Skip to main content

One Year On

 Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day!


It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day.

5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: we all underestimated the guts of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ZSU, and its President and people.

One year on, Estonia, and indeed all the front line states against Russia, knows that Ukraine saved us.

Estonia used that time to prepare itself, should that "delayed" onslaught ever be unleashed, but equally the determination of Kaja Kallas, the Estonian Prime Minister, and the whole country, is that Ukraine shall stand. Over 40,000 Ukrainian refugees are here, and per capita, Estonia leads the table of assistance given to Kyiv.

Estonia now believes that Ukraine can ultimately defeat Russia. Indeed defeat for Putin cannot be optional: the monstrous evil that has unleashed a totally unprovoked war against a peaceful (even sleepy) democratic neighbour will stop at nothing. The war has been marked by a brutality- child rape and torture and the murder of innocent civilians- that stands high in the catalogue of human crime. Yes, Putin could even overtake Hitler, Stalin or Mao as the Human race´s greatest murderer, were he to unleash his nuclear arsenal. The fact that this is even possible, is why Russia must be defeated and either restored to the ranks of civilized nations or destroyed.

Nor is it hubris to point out that the criminal regime in the Moscow Kremlin is a brittle and weak government. There are protests in Russia and an entire generation of well educated young men have walked away from Putinism. The brutality of operations in Ukraine reflects a primitive and weak system of government and a corrupt and incompetent high command. The splits between the thuggish Wagnerite, Progrozhin, the dimwitted homunculus, Kadyrov, and the bovine Putin loyalist, Shoigu, will be battle lines of a civil war as Putin´s power inevitably drains away. The return of the meat grinder has destroyed Wagner and is destroying even "elite" units that are not the poorly trained sweepings of Russian jails.

With new equipment and better training, the ZSU can return to winning ways as snow and mud gives way to the drier summer. So after the tragedy of one year ago, we look to the future with hope, thanks to the courage of Ukraine.

Glory to Ukraine, To the Heroes, Glory! Слава Україні! Героям Слава!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waiting for the Barbarians

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything going on in the senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What’s the point of senators making laws now? Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating. Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate, in state, wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader. He’s even got a scroll to give him, loaded with titles, with imposing names. Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold? Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle the barbarians. Why don’t our distingui...
Post a Comment
Read more

Liberal Democrats v Conservatives: the battle in the blogosphere

It is probably fair to say that the advent of Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by our Conservative opponents. Indeed, it would hardly be wrong to say that the past few weeks has seen some "pretty robust" debate between Conservative and Liberal Democrat bloggers. Even the Queen Mum of blogging, the generally genial Iain Dale seems to have been featuring as many stories as he can to try to show Liberal Democrats in as poor a light as possible. Neither, to be fair, has the traffic been all one way: I have "fisked' Mr. Cameron's rather half-baked proposals on health, and attacked several of the Conservative positions that have emerged from the fog of their policy making process. Most Liberal Democrats have attacked the Conservatives probably with more vigour even than the distrusted, discredited Labour government. So what lies behind this sharper debate, this emerging war in the blogosphere? Partly- in my ...
20 comments
Read more

Lib Dem v. Tory (Round 2)

The Liberal Democrats stand for a distinct political ideology. It is an ideology built around both socially and economically liberal precepts. In as far as our ruling Labour government can be said to have an ideology at all, it coincides with Liberalism only incidentally. Labour stands for pragmatism, and where it does not there is still a core of values that are collectivist and not individual. Sometimes people are prepared to claim the moral high ground for policies of social solidarity and redistribution of wealth. Liberals may argue in favour of equality of opportunity, we can not argue in favour- as Socialists do- of "and equal society". The reason is simple: Socialism does not work. If one places equality above freedom, then eventually we get tyranny. This is why, while we may argue in favour of a more equal society as being a stronger society, the tools that we may use to gain -in our view- socially desirable outcomes must rest upon freedom above all else. As PJ O'...
14 comments
Read more