late 18th century. Rather than succumbing to the seemingly inevitable however, a Ukrainian renaissance of sorts took place as literary figures – from, of all places, Kharkiv – spearheaded a romantic movement at the university there in 1805. A unique and formidable Ukrainian identity emerged as a result of the later work of Taras Shevchenko and Mykola Kostomarov.
In the decades following, there has been no end to Russia’s attempts to exterminate Ukrainian identity, language and culture. But they will only fail miserably, again. And that steel trident will rise once more from the ashes.
Todd Kreigh
2 years ago
I’ve been to Russia twice and Ukraine a number of times, and my wife is from western Ukraine. Having spent some time in all of the cities in what are now warzones in past years .. Odessa, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kiev, Sumy, the indelible fact is that a) Ukraine is a progressive country going in a positive direction in terms of standards of living and quality of life. Russia, less so. There is a definitive cultural distinction between the two countries, their languages and cultures having diverged more than 800 years ago. This all flies in the face of Putin and his so-called “research” and allegations that Ukrainians are really all “ethnic Russians” who need to be re-enfolded in Russia’s cold embrace. Bullshit.
Moreover .. Russia has by now fully demonstrated its ineptitude and lack of military prowess. Putin isn’t going to use nukes. The rest of the world – particularly Europe – needs to grow a set of testicles by accepting the loss of Russian petrol and start throwing up as many sanctions as possible against Russia and start sending as much money, arms, and other aid to Ukraine. And not today. Yesterday. The world needs to start thinking in terms of saving Ukrainian lives. Not only it’s young soldiers, but it’s women and children, slaughtered by the crimes that Putin and his Russia have assaulted.
Wim de Vriend
2 years ago
There’s a lot of talk here about how the Russians don’t seem to care how many Ukrainians they kill, but they have always been this way about their own, also. Peter the Great got an estimated 100,000 conscripted laborers — effectively slaves — killed during the construction of his new capital, St. Petersburg, due to the atrocious working conditions. In WW2 the USSR beat Nazi Germany on the eastern front, but at a cost of three times the number of military dead that the Germans lost. I once read a WW2 discussion about clearing minefields between a Russian officer and an Allied one, who was describing the ‘flailing’ tanks that used chains to set off the mines: “We don’t bother with that,” the Russian said. “We just march a punishment company through it.” And as to the Ukrainians’ attitude toward the Russians — there is little mention of this in the western press, but part of their present motivation must be their recollection of the millions killed by Stalin’s food confiscations in the early 1930s.
Looking back on the wars of history – Crimean, Napoleonic, Hundreds Year War, Wars of the Roses – they were fought by armies on battlefields most of the time.
Now in modern warfare the destruction of cities is typical, the attempt to wipe out the enemy’s ability to function as a nation – Warsaw, Dresden, Nagasaki, Grozny, Aleppo and Mosul. It can work for a time, but it is mostly unsuccessful, cities can be repaired and rebuilt, flourish again, if the people survive.
But meanwhile Putin’s punishment of Ukraine (that’s how it seems to me) continues, it could go on for a long time yet, and we need to face the fact that the West is prolonging it. Is it doing that for the right reasons ?
Historical Context:
“Hitler’s punishment of Britain continues, it could go on for a long time yet, and we need to face the fact that the US is prolonging it. Is it doing that for the right reasons ?”
I cannot accept your equivalence of Putin with Hitler. Perhaps you would like to put forward an evidence based argument to support your idea. I suggest you bear in mind Mein Kampf.
Rudeness on comments pages is always cover for a lack of any real argument.
I have waited two days for evidence of this Putin “diatribe” of yours. None so far, apart from another commenter offering something from Twitter (!) and a rant in the Russian equivalent of the Daily Mail by a journalist.
I can only conclude that this diatribe exists nowhere but in your imagination.
Challenge accepted. There is no free press in Russia. How is your Russian? If good, here you go.
If not, here is a translation of the above RIA Novosti article. Here is a nice juicy snippet.
The special operation revealed that not only the political leadership in Ukraine is Nazi, but also the majority of the population. All Ukrainians who have taken up arms must be eliminated – because they are responsible for the genocide of the Russian people.
Ukrainians disguise their Nazism by calling it a “desire for independence” and a “European way of development”. Ukraine doesn’t have a Nazi party, a Führer or racial laws, but because of its flexibility, Ukrainian Nazism is far more dangerous to the world than Hitler’s Nazism.
Denazification means de-Ukrainianisation. Ukrainians are an artificial anti-Russian construct. They should no longer have a national identity. Denazification of Ukraine also means its inevitable de-Europeanisation.
Ukraine’s political elite must be eliminated as it cannot be re-educated. Ordinary Ukrainians must experience all the horrors of war and absorb the experience as a historical lesson and atonement for their guilt.
The liberated and denazified territory of the Ukrainian state should no longer be called Ukraine. Denazification should last at least one generation – 25 years.
Yes, this is an official state media mouthpiece calling for the literal extermination of Ukraine’s intelligentsia. The Russian Z-movement are indistinguishable from Nazis.
Horrifying if true.
But it’s been done before. Poland during WWII (mainly by the Russians), entire history of the Soviet Union on their own people. Chinese cultural revolution. Pol Pot. I guess there’s some historical form here.
It appears from the “de-Europeanisation” talk that they (Putin’s outfit) don’t think of themselves as European any more. Just a small country [by population and economy] in Asia then …
Twitter is not my idea of a reliable news source.
I’m still waiting for Putin’s “diatribe” from “last year”.
Perhaps some are too ready to believe what they want to believe.
Ok, both invaded their neighbours under the pretext of looking out for minorities in those countries. Both control counties that had fallen from past glories, and have ruthlessly removed any dissenting voices leaving a one man/party state where the populace is fed almost nothing but state backed propaganda. Both seem happy to allow their military to destroy whole cities of civilians to try and scare the opposing nation into submission, as we saw in the blitz and Russias constant shelling. There’s a few examples off the top of my head
Yes.
It’s not sorted until the bad neighbour either reforms his ways or is defeated or weakened sufficiently that this does not happen again.
This is all the responsibility of Russia and Putin. Stop trying to blame the West.
Putin’s attitude really does seem to be that if he can’t have Ukraine, he’ll just trash the place so no one else can.
If we are it is because Putin has made that necessary.
We didn’t invade the Ukraine. Or Poland in 1939. The Russians did both. They still lie to their own people about what they did in 1939 in Poland. They lied about Katyn for decades.
Until the Russians stop lying to themselves about history and maintain their lingering colonialist attitude and victim mindset the problems will persist. It’s almost as if they live with a collective mental delusion. They’ll keep making the same mistakesand continue being a threat to their neighbours until they recognise this and get it treated.
I have seen video footage of Pelosi and some other Dem politicians announcing nothing other than fight to the death war talk. Surely the responsible thing to do would be to negotiate an end to this?
How can you negotiate with someone who is a professional liar and you cannot trust ? What is the point ?
We have to play the cards we have been dealt. Yes, there was some very inept US and EU meddling in Ukraine starting around 10-15 years ago. But the root causes of this conflict were always there – the fundamental incompatibility of Ukraine wanting to move away from Russian dominance towards the West and Russia’s inability to accept reality.
Russia needs to get real. It’s not a major world power any more.
There are clearly no votes for US politicians in going soft on Russia right now. That’s just how it is. Russia should have known this.
Perhaps Russia cannot be described as a world power in the same way as it was in Soviet Union days but China is a friendly super power on its eastern border
That should not be forgotten by the US..
But is it really up to the Ukrainians? From the rhetoric coming out of America and the massive amount of money (another $40 billion just announced) and weapons being shipped into the country it looks and sounds like someone else is pulling the strings.
If the Ukrainians don’t want to fight then they could turn down the aid package. Ultimately the Americans are simply responding to the Ukrainians plea for help, and if it weakens Putin doing so no doubt they’ll see that as a massive bonus
You answered it yourself. “If it weakens Putin doing so no doubt they’ll see that as a massive bonus”.
America aren’t doing this because they’re the white knights … the good guys … the super heroes out of a Marvel movie.
America has a reason for doing everything it does, whether it be oil, arms sales, profit from rebuilding (hugely profitable, which is why they like shock and awe destruction tactics), control of supply lines, or simply power and the ability to maintain their superpower status.
Their aim IS the ‘massive bonus’ you speak of Billy Bob.
The Washington elite don’t give a rusty dime for Ukraine or Ukrainians, or Iraqis or Libyans or Afghanis, or Syrians or the Vietnamese.
And I hate to break it to you, but not does Boris Johnson.
That rhetoric on behalf of the Dems shows just how craven and depraved they are to risk a world war simply to take America’s attention away from the misery that we are facing today with inflation and CRT.
Alas, it seems many people prefer the threat of nuclear Armageddon than giving diplomacy a chance. Where’s today’s answer to John Lennon when you need them.
Read some of the bloodthirsty comments on the thread above. These men believe in no negotiations and fighting till the last man drops and the last city is levelled.
You’re silly beyond redemption. Whether these Unherd commenters believe in negotiations or not is beside the point. What does count is whether the belligerents, Russia and Ukraine, are ready to negotiate and come to a settlement — but so far they are NOT. Obviously Russia did not think Ukraine would willingly roll over and accede to its demands, so it attacked. And for their part, the Ukrainians saw no need to sue for peace as long as they were able to give a good account of themselves. Yes, a lot of lives are lost in the process, but walking around with picket signs saying “Make Peace, Not War” won’t fix that.
With the conclusion of the Afghan fiasco and The War on Terror (Islam) in general, US Defence Industries really do need another war to satisfy their investors.Now ‘they’ve got one’! Yippee! (we’re all going to die!)
QED?
I have often wondered just why the US seems to keep its military so regularly engaged in overseas adventures. One possibility of course is the need for regular “kit testing” – if you develop as much advanced military technology as the US does, it’s certainly helpful to get some real world testing done.
I’m not suggesting this is the sole reason for US behaviour. But it’s certainly a pull factor.
We can also see from Russia’s catastrophic performance in Ukraine exactly what happens if you don’t keep your military in good shape. But that’s also what autocracy and corruption does for you.
It’s certainly looking like the Russian defence industry is going to be a huge loser from Ukraine and Western companies will be winners (regardless of how the conflict now plays out).
Couldn’t agree more. For far too long Russia has basked in the glory of the T34 & the AK 47, whereas most of their stuff is rubbish.
For the USA the chance of a little “live firing” whist pursuing its political agenda is not to be sniffed at.
For ourselves, the thirty year nano-war in Northern Ireland, coming as it did just after Aden, was a godsend for the training of young commanders and soldiers alike, and a massive relief from the monotony of BAOR.
The West/Nato is clearly partially to blame for this war, for many reasons. Anyone who looks at this conflict as Russian/Putin = evil Ukraine/Zelensky/Nato = the good guys, has not considered the wider historical prelude to the actual start of this conflict in 2013/14. Nato does not have any moral authority at all. Just look at its behaviour in Libya, Iraq and Syria.
For the right reasons? Seems that Autocratic Bureaucracies like Russia only thrive in the absence of a middle class. The Ukraine War recognises the threat (to Russia) of this emerging Ukrainian middle class. Historically Mongols and Turks stifled any expanding middle class (to the East of Poland) that flourished throughout the West. Right reasons may include prolonging conflict (sorry – War) providing an expanding and heroic Ukrainian middle class time to entrench the heroism of their identity in founding the principles of their post war nation State.
Prolonging? What is the alternative to prolonging? The longer it goes, the more Ukraine has in bargaining power. Both countries bleed but Ukraine has the West behind it, so in a war of attrition Russia will bleed out first.
Which part of “most of the time” do people not understand ?
There have been thousands of wars, of course towns and cities have been laid waste before. But these picky little replies to my comment, interesting as some of them may be, are missing the point -: that destroying cities is now the priority in modern warfare for the reasons I have outlined. And I am not the only one to think so: https://www.mwi.usma.edu/destructive-age-urban-warfare-kill-city-protect/
You seem to believe that cities were rarely attacked during wars of the past. That is simply ludicrous. Attacks on cities occurred in most wars of the past, they were very destructive, and they were the reason why so many were built like fortresses. For surviving examples, go visit Langres and Carcassonne in France, Brugge in Belgium, Rothenburg in Germany, along with many others throughout the Low Countries. When outright attacks failed, starvation by siege was the fallback strategy, and there’s no need to dwell on what happened once the city capitulated. Go read some history.
Hmmm … When I click on your link for your “fact-based evidence” I get a warning not to go there; it’s unsafe, though I don’t know why. So I’ll just stick to my view that targeting cities is nothing new, one obvious reason being that, in contrast to the surrounding countryside, cities were the places that controlled the sort of substantial resources that could be most useful to conquerors.
That’s odd, I wonder are you in the US ? and if so, why would the US want to prevent you from checking out the Modern War Institute at Westpoint website, which is where my link should take you ? it takes me there just fine, I’m in the UK. Seems unlikely there should be a problem.
The essay in question is ‘The Destructive Age of Urban Warfare: or, How to Kill a City and How to Protect it’ by John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at MWI, https://mwi.usma.edu/staff/john-spencer/
Try getting to the Modern War Institute website and then searching for the essay from there, it’s well worth reading. Best of luck.
Last edited 2 years ago by Claire D
Jeff Andrews
2 years ago
Perhaps the Ukrainian govt should have considered this when they started systematically destroying Luhansk, Donetsk and every village around 8 years ago.
what goes around comes around.
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SubscribeAnother remarkable vignette on the Ukraine war from David P. You courageously put yourself in harms way but take care so that those fingers can keep tapping out these reports for everyone’s enlightenment of the actual situation.
It’s a pity Unherd readers choose to comment on geopolitics instead of lauding the bravery of these people including that of the writer, and his front line insights.
Even worse, to downtick your comment, as will probably happen to this one. Two world wars is enough for Europe. No more wars and an end to the inscessant threats should be every European’s priorities. If it takes the US/Nato to achieve this then so be it since the EU has no capability, just weakness and divisions. The US is by far the lesser of the evils on the planet and Europe without their intervention in WW2 and rebuilding support would not be what it is today and for the last 70 years of prosperity.
War is the history of humanity. Until humans are extinct, or 100% of the population is controlled by a global dictator, there will be war.
Not during the vaunted ‘Pax Romana’ it must be said.
Although the writing is excellent and the scenes he describes are vivid, ALL war is hell, not just this one. Huge craters and toppled buildings are nothing new in war.
I’m struck by how much Nataliya seems to relish her role. It’s almost as if she might have been a miserable person until all this happened, which now gives her life meaning.
Remarkable insight into someone you don’t know and have never met.
You become speechless when you realize how little the Russians care for the Ukrainians. The parallels with the WW2 and the shelling back then send chills down your back. There seems to be a deliberate attempt at trying to either kill all Ukrainians or at least force them to flee and leave the country forever. That the Russian army still uses the same tactics of bombing first without discrimination is a sign that they don’t care much or respect anything. Human life isn’t valued high, culture and property even less.
The Russians have always been thus. The Germans had to have their bellicosity burned out of them, but there are a lot more Slavs. The future is uncertain. The neo-cons in the US want war to remove the Russian threat for good.
May I gently try to redirect the energy of this discussion, to honor the heroism of both the writer, who is striving to truthfully convey what he is seeing, and a different type of hero, Nataliya Zubar, who is fighting against great odds for justice that may never come. In a world in which most issues are far more complex than meets the eye, I think these two courageous people deserve our thanks.
Yes
As of 9th May official figures say there have been 3459 civilian deaths in the war in Ukraine.
According to a report on the BBC from May 2013 there were 461,000 deaths as a result of the US lead war in Iraq in which the UK and other western countries were involved.
ALL war is bad no matter who the aggressor is, and all lives are important no matter what skin colour they may have, what religion they are, or which continent they live on.
Can we not use diplomacy instead of guns.
“Can we not use diplomacy instead of guns”.
You should ask that of the 412 British MP’s who voted for the Iraq War, despite the farcical claims that the ‘Saddam Beast’ had WMD.
Additionally your comparative analysis of the casualties so far, show that Mr Putin is a rank amateur when it comes to killing, and particularly in comparison to Butchers such as Blair & Bush.
I am no expert but I suspect that the Bush-Blair partnership, with a sizeable contribution from Hilary Clinton and Obama, account for far more citizen deaths in the 21st century than Putin.
That is in no way a defence of Putin, definitely not, but is it not important to realise that a massive percentage of the world’s population does not see ‘the West’ as white knights coming to the rescue?
Is it right that we invade countries killing hundreds of thousands using shock and awe tactics (that is what we called it) when we disagree with them, or ‘suspect’ them of something, and yet criticise other countries for doing the same, but killing a small fraction of that number?
If Putin was wrong (and I think he is) then what do you call our invasions of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan and why are our politicians and generals not facing charges of war crimes.
Duplication due to slow ‘flash to bang’.
Q “what do you call our invasions of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan?”
A: Waging a war of aggression.’We’ executed both Keitel & Jodl*for such at Nuremberg in 1946.
(* German Field Marshals.)
(11.25 BST, Second attempt to answer your question.)
The Censor will NOT permit me to answer your erudite question.
11.29 BST.
Hallelujah! Reprieved at 12.13 BST
13.54 BST. I spoke too soon and the CENSOR has reconsidered. This is ridiculous is it not?
We all need Elon Musk.
How many deaths were directly caused by those nations though? I’m not defending the Iraq war, however most deaths were caused by the sectarian violence that was unleashed rather than the bombs and bullets of western nations, whereas all Ukrainian civilian deaths have been killed by Russian aggression
Butchers Bush & Blair knew full well that their completely unprovoked attack on the ‘Saddam Beast’ would unleash a sectarian blood bath that would emasculate Iraq for the foreseeable future.
It was/is all part of the narrative to remove a regional/ theatre power from the cauldron of Middle East politics, in the vain hope of bringing peace and stability to the area.*
None of this off course, exculpates that pillock Putin from his own murderous campaign in Ukraine.
(*Cui Bono?)
Hindsight is always 20/20. And relying on is pretty useless as an argument.
The moment I heard the wretched Bush say “Saddam did 9/11” I and millions of others knew this was a massive lie. Why didn’t you?
Here’s the statistics that appeared in a Guardian article.
• 14,705 (13%) of all documented civilian deaths were reported as being directly caused by the US-led coalition. The report notes that
Of the 4,040 civilian victims of US-led coalition forces for whom age data was available, 1,201 (29%) were children
• Over half of the civilian deaths caused by US-led coalition forces
occurred during the 2003 invasion and the sieges of Fallujah in 2004.
• Of the 45,779 victims for whom IBC was able to obtain age data, 3,911 (8.54%) were children under age 18.
14,705 (13%) of all documented civilian deaths were reported as being directly caused by the US-led coalition (which included the major involvement of the UK and at least 1,200 of those were children, possibly many more as we don’t know all the ages of those who died.
From the UK point of view it was worse than Suez but not quite up to Mau Mau standards.
Ukraine and the world are dealing with a mass psychosis created by Putin. He has de-humanized Ukrainians. And once that happens, Russians see virtually any war crime as acceptable, even laudable.
We must do everything possible to weaken and then destroy this regime.
Would you suggest continuing the war until there is a last man standing, or would you suggest negotiating a cessation of hostilities?
I’m afraid you are deluded in believing that there would be a lasting “cessation of hostilities”. The grievances would all be left in place and simply reactivated later by Putin (or some successor) at a time of their choosing when the Ukraine was less prepared and the West less motivated. It is better to address the root causes now.
Russian colonialism has left large ethnic Russian groups scattered across Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and the Central Asian states. A new Putin can always come along and try to exploit these just as Germany did in the late 1930s.
There is as an example a significant Hungarian minority in Western Ukraine. But Hungary has not invaded Ukraine.
The fact that all these countries have voluntarily joined NATO (or wish to) tells you everything you need to know about whether Russia is a good neighbour.
Kicking the can down the road as you suggest seems fundamentally immoral to me.
Peace treaties and (often difficult) negotiations have been and always will be part of conflict resolution. To take that off the table appears immoral to me – every day more and more people die. As dire as Putin is, the situation is complex as wars usually are. Unfortunately the US wants this war and too many people are making apologies for their behaviour.
‘The US wants this war’. Evidence? Why didn’t it choose to go to war with Russia then at numerous times over the past post-Soviet 30 years, when Russia was weaker than it now is? The US has huge problems which we discuss endlessly. There may be some parts of the ‘military-industrial’ complex that welcome selling expensive weapons, but US society is notably un-bellicose, perhaps even naively so. Only a minority of the population even say they would defend their own country from invasion. You can’t maintain that the US is simultaneously decadent and effete AND warlike.
The US elite – the swamp – are driven by money. A proxy war is perfect – the US do not want a war on their own turf. They pump money and arms into Ukraine and their politicians talk war on camera. The US don’t want to get their hands dirty, so yes, they are decadent, effete and warlike. You put it so well!
Correct, Biden is a corrupt moron, as is his son, and the wretched George W Bush Jnr before them!
Give us Donald Trump any day.
The American public has been primed to hate Russia over the past 20 years. Our elite ‘anti-Trump’ class has been pushing the Russia hate hard since 2015 – 2016. So much so that it’s now a meme – ‘everyone I dislike is a Russian agent’. You can’t understate how much our media and the antiTrumpers pushed the anti Russian rhetoric. It was just over the top how much Russia was used to disparage President Trump. So now if anyone calls for peace or cooler heads, it’s seen as heretical b/c ‘oh you love Trump and Putin’. There is no critical thinking going on about the consequences of escalating this conflict.
Also, we are large enough to have significant numbers in both the neo-cons and the ‘soyboy’ factions.
However, the fact is that the US isn’t pushing for a peace settlement tells us a lot about motives and intentions.
Why wait until now? You need opportunities and motive. You couldn’t convince the public if we were still in Afghanistan and Iraq that expanding those wars and going after Russia was a good idea.
However, a lot of our leadership has believed that we need to get rid of Putin and damn the consequences for 20 plus years. They tend to be very aggressive on this point during Presidential debates and in elections for other Federal offices. They assume we would win because we are ‘number one’ and exceptional’ and that we should be evangelists for democracy and freedom around the world and we should rule the world. If that isn’t evidence, I don’t know what is.
They can’t stop saying ‘we need to be more aggressive with Russia.’ Trump was a bit different in that he would actually talk to Putin and not try to bully him at every turn. He wasn’t a pushover, but he also made it clear that he wanted to avoid war with Russia. Most of our politicians simply don’t make similar statements.
Perhaps you should actually give proof that Biden, after the Afghanistan debacle, two years of Covid, and a recession, “wants this war.”
Yeah, I know they planned it all. They lured Putin into making totally unreasonable demands. They also knew that the Ukrainian army was much stronger that it looked. They then knew that Putin’s initial plan would fail. It was all a clever trap.
The US is all-knowing and all-powerful. That’s why they are still in control of Vietnam and Afghanistan.
It must be comforting to know that one can rely on a few certitudes in a world that has otherwise been very uncertain for, oh, 6000 or 8000 years at least.
See my comment above. Also might I add that Biden is patently senile (and corrupt), so why you suggest that he is making any decisions is laughable. He is well off the rails.
At this stage what is there to negotiate?
If someone kicks in the door of my house and takes over my living room and kitchen, you will presumably say “Stop trying to drive him from your house, stop fighting and negotiate!”
Negotiate about what? Do I let him keep my living room in return for him giving me access to my kitchen, that would be an acceptable outcome, would it?
Absurd.
It is unfortunate that some people argue without knowing anything about the subject, which seems to be the norm today. Everyone can have an opinion, but please make it an informed opinion.
When you say, “what is there to negotiate”, you completely ignore the last 10 years of warning from Putin about NATO encroachment to his Western borders. Even though I think Russian oppression is extremely wrong, and it would be wonderful if they suddenly reversed 1000 years of history, and accept the decadent western lifestyle, they have a right to govern as they see fit. There is nothing sudden about this war. Your analogy about someone suddenly kicking in your door is completely incorrect.
You are right that Russian expansion has not been sudden – we have had under Putin the brutal destruction of Grozny, Aleppo, the invasion of Crimea, the Donbass and now this full-scale invasion. An excuse for a war is not a reason, or at least not a ‘reasonable’ reason. NATO poses no threat to Russia, and Putin knows it. So far no one has risen to the challenge to explain the fundamental difference between Putin’s aggression over the past 20 years and Hitler’s in the 30’s. The same bogus grievances and hysterical attacks on the West and neighbouring countries (Poland provoked Nazi Germany, don’t you know?), combined with the belief that all Russian / German speakers must be brought into the empire (whether they want to or not).
The comment about ‘decadent Western lifestyle’ is firstly completely irrelevant, and secondly, laughable – most Russians in fact want to emulate such a lifestyle! I wonder just who ARE all these Russian plutocrats who love to live and shop in the West? Why don’t they prefer their own virile native culture?
Quite right.
NATO touches just 6% of Russias borders. However that will change as more nations look to get themselves under NATOs defence agreement due to Putins actions in Ukraine
Why are peace negotiations absurd? Take NATO off the table. Is your ‘acceptable solution’ that people fight until hundreds of thousands more are killed? That more cities are destroyed? That the situation escalates to nuclear? Ramp it up, why don’t you.
The idea is absurd because neither of the parties is ready to negotiate, and neither one believes he can get what he wants by means of negotiations — yet. That you disapprove of those positions is irrelevant.
“Ukraine rises again.”
Brings to mind the opening line of the Ukrainian national anthem: “Ukraine has not yet perished,” which apparently they ripped off from the Poles (“Poland has not yet perished”), nearly verbatim, in 1862. Both nations (fledgling Ukraine at the time was the territory of the Cossack-led Hetmanate) nearly disappeared as the Russian imperial monster marched ravenously westward in the late 18th century. Rather than succumbing to the seemingly inevitable however, a Ukrainian renaissance of sorts took place as literary figures – from, of all places, Kharkiv – spearheaded a romantic movement at the university there in 1805. A unique and formidable Ukrainian identity emerged as a result of the later work of Taras Shevchenko and Mykola Kostomarov.
In the decades following, there has been no end to Russia’s attempts to exterminate Ukrainian identity, language and culture. But they will only fail miserably, again. And that steel trident will rise once more from the ashes.
I’ve been to Russia twice and Ukraine a number of times, and my wife is from western Ukraine. Having spent some time in all of the cities in what are now warzones in past years .. Odessa, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kiev, Sumy, the indelible fact is that a) Ukraine is a progressive country going in a positive direction in terms of standards of living and quality of life. Russia, less so. There is a definitive cultural distinction between the two countries, their languages and cultures having diverged more than 800 years ago. This all flies in the face of Putin and his so-called “research” and allegations that Ukrainians are really all “ethnic Russians” who need to be re-enfolded in Russia’s cold embrace. Bullshit.
Moreover .. Russia has by now fully demonstrated its ineptitude and lack of military prowess. Putin isn’t going to use nukes. The rest of the world – particularly Europe – needs to grow a set of testicles by accepting the loss of Russian petrol and start throwing up as many sanctions as possible against Russia and start sending as much money, arms, and other aid to Ukraine. And not today. Yesterday. The world needs to start thinking in terms of saving Ukrainian lives. Not only it’s young soldiers, but it’s women and children, slaughtered by the crimes that Putin and his Russia have assaulted.
There’s a lot of talk here about how the Russians don’t seem to care how many Ukrainians they kill, but they have always been this way about their own, also. Peter the Great got an estimated 100,000 conscripted laborers — effectively slaves — killed during the construction of his new capital, St. Petersburg, due to the atrocious working conditions. In WW2 the USSR beat Nazi Germany on the eastern front, but at a cost of three times the number of military dead that the Germans lost. I once read a WW2 discussion about clearing minefields between a Russian officer and an Allied one, who was describing the ‘flailing’ tanks that used chains to set off the mines: “We don’t bother with that,” the Russian said. “We just march a punishment company through it.” And as to the Ukrainians’ attitude toward the Russians — there is little mention of this in the western press, but part of their present motivation must be their recollection of the millions killed by Stalin’s food confiscations in the early 1930s.
This woman looks and sounds like a real Karen.
Which woman, Lesley van Reenen or Heelay Khan?
Looking back on the wars of history – Crimean, Napoleonic, Hundreds Year War, Wars of the Roses – they were fought by armies on battlefields most of the time.
Now in modern warfare the destruction of cities is typical, the attempt to wipe out the enemy’s ability to function as a nation – Warsaw, Dresden, Nagasaki, Grozny, Aleppo and Mosul. It can work for a time, but it is mostly unsuccessful, cities can be repaired and rebuilt, flourish again, if the people survive.
But meanwhile Putin’s punishment of Ukraine (that’s how it seems to me) continues, it could go on for a long time yet, and we need to face the fact that the West is prolonging it. Is it doing that for the right reasons ?
Historical Context:
“Hitler’s punishment of Britain continues, it could go on for a long time yet, and we need to face the fact that the US is prolonging it. Is it doing that for the right reasons ?”
I cannot accept your equivalence of Putin with Hitler. Perhaps you would like to put forward an evidence based argument to support your idea. I suggest you bear in mind Mein Kampf.
What rock have you been living under? His diatribe last year along the lines of the racial purity of Russians, and the filth that oppose him?
Which diatribe are you referring to ? Details please so I can look it up and read it.
You’re not Linda Hutchinson reincarnated by any chance are you?
If you mean the commenter on these pages sometimes then I’m flattered, she often writes very good comments, but no, we are two different people.
Rudeness on comments pages is always cover for a lack of any real argument.
I have waited two days for evidence of this Putin “diatribe” of yours. None so far, apart from another commenter offering something from Twitter (!) and a rant in the Russian equivalent of the Daily Mail by a journalist.
I can only conclude that this diatribe exists nowhere but in your imagination.
Challenge accepted. There is no free press in Russia. How is your Russian? If good, here you go.
If not, here is a translation of the above RIA Novosti article. Here is a nice juicy snippet.
Yes, this is an official state media mouthpiece calling for the literal extermination of Ukraine’s intelligentsia. The Russian Z-movement are indistinguishable from Nazis.
Horrifying if true.
But it’s been done before. Poland during WWII (mainly by the Russians), entire history of the Soviet Union on their own people. Chinese cultural revolution. Pol Pot. I guess there’s some historical form here.
It appears from the “de-Europeanisation” talk that they (Putin’s outfit) don’t think of themselves as European any more. Just a small country [by population and economy] in Asia then …
Twitter is not my idea of a reliable news source.
I’m still waiting for Putin’s “diatribe” from “last year”.
Perhaps some are too ready to believe what they want to believe.
Ok, both invaded their neighbours under the pretext of looking out for minorities in those countries. Both control counties that had fallen from past glories, and have ruthlessly removed any dissenting voices leaving a one man/party state where the populace is fed almost nothing but state backed propaganda. Both seem happy to allow their military to destroy whole cities of civilians to try and scare the opposing nation into submission, as we saw in the blitz and Russias constant shelling. There’s a few examples off the top of my head
Yes.
It’s not sorted until the bad neighbour either reforms his ways or is defeated or weakened sufficiently that this does not happen again.
This is all the responsibility of Russia and Putin. Stop trying to blame the West.
Putin’s attitude really does seem to be that if he can’t have Ukraine, he’ll just trash the place so no one else can.
You think the West are blameless? You don’t think the US is fighting a war with Russia? I would suggest that one side is waging a proxy war.
If we are it is because Putin has made that necessary.
We didn’t invade the Ukraine. Or Poland in 1939. The Russians did both. They still lie to their own people about what they did in 1939 in Poland. They lied about Katyn for decades.
Until the Russians stop lying to themselves about history and maintain their lingering colonialist attitude and victim mindset the problems will persist. It’s almost as if they live with a collective mental delusion. They’ll keep making the same mistakesand continue being a threat to their neighbours until they recognise this and get it treated.
I have seen video footage of Pelosi and some other Dem politicians announcing nothing other than fight to the death war talk. Surely the responsible thing to do would be to negotiate an end to this?
How can you negotiate with someone who is a professional liar and you cannot trust ? What is the point ?
We have to play the cards we have been dealt. Yes, there was some very inept US and EU meddling in Ukraine starting around 10-15 years ago. But the root causes of this conflict were always there – the fundamental incompatibility of Ukraine wanting to move away from Russian dominance towards the West and Russia’s inability to accept reality.
Russia needs to get real. It’s not a major world power any more.
There are clearly no votes for US politicians in going soft on Russia right now. That’s just how it is. Russia should have known this.
Perhaps Russia cannot be described as a world power in the same way as it was in Soviet Union days but China is a friendly super power on its eastern border
That should not be forgotten by the US..
It is up to the Ukrainians whether to negotiate, not for others to negotiate over their heads as you are suggesting.
Actually the war talk footage I’ve seen was with Zelensky in the room.
But is it really up to the Ukrainians? From the rhetoric coming out of America and the massive amount of money (another $40 billion just announced) and weapons being shipped into the country it looks and sounds like someone else is pulling the strings.
If the Ukrainians don’t want to fight then they could turn down the aid package. Ultimately the Americans are simply responding to the Ukrainians plea for help, and if it weakens Putin doing so no doubt they’ll see that as a massive bonus
You answered it yourself. “If it weakens Putin doing so no doubt they’ll see that as a massive bonus”.
America aren’t doing this because they’re the white knights … the good guys … the super heroes out of a Marvel movie.
America has a reason for doing everything it does, whether it be oil, arms sales, profit from rebuilding (hugely profitable, which is why they like shock and awe destruction tactics), control of supply lines, or simply power and the ability to maintain their superpower status.
Their aim IS the ‘massive bonus’ you speak of Billy Bob.
The Washington elite don’t give a rusty dime for Ukraine or Ukrainians, or Iraqis or Libyans or Afghanis, or Syrians or the Vietnamese.
And I hate to break it to you, but not does Boris Johnson.
How very naive.
That rhetoric on behalf of the Dems shows just how craven and depraved they are to risk a world war simply to take America’s attention away from the misery that we are facing today with inflation and CRT.
Alas, it seems many people prefer the threat of nuclear Armageddon than giving diplomacy a chance. Where’s today’s answer to John Lennon when you need them.
Read some of the bloodthirsty comments on the thread above. These men believe in no negotiations and fighting till the last man drops and the last city is levelled.
You’re silly beyond redemption. Whether these Unherd commenters believe in negotiations or not is beside the point. What does count is whether the belligerents, Russia and Ukraine, are ready to negotiate and come to a settlement — but so far they are NOT. Obviously Russia did not think Ukraine would willingly roll over and accede to its demands, so it attacked. And for their part, the Ukrainians saw no need to sue for peace as long as they were able to give a good account of themselves. Yes, a lot of lives are lost in the process, but walking around with picket signs saying “Make Peace, Not War” won’t fix that.
With the conclusion of the Afghan fiasco and The War on Terror (Islam) in general, US Defence Industries really do need another war to satisfy their investors.Now ‘they’ve got one’! Yippee! (we’re all going to die!)
QED?
I have often wondered just why the US seems to keep its military so regularly engaged in overseas adventures. One possibility of course is the need for regular “kit testing” – if you develop as much advanced military technology as the US does, it’s certainly helpful to get some real world testing done.
I’m not suggesting this is the sole reason for US behaviour. But it’s certainly a pull factor.
We can also see from Russia’s catastrophic performance in Ukraine exactly what happens if you don’t keep your military in good shape. But that’s also what autocracy and corruption does for you.
It’s certainly looking like the Russian defence industry is going to be a huge loser from Ukraine and Western companies will be winners (regardless of how the conflict now plays out).
Couldn’t agree more. For far too long Russia has basked in the glory of the T34 & the AK 47, whereas most of their stuff is rubbish.
For the USA the chance of a little “live firing” whist pursuing its political agenda is not to be sniffed at.
For ourselves, the thirty year nano-war in Northern Ireland, coming as it did just after Aden, was a godsend for the training of young commanders and soldiers alike, and a massive relief from the monotony of BAOR.
That’s not very potty trained, where did you go to school?
Just out of curiosity what precisely has annoyed you?
The West/Nato is clearly partially to blame for this war, for many reasons. Anyone who looks at this conflict as Russian/Putin = evil Ukraine/Zelensky/Nato = the good guys, has not considered the wider historical prelude to the actual start of this conflict in 2013/14. Nato does not have any moral authority at all. Just look at its behaviour in Libya, Iraq and Syria.
Ancient Rome destroyed both Carthage and Corinth in 146BC*.
(* 607 AUC.)
For the right reasons? Seems that Autocratic Bureaucracies like Russia only thrive in the absence of a middle class. The Ukraine War recognises the threat (to Russia) of this emerging Ukrainian middle class. Historically Mongols and Turks stifled any expanding middle class (to the East of Poland) that flourished throughout the West. Right reasons may include prolonging conflict (sorry – War) providing an expanding and heroic Ukrainian middle class time to entrench the heroism of their identity in founding the principles of their post war nation State.
Thank you for your intelligent reply, that’s interesting.
The Ukrainians are the ones who should decide. The West is helping them to defend themselves. It is not prolonging the war.
It’s prolonging the slaughter is it not? Or have you missed that irritating detail?
Prolonging? What is the alternative to prolonging? The longer it goes, the more Ukraine has in bargaining power. Both countries bleed but Ukraine has the West behind it, so in a war of attrition Russia will bleed out first.
If you think pitched battle was mainly what warfare was about in the past, I suggest you look up the word “chevauchée”.
Historical context:
Jerusalem was leveled in 70 AD by the Romans so that “not one stone was left upon another.”
Which part of “most of the time” do people not understand ?
There have been thousands of wars, of course towns and cities have been laid waste before. But these picky little replies to my comment, interesting as some of them may be, are missing the point -: that destroying cities is now the priority in modern warfare for the reasons I have outlined. And I am not the only one to think so: https://www.mwi.usma.edu/destructive-age-urban-warfare-kill-city-protect/
As it richly deserved, it must be said.
You seem to believe that cities were rarely attacked during wars of the past. That is simply ludicrous. Attacks on cities occurred in most wars of the past, they were very destructive, and they were the reason why so many were built like fortresses. For surviving examples, go visit Langres and Carcassonne in France, Brugge in Belgium, Rothenburg in Germany, along with many others throughout the Low Countries. When outright attacks failed, starvation by siege was the fallback strategy, and there’s no need to dwell on what happened once the city capitulated. Go read some history.
You’ve missed the point, I suggest you read my reply to Warren T just above and click on the link for the fact based evidence which supports my point.
Hmmm … When I click on your link for your “fact-based evidence” I get a warning not to go there; it’s unsafe, though I don’t know why. So I’ll just stick to my view that targeting cities is nothing new, one obvious reason being that, in contrast to the surrounding countryside, cities were the places that controlled the sort of substantial resources that could be most useful to conquerors.
That’s odd, I wonder are you in the US ? and if so, why would the US want to prevent you from checking out the Modern War Institute at Westpoint website, which is where my link should take you ? it takes me there just fine, I’m in the UK. Seems unlikely there should be a problem.
The essay in question is ‘The Destructive Age of Urban Warfare: or, How to Kill a City and How to Protect it’ by John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at MWI, https://mwi.usma.edu/staff/john-spencer/
Try getting to the Modern War Institute website and then searching for the essay from there, it’s well worth reading. Best of luck.
Perhaps the Ukrainian govt should have considered this when they started systematically destroying Luhansk, Donetsk and every village around 8 years ago.
what goes around comes around.
Don’t say that! Or ‘they’ will Chuck you off the site!
You mean the ones illegally taken by Russian special forces, sorry I mean “volunteers”?