Putin’s War
Today’s missile strike, accidental or otherwise, on the Babi Yar Memorial in Kyiv, containing the
graves of 34,000 Jews, slaughtered by the Nazis, is a poignant reminder of how quickly war
degenerates into indiscriminate attacks on people and property. It is all well and good to justify
such actions as a consequence of collateral damage, but the reality is lives are lost, homes
destroyed and people suddenly become refugees.
One of Putin’s justifications for the invasion of
the Ukraine is to “de-Nazify” this state. Apart from it being an affront to a democratic state, it is also
an insult to its Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has shown such fortitude in the face of
Russian aggression. The Ukraine, and, indeed, all those countries that became independent on the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, have an absolute right to self-determination. NATO, unlike the
Russian Republic, has not amassed 100,000 troops on Russia’s border. We have seen since the
annexation of the Crimean Peninsular in 2014, Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk
regions fermenting conflict, and the invasion of the Ukraine is purported to establish a so-called
“demilitarised zone” to avoid war with the West.
Inevitably one hears echoes of the past: the justification for intervention to safeguard an ethnic minority; historical claims to territories;
addressing the wrongs done by imperialist powers; and the need to assert national pride in the
face of an hostile democratic media. Ring any bells?
The sanctions that have been imposed by Western nations will hurt the Russian economy, and, regrettably, ours as well, but that is a price
worth paying to force Putin to reflect on what he has started. Any prospects of a negotiated
settlement seem far away, at present, and Putin is gambling on a quick victory to subdue the
Ukraine and a return to a working relationship with Europe: that may be a serious miscalculation! It
will take many, many years to repair the damage done by a Russian nationalist leader intent upon
re- establishing Russia’s imperial past.
Peter Beyfus