Putin Claims He Had No Choice But To Help Ukrainians
His 'help' included bombing, killing, torturing, kidnapping and raping people, while destroying towns and cities.
As we approach Easter, the situation in Ukraine grows dire as Mariupol struggles to resist Russian occupation. The only hope they have is if the US and UK intervene due to chemical weapons being used there. Under the terms of the Budapest Memorandum (1994) they may use whatever force is needed to defend Ukraine if it suffers an attack with chemical weapons, or is under threat of an attack using chemical weapons. No one thought they would have to actually uphold the terms of the agreement, hence the hesitation from the US and UK in ‘acting’, as they require proof of the chemical attacks before they will act, or think about acting.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) says they are monitoring the situation in Mariupol closely, but it seems they want a dead soldier who has died from a chemical weapon first, with an autopsy report before they will do anything. The point of these treaties and alliances, and organisations is to prevent such deaths in the first place.
The world has watched while those in Mariupol were trapped, with humanitarian aid denied safe passage, the civilians and soldiers were starved into surrendering. It is a brutal tactic used in warfare, yet we could see it happening with the Red Cross being denied safe passage to deliver humanitarian aid and to evacuate people, but the West did nothing but sent aid. What they needed were strong entities such as the UN to push Russia to allow aid through and people to be evacuated, and to force Russia to halt the assault. What we got was a useless vote to suspend them from the Human Rights Council, which has done nothing to help the Ukrainians who are dying.
I have personally watched, hoping each day that the evacuation corridors were open in Mariupol, but after the second attempt it was clear that the Russians were trying to starve the soldiers and to make sure they had no supplies. A no-fly zone may have helped, but only early on. The soldiers can only defend if they have weapons, and only if they have access to them. It’s all well and good the US making their grand announcements about how much aid they will send, but it’s too late for by the time they have arrived in Mariupol (if they ever get there) it might be under Russian occupation.
Meanwhile, people are dying, families are wiped out, and Mariupol is in ruins. The UK and US have the justification to act, but both are too scared to do so because they fear escalation. I think we can agree that it’s too late for that now and if the roles were reversed, do they think Russia would have sat down and thought about things for a few weeks? Russia has threatened to use chemical weapons, and that threat is sufficient for the US and the UK to consider engagement in order to defend Ukraine.
More teams have been to Ukraine to document the war crimes committed. We hear of harrowing accounts of women being raped and murdered, and their bodies exhumed to examine the evidence. Have these victims been given any dignity at all? I read an awful account, where a woman was raped and left for dead after her throat had been slit. Her body was exhumed and was found naked, and the examiners looked for evidence of rape and how she was murdered to document it. You may wonder why I have recounted this, and it is because the world needs to know that it has stood by and allowed these atrocities to happen.
I saw other images of families murdered while they tried to escape, and the remnants of their bodies in a burnt pile. These are not fake images, yet while the West debates on how NATO should be reformed to prevent such an attack, they are oblivious to the fact that they actually need to act now rather than to think about the future which they should have done a decade ago. None of these people deserved to be tortured and murdered, and while James Heappey believes that Putin will stand trial, surely it is better to stop the continued mass killings rather than to discuss prosecutions? Justice works in two ways—you have the law to deter and prevent crimes (as in you arrest and detain the criminals who attempt the crimes), and then you seek redress through the courts if the crime has taken place. The problem here is that the international community has no police force to make any arrests, or any jurisdiction over the Russians either.
We also hear accounts from survivors who have said some Russian soldiers did stop others from raping them, but the scars will remain. We also hear that the Russians had dropped and left mines everywhere, so rescuers sifting through rubble are in danger of being blown up by a mine. Also, people returning to their homes have found them booby trapped with mines as well as looted and damaged. How can anyone in their right mind think that the Russians were on a peacekeeping mission?
The Russian plan seems to be to wipe out anyone who identifies with being a Ukrainian, and to destroy all Ukrainian cities, prevent the men from fighting (by killing them) and to kill the children to end the generation of Ukrainians. This is genocide, by trying to wipe out anything that is Ukrainian—Putinism is worse than Nazism.
Russia has also stated that if Sweden and Finland apply to join NATO then they will retaliate with ‘military and political consequences’! Whether the countries wish to join NATO or not is none of Putin’s business, but he claims that it would create an unstable Europe, where the truth is exactly the opposite. This all seems rather absurd, where Putin expects NATO and the world to do as he wants, just because he says so. This is what dictators do—they thrive on control and shifting the blame elsewhere and try and justify their actions through fictitious claims in their head.
With the allegations of war crimes against Russia, Putin has stated peace talks are at a ‘dead-end’, and claims that the Bucha images are fake news. At least Macron (France) and Nehammer (Austria) are consistent with their reports after talks with Putin, in that Putin is not interested in a deal unless he gets everything he wants, which contradicts what the Turkish claim (Erdogan) that the peace talks were on track. I don’t believe they were ever anything more than a process that both parties had to be seen to be willing to pursue, and Putin was like a cat playing with its prey with no intention of compromise.
Putin’s statements made today reaffirm that all these alleged peace talks that Erdogan claimed were being discussed were false. We can see that Putin believes that he has the right to reclaim Ukraine, and that all Ukrainians need to be saved (by being exterminated) otherwise Russia would be in danger. The truth is Ukraine needs to be saved from his clutches, and before the invasion they were doing just fine. If people wanted to be Russian, then they could hop across the border and live in Russia.
The next 10 days will be a full on attack, but will the aid that Ukraine needs arrive in time? I fear there will be more blood that will be shed, and Truss and Blinken are completely out of their depth in handling this situation that affects the entire world. This is a war of the democratic world against Russia. If we value democracy then we must fight for it again, and not take it for granted. For those of us that carry on with our day as normal, I stop to think of Ukrainians hiding in fear for their lives because once upon a time, most of us would have had an ancestor in the same position.
The war has already escalated, but NATO, the US and other countries are stalling the inevitable believing that Putin can be reasoned with, and that there is a diplomatic solution. There is not, and they need to accept and face that fact, and they are doing so at the cost of thousands of lives. Putin may have given the order to attack and kill, but the idle hands of the West didn’t do enough to stop him, and so their hands are also tainted with blood. No one can estimate the death toll, but there are thousands who have died, and more than 4 million people have left Ukraine and are refugees or are internally displaced people (IDPs) who have sought shelter in western Ukraine. These lives cannot be rebuilt like buildings or bridges that have been destroyed, and the politicians and alliances that had the remit to save these lives need to not only reform their policies, but need to grasp that they have a responsibility to act in the here and now.
Day 48 (12 April)
Putin has made a public appearance at the Vostochny spaceport with Lukashenko (President of Belarus) where he has stated that he had ‘no choice’ but to help Ukrainians, and that he is trying to liberate Donbas, and to protect Russia form Nazism. He claims he was forced to carry out the special military operation and this was to help save the people.
Lukashenko defended Putin, and claimed Russia would have been in danger if Russia had not carried out their operation to liberate Ukraine. He also claimed that the accusations of genocide and war crimes was propaganda perpetrated by the English!
Reports of the meeting between the Austrian Chancellor, Karl Nehammer and Putin have suggested that the meeting was ‘not friendly’ and no progress was made on Russia wishing to negotiate a peace deal. Nehammer requested humanitarian corridors be allowed, and stated that there will be a Russian offensive in the east. In Russia, Nehammer has been criticized as being a European puppet.
A delegation of faith leaders visited Ukraine today, with a view to removing the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches for supporting the war and massacre of humans.
Some evacuation corridors allowed the safe passage of some trapped civilians, but many have suffered from starvation and dehydration.
France expels six more Russian diplomats accused of spying, and Poland arrests one man accused of being a spy. He was a Russian businessman who was collating information on NATO troops and the Polish army. Two Belarusians were also arrested in Poland on charges of spying on defence facilities.
NATO is looking at a long-term adaption on how the alliance will go forward. Stoltenberg accepts that NATO needs to be ‘reset’, but in truth it is too late in the day, and that this should have been done a decade ago. What good is it to protect Ukrainians if they are all dead or have had to leave as refugees?
More companies have ceased trading in Russia, and have been categorized accordingly. Soon it will be a matter of ethics if a company chooses not to withdraw from Russia, and they will be seen as supporting genocide which is never good PR. While Russia says they are not isolated, it is important for the world to support democracy and companies that don’t may regret thie decision to continue trading in Russia.
Zelenskyy addressed the Lithuanian parliament today urging for more sanctions against Russia.
In addition to Sweden and Finland investing in their defensive measures, Norway is also looking at how it can transfer some of their defence systems to aid Ukraine.
The pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, who had been under house arrest on suspicion of treason has been arrested after he escaped. He is believed to have personal ties to Putin.
While dictator Putin still refers to the war as a special military operation, refuses to acknowledge the atrocities which have occurred and claims Sweden and Finland joining NATO would create an unstable Europe the peace talks end. The mad man thinks he is helping Ukrainians. It's not surprising, especially during this Holy Week before Easter, to learn religious leaders want to crack down on the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting Putin and his "military operation".