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American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Civilisation, Coffee, Defend the modern world, EU, Maiden Protests, Maydan, Nuclear, Russia invaded Ukraine, Tanks, Ukraine, US, US Russia, Weapons
We could cease to exist at any moment. The game of bluff in Eastern Europe is getting older, less careful and more honest. Russia – it can no longer be denied – has invaded Europe. The scenario long dreamed of in spy novels and video-game fiction has become a banal reality.
How do you feel about that? I suppose, given the worst case scenario, we should be frozen in fear, unable to think or consider anything else. That doesn’t seem to be the mood I observe though.
Perhaps we are so shocked that Putin, the charismatic leader of a kindred state, would be so bold, so seemingly foolish to risk a terminal war with America, that we can’t bring ourselves to realise the truth.
The incredulity is natural. Why has Putin done this? Russia is much weaker (economically, militarily, politically) than the West. To be sure, if nuclear weapons were not a factor here, we could have reduced Moscow to rubble by now.
The truth is that Russia, for all its flabbiness and eccentricity, possesses something we have lost – self-belief.
Russia believes in itself. Europe does not. Russia fights for something it understands down to its bone marrow. Europe fights for reasons devised in a smoky room by unelected suits. The Russian people are by-and-large behind their government. The European people feel occupied by theirs.
Although I strongly oppose what he is trying to achieve there, I must concede that Putin’s success in Ukraine represents a triumph of the human over the mechanical; the spirit over the machine. He has faced down vastly more complicated forces by the virtue of his willpower alone. It is no wonder his reputation is gaining in dark glamour for every week that passes.
D, LDN
Defend the Modern World 
I’m a fan of the columnist Peter Hitchens. I agree with most of what he says. I think you would too, if you read his columns and listen to his speeches and debates on YouTube.
He says that Russia had not been treated as friend by the EU after the Soviet Union collapsed. The Cold War was over and Russia was no longer a Communist country. It tried/tries to become just another normal Christian European country. But, the Western elite still treat Russia like a defeated enemy country.
The most irritating thing to Russia was the expansion of NATO towards their borders. In the minds of the Russians, NATO is an anachronism. Why should it even exist?, when it’s sole purpose was to to counter the Soviet Union, which did not exist anymore.
The presence of Turkey, an increasingly Islamic country, in the NATO was particularly galling, as Turkey had always been the traditional enemy of Russia.
This is just Russia lashing out against a perceived insult to their national honor, which, like you described, is still a living feeling in Russia, unlike in Western Europe.
But, all hope is not lost, as I feel & hope that the Rotherham incidents will act as a wake up call to the English and other Europeans to see what happens when you lose your sense of national honour.
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I agree.Besides,they must defend their own people. Could they let them down by being a silent observer?There were always fascist elements in Ukraine-remember their collaboration with the occupation troops 1941.
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I won’t fully justify Putin’s action. He’s being very reckless in my opinion. However I do appreciate that he feels a need to defend the Russian minority.
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I see Russia as an important ally in the coming/ongoing war against Orthodox (I don’t use the weasel words of ‘Radical’ or ‘Islamism’ as I consider them as misleading. What the so-called ‘radicals’ want is to simply, literally follow what is there in the core texts) Sunni Islam.
Moreover, Russia is in many ways a part of the West. If in someways it tends to stay out of the Western cultural and value system, it should be slowly eased into it. And it can only be done if the Western elite treat Russia with respect and honor. Russia has been through some pretty horrible times and it will need some time for it heal herself and become fully a part of the West.
The expansion of NATO, an organization which the Russians feel as both anachronistic and threatening, is one issue which the Western elite could have been more reasonable.
Putin and the Russian leadership may be ruthless, but they are, in my opinion reasonable actors with limited and reasonable foreign policy goals and certainly not reckless.
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