Tag Archives: Ukraine war

Ukraine: are we absolutely sure we want a wider war? Part II

By Paul Reynolds | Tue 9th April 2024 - 4:32 pm

Embed from Getty Images
It has become quite mainstream now to portray Russia as an evil regime, about to invade Western Europe, that needs to be defeated at any cost (i.e. nuclear war … even though some such advocates don’t understand that implication). Until recently this was seen as a fringe conspiracy theory.

Sure, Russia has a pretty appalling power structure with a lawless mafia-ised system clustered around the Presidency, with it’s tentacles around Europe, Mid East and Africa. It is also technologically advanced, especially in military and space spheres, and has vast natural resources, managed centrally. Russia is not Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. It is formidable, and limiting its ‘ethnic Russians’ propagandised mischief-making, (eg Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Donbass and the Baltic States), without getting to a counterproductive World War, requires a sophisticated carrot-and-stick approach.

A postcard from Sir Vince in Kyiv

By Vince Cable | Sun 24th September 2023 - 6:51 am

The main evidence of war in Kyiv in the last few days has been a series of loud bangs in the middle of the night – Russian rockets meeting Patriot Missiles apart from the one which got through and hit a power plant.

Otherwise, Kyiv is a normal and beautiful, bustling European city of 3.5 million with busy pavement cafes and restaurants, flourishing shopping centres and street stalls, traffic jams and young people zooming round on e-scooters. After a while you notice the numbers of burly off-duty soldiers in uniform, the exhibitions in civic squares honouring war casualties and the forest of flags to the memory of those who died in Maidan Square in the 2014 Orange revolution. So, not so normal. A war for national survival is taking place, to expel the Russian invaders.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, kyiv and Sir Vince cable | 4 Comments

We must be the great arsenal of democracy

By Zachary Barker | Mon 2nd January 2023 - 2:50 pm

“We must be the great arsenal of democracy.
For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself.”

US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) 29th December 1940

When FDR broadcast those words to his countrymen, the UK was experiencing the height of the Blitz. The Luftwaffe had changed its strategy and was starting to target industrial cities around the UK. My home city of Bristol was yet to experience its worst bout of bombing in less than a week from when FDR gave his speech. In the days and months to come many UK cities experienced scenes that have now become all too familiar in Ukraine.

In an end of year interview with the Economist, General Valery Zaluzhny, head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, was forthright. As it stands now Ukraine can stand its ground. However, he warned that without an especially large infusion of munitions Ukraine will not be able to repeat the extraordinary success of their August Southern Counter Offensive. He admitted that he feared that this munitions supply is beyond the current capacity of Western allies to supply.

Posted in Op-eds | 9 Comments