Nuclear sabre-rattling 

This war shows that nuclear power is a safety umbrella to people like Vladimir Putin but a deterrent to justice. What else could be preventing NATO and allied powers from stopping Putin’s aggression militarily?

Joe Biden may be correct in saying this is a war for democracy against dictatorship. I would prompt him to add that this should also be the beginning of a global, determined war against nuclear weapons in the possession of any nation, democratic or otherwise.

The argument that nuclear power is a deterrent to war has very limited validity. It is rather a deterrent to justice, as this war shows.

Like climate change, nuclear weaponry is the imminent danger to the very survival of the human race. Putin is rattling very powerful sabres indeed.

Albert Said – Naxxar

History is repeating itself

Ukrainian artillerymen in the Luhansk region. Photo: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP

The news from Ukraine is devastating. What Vladimir Putin is doing is a repeat of Stalin’s actions against Finland in November 1939, despite negotiations in the Kremlin between the Finnish government and Stalin. Prisoners shot and dressed in Soviet army uniforms was a pretext to invade a small nation. Generals promised Stalin Finland for his birthday!

I’m not going to relate the whole story but Stalin’s armies didn’t know what hit them. The soldiers, just like today’s Russian soldiers, were told that they were on a war of liberation and would be welcomed with open arms. Most, like today, were conscripts; the difference was that the Soviet army had the commissars behind them, shooting them if they didn’t move forward or retreat. Soldiers were cannon fodder just like today’s Russian conscripts. At least, the majority of their dead were taken home but remains of both Russians and Finns are being found, dug up and repatriated.

Like the Finns during the Winter War of November 1939 to February 1940, the Ukrainians are putting up a great fight. The Russians are making the same mistakes as during the Winter War. Long columns on straight or winding roads just waiting to be attacked.

The Finns attacked like ghosts from the flanks, breaking up the columns into sections, mottis in Finnish, and pulverised a whole army. The Ukrainians seem to have picked up on that. I’m not in favour of any kind of war but if breaking up the columns is the only way, then go for it.

The difference today is that the whole of the civilised world is with Ukraine and providing the arms and equipment their brave fighters need. Due to the war in Europe, the Finns were on their own. Some help reached them in the form of Swedish volunteers and some volunteers from other states but, although some aircraft and arms from the UK were sent and I believe paid-for, help from the allies was basically non-existent. The US was neutral but sent some help. History tells us that the Finns lost. They didn’t. They lost territory but they maintained their freedom and democracy, the only country to do so bordering the Soviet Union.

With the help and assistance of the West, and without putting EU, UK and US troops on the ground, the resilience of the Ukrainians will, in the end, beat Putin’s army. But the Russian people, most of whom surely do not want their young men killed for no reason, should wake up and see what their leaders are doing to their country. Putin has assumed the role of Stalin and is doing what he can to turn Russia back to the days of Communism and the Cold War. A new Iron Curtain.

Saviour Falzon – Kalkara

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