At this dreadful hour, I'm not just thinking of the Ukrainian people. I'm also thinking of the Russian people.
A people who are bombarded, day after day after day, with completely fake news. Which speaks in dark tones of 'genocide' against Russians in Ukraine.
Which ever since 2014, has insisted that Ukraine has been taken over by 'Nazis'.
That's despite the far right having one single seat out of 450 in the Ukrainian Parliament. And despite, too, almost all parties represented in that Parliament being pro-European.
It's even despite the Ukrainian President himself being Jewish.
The reason the appalling Viktor Yanukovych was brought down was he wilfully ignored the wishes of his people. Instead, he jailed political opponents, rigged elections, and slaughtered 100 protestors.
Whenever I see the despicable nonsense trotted out on here of a 'Nazi/fascist coup' against him, I'm always left wondering just how those excreting this would react if their country's leader jailed political opponents, rigged elections and massacred democracy demonstrators.
Ukraine's people, for a long long time now, have wanted to be pro-Western and pro-European. If what's happening to them now doesn't tell you why, nothing ever will.
But here's the thing. It's also happened to them throughout history.
Ukrainian nationalism and desire for a state has been a thing for many centuries. And for century after century, it's been systematically repressed.
What's curious, though, is I suspect Russian people's perspectives will be very different. Which will add to their confusion now.
Both Russia and especially Ukraine's roots come from Kievan Rus, a Middle Ages federation which was initially enormously successful, and centred above all on Kiev/Kyiv.
But that point about roots mean Russians consider Ukrainians as their brothers. Essentially, as identical.
I'm quite sure that informs Putin's own views of all this: as it does in the case of Belarus and Georgia. "We are brothers".
I'm curious about what Russians and Ukrainians are taught in history classes at school. Because the thing is, Ukraine has always been *a bit different*.
It was arguably the most autonomous member state of the USSR: to the extent that the Ukrainian SSR was a founding member of the UN, and treated separately under international law in some cases *as well as* remaining part of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, the Holodomor, one of the most horrific atrocities in history, in which at least 3.5m and maybe as many as 7m Ukrainians were starved to death, was carried out by Stalin precisely because of the threat he perceived from Ukrainian nationalism.
Take a look at a map. Despite being so large - the largest country in Europe west of Russia - look at how hemmed in Ukraine is.
By Russia to the east and north, by Belarus to the north and north-west. It's condemned by geography to have been invaded on countless occasions.
Including, also, by Poland, its large neighbour to its west.
Not surprisingly, given how hemmed in and insecure it has perpetually been, sometimes Ukrainian nationalism has indeed been overrun by extremism, racism and antisemitism. Including hideous pogroms.
On 25 May 1926, Symon Petliura, exiled President of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic, which had lasted only from 1918 to 1921, was murdered in Paris.
His assailant, Sholom Schwartzbard, held him responsible for failing to stop pogroms against the Jewish people.
But Schwartzbard may actually have been an NKVD agent, acting on Stalin's wishes.
And historians are completely divided on whether Petliura was responsible for the massacre of Jews. That he actually tried to protect them on numerous occasions is well documented.
What we're talking about here is the history of a people whose yearning for self-determination, to forge their own destiny, has been constantly snuffed out by its more powerful neighbours.
Ukraine has been so repressed so many times that Putin seems to think this is the norm!
But given its awful history, ask yourself why Ukrainians want to reach out westwards, not eastwards.
Why they want to develop an open, pluralistic, democratic, pro-EU society, protected militarily by the West.
And why, above all, they rejected the Russian puppet Yanukovych.
Take a look to Ukraine's north: to Belarus. Led by a horrific tyrant, in power for 28 years now: who steals elections, arrests and locks up journalists on international flights, and does whatever Putin tells him to.
Now - why wouldn't Ukrainians want that for themselves, hmm?
Take a look to Ukraine and Russia's east and the latter's south: Kazakhstan. Where human rights abuses are the norm, whose appalling President was heavily implicated by the Credit Suisse links, and who put down protests thanks to Russian troops.
At least 227 people were killed.
I can't think why Ukrainians wouldn't want THAT kind of future. I mean, it must be an absolute barrel of laughs for the Kazakhs. 🙄
In my view, given their history, geographical insecurity and with the Bear on their borders, Ukraine has done an extraordinary job in recent years.
Most countries in such circumstances would actually turn fascist. Ukraine, quite categorically, has not. And that's what Putin really can't stand: it's democracy and pluralism he's threatened by, not NATO.
But there's another danger here. It's to demonise Russian people for the behaviour of their out of control President.
Young Russian men will be waking up today absolutely petrified. Of being sent to a war against people they view as their brothers. Of dying in that war.
Perfectly ordinary Russians - people just like you and me - will be similarly petrified of just what's going to become of their businesses, their jobs, their lives.
As their country is denounced across the world... and before long, economically isolated and cut off.
You would not believe how pathetically low pensions are in Russia.
You also would not believe just how many over-50s in Russia are already completely dependent on pathetic, miserable crumbs from the state. They sit watching TV all day, every day; they have nothing else.
TV which blares out that propaganda all the time - and as they're poorly educated and have little or nothing else to compare it with, naturally, they believe it. They believe their people are facing genocide right across the border and are even grateful to Putin for those crumbs.
And then, too, consider Russia's own history. What has always, always, ALWAYS happened to those who just wanted something a bit better?
They were exiled, jailed or murdered by this endless succession of bureaucrats or strongmen. You don't get to demand something better in Russia
What happened to Navalny had already happened to countless critics, opponents or dissidents throughout Russian history.
What can the Russian people do as a result? Shrug their shoulders, keep their heads down, grin and bear it, and make the best of a continually awful situation
I think we in the West completely underestimate how most people living under dictatorships, under tyrants, are just like you or me.
With, broadly speaking, the same aspirations, the same desires - but not even allowed to articulate them, let alone try and fulfil them.
The Russian people are not responsible for what is happening right now. Their President, an evil man who loots their wealth and persecutes anyone who opposes him, is.
So please, please, PLEASE: let's not allow the whole country to be demonised by the media.
Let's not allow ordinary Russians to face hatred and abuse from the usual idiots who swallow everything they read in the tabloid press.
This is about one man's monstrous ego - and the impossibility of his people challenging him.
In the end, as with most militarised dictatorships, it may be for the army to take matters into its own hands and remove him.
But there's an awful lot of suffering to come for an awful lot of people before we reach that point.
God bless the people of Ukraine. And of Russia.
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Someone just asked me how long I think the war will last. Well - it depends on your definition really.
Of course, nobody really knows... but what I anticipate is as follows.
1. Kyiv falls within days. Zelensky is likely killed. A puppet government is installed.
2. The rest of Ukraine also falls - in a manner of speaking - within weeks. But...
3. That's when the guerilla fighting really kicks in. With Russia, claiming to be in 'control', sustaining constant casualties which undermine Putin back home.
4. Western sanctions steadily ratchet up. Nobody other than rogue states recognise the puppet government; the Russian economy falls into ever greater disrepair; the already appalled Russian people become gradually more and more fed up.
2. Treating the country that's been invaded and the country that's invaded it as equivalent
3. Complaining about any support of any kind being given to the country that's been invaded
4. Referring to a dead diplomatic agreement which has been ripped up by the aggressor
5. Referring to a democratically elected government as a 'regime'
6. Citing public annoucements of entirely accurate intelligence about the likelihood of an invasion as 'pouring oil on the fire' (in other words, STWC would rather not know, cos the truth is VERY AWKWARD for them)
The statement is extraordinarily foolish and the speed of their furious backpedalling leaves me wondering if the Labour MPs who signed it even read it.
Without even mentioning the Tories' dodgy beyond belief financial dealings, it blames Britain (!) for war having broken out.
No. It was to warn the peoples of the world what was coming - and especially to counter Russian disinformation, which will manifest itself as never before now.
The intelligence said Russia would invade. Russia has invaded.
The statement also predictably blames NATO and denies Ukraine has any sovereign right to join it or any other military alliance - despite everything we're seeing today confirming why it was so frantic to join.
Current stories from it include all Russian media reporting on Ukraine now being required to only use information and data from "official Russian sources" (ie. the government) on pain of having their websites blocked and fines of up to 5 million rubles (about 60,000 US dollars).
4. Some of whom think Jeremy Corbyn could magically have solved this crisis, like they think he also magically solved Northern Ireland
5. Insist there's only one reason for Labour's defeat in 2019, when there are very many
6. Insisted a London-based Remainer could never win back the Red Wall, yet he's winning back the Red Wall
7. Used a massive child abuse scandal to lie through their teeth and parrot far-right conspiracies about Keir Starmer, with zero regard for the victims' suffering whatsoever
If people on here know this little history, that's their problem.
The countries of Eastern Europe haven't joined NATO or want to join NATO because they want to invade Russia. It's because they want to stop Russia EVER INVADING THEM AGAIN.
They want to stop a nuclear kleptocratic mafia state ruled by an iron fist invading them. Which has already invaded Georgia, invaded Ukraine, denied Ukraine's right to exist, and its leader described USSR's collapse as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century".