UKRAINE SHORT COMMENTARY: IS THE RUSSIAN OPERATION IN UKRAINE JUSTIFIED?

Who among us actively wants war, supports war in general or would be enthusiastic about waging war against another nation let alone serving in a war zone and killing other human beings and risk being killed themselves?

Unless we are talking about a super patriot who believes he or she is acting to defend his or her nation or a group of nations against an implacable enemy seeking to invade, destroy and slaughter themselves, their loved ones, friends and those they look up to who run the country only a few answers present themselves.

These answers are restricted to two relatively narrow categories:

Sociopaths, psychopaths and the criminally insane.

In the vast majority of cases in modern times it takes a leader and/or an elite surrounding such a leader who fits at least one of these categories to initiate a war.

However, there is one case where a war can be justified where the object is not simply to occupy another nation or series of nations using mass slaughter and widespread arbitrary destruction to achieve this. Such a war was waged by the allies, the USA, UK and Russia during World War Two with the vital assistance of the resistance in France, Italy, Greece and elsewhere. As has been accepted by almost everyone except a few cranks this was a war which simply HAD to be fought.

So what about the present war in Ukraine? Most people will tell you that it is unjustified and unwarranted. I disagree and put these comments, from whichever source they come. Down to either knowing or unknowing ignorance.

Russia put this war off for eight solid years. In the initial two years Putin and Russia had to watch scenes showing Ukrainian forces of whichever kind (national army, ultranationalist militias and out and out neo-Nazis) shelling the cities, towns and villages of south-eastern Ukraine mercilessly. They had no known targets to fire upon, no fixed separatist positions, no GPS positioning to go on, they simply set up their mortars and began bombardment hitting the nearest high rise building (apartment blocks/hospitals and schools predominantly) or else by passing these and hitting single storey dwellings or urban streets and centres.

Putin and Russia suffered every pang of anguish felt for their fellow pro-Russian Slavs just across the border through all that was done to them in those years and proceeded in 2015 to work with Kiev officials on a peace plan. This was eventually agreed and ratified at the United Nations and is known as the Minsk Agreement. It appeared there was some hope that a peaceful solution could be found. But this expectation was dashed by the Kiev authorities failing to make good on their promises and instead continued to bombard the people in the east of their nation whose plea was for greater autonomy after the coup which had taken place in Kiev in 2014 and which threatened everything to do with their language, culture, heritage, allegiances and a core issue this, their democratic right to elect the president and government of their choice.

Still Putin and Russia waited year after years, hoping that Kiev would be pressured by its western allies to make good on its Minsk promises. They waited in vain for either. The western powers sat on their hands and said not a word to Kiev to make good on what  it had signed up to, talking directly to the leaders of the breakaway republics and granting their region a special status and right to autonomy.

Then Putin and Russia saw Kiev arming up with the help of its western allies and increasingly talking tough and in terms that signified it had dropped all intentions to implement the Minsk Agreements. It sent arms and materiel along with ever more troops to the east. It appeared more and more certain and indeed completely obvious when the rhetoric used was taken into consideration that a full scale attack on the two republics was imminent.

Then a few short weeks ago Russian intelligence caught wind of the intent by Kiev to mount a full scale military attack. In recent weeks the Ukrainian president had also indicated that Ukraine may well seek nuclear weapons once again. Then there is the conviction of a seasoned expert in global power politics, Professor John Mearsheimer that Ukraine was slowly being made into a de facto NATO member. And to top all this, after a recent nine hour attempt to finally get Kiev to acknowledge that the Minsk Agreement was the only viable pathway to peace and its subsequent total rejection of it… the current Russian campaign in Ukraine became inevitable. 

Thus I state with absolute conviction that the current operation Russia is conducting in Ukraine was justified, warranted and indeed had been far too long delayed.