This time next year, it will be the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings at Normandy. A handful of veterans remain and visited the beaches where they landed 79 years ago—Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword and Juno (codenames). I listened to some accounts because ther’re that is primary evidence, and the veterans tell of the deaths on the front line and that they had to keep moving to fend off the Germans. They survived where many gave their lives to liberate France, Europe, and the world. Small towns and villages were liberated in France, and many of these places honour the soldiers who gave their lives for their liberty. Why hasn’t the world learned that to avoid a repeat of D-day that some sacrifices must be made early on and decisions that don’t include appeasement.
That is what we hear today—Ukrainian troops liberating small villages one by one, and many men dying to do so. Unlike Operation Overlord, there are no troops from eight allied countries to assist, and they are not fully equipped with weapons or the latest technology. Back in WW II, diplomacy was attempted and resulted in appeasement. NATO was formed afterwards after the League of Nations was abandoned through failure. The idea was to prevent war through discussions and dialogue, which is what some countries are using in their proposed peace plans. However, you can’t negotiate with a party that has no interest in talking except to look as if they want to talk to appease their allies.
One can see why Poland is determined to support Ukraine as the country was invaded by the Germans which led to the war extending to the rest of the world. We should also accept that diplomacy and appeasement in the early stages of a war do not work when the aggressor has no interest in talks. Conceding land to stop further attacks doesn’t work, and as we have seen here, occupied Crimea, Mariupol, and Melitopol (and parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia) only means that Russia wants more land.
What is the issue and why can’t these international alliances act to stop things? The problem is that Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and can veto any action taken against them. We also have NATO that doesn’t really want to get too involved in this, but is because Ukraine shares borders with several NATO member states (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania). If Ukraine did not share borders with these countries, would it have been as active? If Moldova had been invaded, would NATO have sent assistance (with only Romania as a NATO member state as a bordering country)? In the case of Ukraine, the response was slow and it has taken nearly a year before tanks were supplied to Ukraine.
Many Ukrainian men are dying for their country, but what happens when there aren’t enough soldiers? Russia is recruiting more, using mercenaries, and has the Chechen armies and is drafting foreign workers in Russia. The Western allies can keep supplying just enough weapons, but what about soldiers? There might be men able to fight, but perhaps not good enough to be trained? This is where NATO will be forced to step in, and Russia will see that as escalation. There seems to be one rule for Russia and another for the rest of the world, and in order to win, you sometimes need to rewrite the rules when other parties violate them.
No one wants a repeat of Operation Overlord, but that arose to the failures of the world leaders during the early stages of the war and before the war officially began. Neville Chamberlain’s choice to appease Hitler in 1938 by signing over parts of Czechoslovakia (Munich Agreement). We are seeing this being repeated in various proposed peace plans from Turkey, Indonesia, China, Italy, and other countries. What happened in 1938 should teach other countries not to interfere and to suggest ceding land for peace as it doesn’t work. While some state that the sovereignty of Ukraine should be respected, what they also mean is that Ukraine should consider ceding land for peace as that is one of the terms that Russia will not budge on.
Will we see official NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine? Perhaps then as in Kosovo (as all diplomatic attempts for peace had failed) NATO must intervene, but how many lives will that cost? How many more humanitarian disasters will it take? We are watching history in the making and it is unpleasant and many of us feel helpless. Ukraine needs all the weapons now, or when they have a small army of men left to fight, NATO and other allies will have to decide on whether to send in troops to help. That is how WW II came about, and Ukraine has limited resources and giving weapons in a piecemeal fashion and talking about recovery is not helping them defeat the Russians, but appears more about looking as if they are doing enough without getting their hands dirty.
Day 485 (23 June)
Zelenskyy has signed in a law that bans the import and distribution of Russian books. This appears to be more symbolic of the fact that Ukraine has its own identity and is not part of Russia as Russia claims. In occupied areas, Russia has destroyed anything Ukrainian from books to art and historical buildings. This is a war where Russia wants to wipe out anything Ukrainian and Ukraine is standing its ground and removing all traces of Russia on Ukrainian soil.
In Zaporizhzhia, explosions have already been heard as the nuclear power plant has become the target for Russia again. Each time, a nuclear disaster has been averted but from the Kakhovka dam incident, we can see that Russia plans can me miscalculated.
Russia has stated they have a reserve army in place that will be ready by July. This comes after they claimed they no longer needed conscripts, but the truth is they have been forcing Russian men to sign up and even foreign workers in Russia to be part of the army.
Ukraine has stated that Hungary has violated international law by transferring Ukrainian POW to Hungary without consulting Ukraine, and also by refusing them access to their citizens.
E-L - I share your exasperation/anger that the world does not have the ability to learn from the events leading up to World War Two and the devastation which that war caused.