It’s continued to be a weird world in 2023. Despite Covid being ‘not a thing’ anymore ( I’ll come back to that), it just doesn’t still feel like everything is on the up again. From the crazy sad Vladimir Putin, China’s relentless charge to be the global big me I am, military coups in Africa, crazy Venezuela wanting to absorb nearly an entire country just to get some oil money to paper over their economic cracks, it just goes on and on. Yemen, Iran, Syria, Palestine. It’s like there’s a global network of crazy madmen trying to ruin the world.

I’ve followed the invasion of Ukraine right from day 1. I remember writing a couple of ironic comedic items in 2014 highlighting how stupid the whole thing was. I never thought that ten years later it would be getting worse never mind still be going on. No matter what was going on with the Ukraine government at the time regarding diluting ethic Russians language rights, there is nothing happened that can justify what Vladimir Putin did next, nor what he’s done since. With my limited knowledge it looks like the Russian government were already infiltrating ukraman politics and starting to arm and train guerrilla fighters in the Donbas, either way when they continued to fuel unrest near the Russian border, it was the sign of what was to come.

By October 2021 Russia had amassed 100,000 soldiers along the border with Ukraine. On the morning of February 24th 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine.

Since then at least seventy thousand Russian men have lost their lives and over three hundred thousand have been injured. Complete madness. So many families lives ruined. For what? To prevent children in Ukrainian schools of the future in the Donbas having to learn Ukrainian. Madness indeed. Putin was obviously mad at the start and has grown more insane as the invasion has gone on.

How he thought the civilised countries of the world were going to sit back and watch him take over a modern European country without trying to help Ukraine is beyond belief. It’s nothing to do with destabilising Russia. Who cared what Russia was doing. Just get on with looking after your own citizens and leave the rest of us alone.

One of the things that’s just completely mad and scary to me is the behaviour of the Russian people. I’ve watched vlogs on YouTube and some BBC videos. Initially every Russian either didn’t want to speak about it, denied it was happening or fully supported the ‘special operation’. Now, I can understand where, in a country where information and the internet appear to be controlled, you might not have a full picture of what was happening or the reasons why, but to not question it at all. Hmm – really? Time has moved on and this week I was actually surprised to hear a handful of ordinary Russians saying they wished the war would end. Is news fully penetrating Putin’s media twist and they’re realising it’s not great after all. Of course, my hope’s for Russian society were ruined when one man ended a ‘wish the war would end’ comment with ‘ of course it wasn’t us that started it’

If you’re Russian and reading this, think about it. A small country with a small army was no threat. Ethnic issues would have sorted themselves out instead your leader Invented the Z sign, destroyed thousands of families lives in the very regions Russia was allegedly trying to help, transported peoples kids to Russia to educate them, and watched on as a horror has unfolded all in your name.

I could post hundreds of pictures of devastation caused by Russia. I watched videos of Russians denying the destruction was happening. Even worse was the lack of reasoning to support what they were doing,

From the Donbas in the east to towns in the far West of Ukraine towns and cities were blown to smithereens Families fled the carnage leaving their husbands and boyfriends behind to fight. As of the start of 2024 there are 26,000 Ukrainian refugees living in Scotland.

An article I read stated the following

“The figures related to the daily Russian bombardments over large parts of Ukrainian territory are jarring. The latest report from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) — published in June of this year — notes that there are at least 167,200 damaged properties (houses, apartment buildings, etc.), worth about €51 billion or $56 billion. Another $35 billion worth of airports, train stations and 15,000 miles of road have also been ruined, as have 3,400 schools — damaged or destroyed at a cost of about $10 billion — along with the country’s energy infrastructure, at a cost of over $8 billion. This includes the Nova Kajovka dam, which alone cost about $600 million to rebuild.”

………….. And yet Muscovites shop on as if nothing is happening and they are fighting evil demons in a ‘ special operation’. No you are not!

You are wreaking havoc on innocents.

On Jan 6th 2024 Russia (Putin) announced nineteen thousand children from Ukraine would be allowed to stay in Russia ! These are real kids whose parents probably still exist somewhere.it just goes on and on. A futile invasion by a crazy madman.

Will write another article on this soon!