I remember in my O and A level history lessons the importance to Russia (or the USSR) of warm sea ports in the Black Sea with easy access to the south being drummed into us and why.

And how huge Russia was with great land masses uninhabited.
We were fortunate in our history teachers and also our English teacher who introduced us to Uncle Vanya, the Cherry Orchard, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, The Government Inspector (by the Russian Ukrainian Gogol) and the Brothers Karamazov
And the teachers talked to one another so the lessons joined up.

And the map was always there.
I thought ( mistakenly) that Crimea would be enough for Russia.

It’s never enough.

So what is the world going to do in concert to break that spring?
When we were studying First WW history we also read Rupert Brooks, Wilfred Owen and Vera Britain’s Testament to Youth.

War was not glamourised.

I realise, now, that being taught Anglo- Irish history was unusual in English schools.

I was luckier than I knew.

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More from @fascinatorfun

Feb 25
Video claiming to show planes during Russian invasion of Ukraine is actually of 2020 parade rehearsal - Full Fact

Beware of false information. Some may be deliberate propaganda designed to affect morale.

Others may be mischief making.
fullfact.org/online/moscow-…
I try and wait for a reliable verification - but it is easy to get caught out.

Worth remembering that one of the purposes of disinformation is to demoralise. In this instance the Ukraine people who are already suffering enough.

fullfact.org/online/ukraine…
Read 4 tweets
Feb 24
“For the West, this may be (yet another) wake-up call. For Ukraine, it is a death-knell.We will have years …to mull the combination of naivete, complacency, arrogance, ignorance and — most of all — greed that brought us to this catastrophe.”

Powerful 🧵 from @edwardlucas
Read his 10 point to-do list.

Write to your MPs demanding they are delivered.

Tell them we should be welcoming and supporting those who are fleeing from Ukraine….as so many other countries are already doing.

Countries far smaller than ours and just as far away.
And his reflections on the U.K. Gov sanctions to date.

Too little. Too late. That is the slogan for this Government.

Over and over again.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 24
“Putin is an imperialist thug. He is challenging the right of Ukrainians to exist, to aspire towards European liberty. Don’t forget how this all started – with his attempt to stop the country signing an association agreement with the EU in 2014.”
“The people of Ukraine dream of freedom, safety and self-determination. He is intent on preventing them from attaining it, on the basis of a belligerent jingoistic colonialism.”
“Morality and strategy are perfectly entwined. There is no complication to this issue. There is only the profound historic imperative of taking a stand.”

Superb from @IanDunt
Read 9 tweets
Feb 24
Numerous cities across Russia.

Including his hometown St Petersburg.
Yekaterinburg where Arron Bank’s wife heralds from.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 24
It’s jolly decent of Putin to make it easy to identify who else should be targeted for sanctions.

All the biddable business élite who have attended at Putin’s bidding.

Some rather significant names seem to be missing from our (U.K.) mouse-squeak very tiny list
I make that 39 people.

Wonder what it is like being “a successful” businessman working under the shadow of fear that you will suddenly end up thrown out a window or poisoned?
And look who is one of the people who had a special meeting with Putin.

Guryev who owns the largest mansion in London after Buckingham Palace.

Hence the need to freeze assets too.
Read 18 tweets
Feb 24
Tory lobbying row over ‘Westminster Russia Forum’ as Putin invades Ukraine

Conservative Friends of Russia (CRF) is advertising its first in-person conference for 2 years next week, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Remember: Carrie Johnson started it opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
Way back in 2012 the Russian Government Tourist Agency paid for Tory Activists to visit including Vote Leave’s CEO Matthew Elliott

Then @WriterJackWhite has traced how many visits have occurred from this groups’ associates.
More about that 2012 visit here

theguardian.com/politics/2012/…
Read 16 tweets

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