The Ukraine war has become characterised by the prophetic and pathetic - Patrick Mercer
Last Tuesday marked the fourth anniversary of the start of what Moscow terms the ‘Special Military Operation’. Predictably, both sides thumped the airwaves with how well it was going for them, how terrible each other’s casualties were, how their opponents’ economies were on the point of collapse and all the stuff we’ve learnt to expect. Mercifully, though, as this goes to print, there’s been nothing much more than angry words to mark the occasion.
Now, these words fall neatly into two categories - prophetic and pathetic: they need to be untangled.
As the red letter day approached Kiev and Moscow unleashed a flurry of drones and missiles. Whilst it’s still not clear how much damage Russia inflicted on Ukraine’s already battered energy supply, it was serious. Almost simultaneously Ukraine’s weapons flew remarkably far hitting ammunition depots and a strategically important oil terminal which fed into the crucial Druzhba oil pipeline. Only then, with the opening fireworks complete, did the rhetoric start in earnest.
Oil supplies are vital. Until late January the Druzhba pipeline provided Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia via Ukraine. Both landlocked countries rely heavily on this fuel, but Kiev is adamant that Moscow’s attacks have damaged it badly.
The two countries claim, though, that this artery is perfectly workable and, as Slovakia’s premier has said, supplies have been stopped deliberately by Ukraine as unadulterated “political blackmail”.
In revenge, it’s probable that Kiev’s two NATO ‘allies’ will cut off electricity and other energy supplies to Ukraine. They’ve already halted diesel fuel supplies saying that shipments will not restart until Russian crude begins to flow again.
Just as controversially, Hungary has stated that she will continue to block the €90bn war loan that the EU had agreed upon for Kiev. Any one member can scupper the others’ decisions and, again, Budapest has said that she’ll approve the loan only once the oil’s switched on.
Now, Russia’s claiming tacit support from Hungary and Slovakia: they’re blocking energy supplies at the same time as Russian drones and missiles are crippling power stations. Whether they are working in concert with Moscow is less important than the combined effects on Ukraine’s will to survive.
Then, during the Geneva peace talks, the awkward question of presidential elections bubbled to the surface once more. There were mutterings that President Zelensky might choose to go to the polls later this year, but how serious those suggestions are can probably best be judged by his main rival, General Valerie Zalushny.
Zalushny, from the London base where he’s the Ambassador to UK, has already been on political manoeuvres, but this is the first time that he’s chosen to fire a barrage to support his own presidential ambitions.
The initial volley was Zalushny’s suggestion that the much vaunted Ukrainian counter attack of 2023 had not been botched by him as the field commander, but by Zelensky as the commander-in-chief. The General had wanted to concentrate all his forces against the key Russian ‘land bridge’ that connected Crimea with the mainland, but the President insisted on several attacks along the whole front.
The result: disaster, but it was all Zelensky’s fault.
The riposte came swiftly. The President claimed that Zalushny had designed and executed the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea without telling him. That, of course, was a direct assault on at least one NATO nation, all of whom are meant to be Ukraine’s allies.
The result: disaster, but it was all Zalushny’s fault.
Then came the big one. As the 2023 counter attack sputtered out, the General had gone to a forward HQ, but just as he arrived it was flattened by a Muscovite missile that left several dead and wounded him badly. According to Zalushny, his position was betrayed to the Russians by someone in the President’s office. He reckoned it was brutal payback for the attack’s failure and his criticism of Zelensky.
This fratricide will certainly get worse, but the judgment of the Kiev Independent so far is, “Zalushny’s choice to win… quick political points seems, at minimum, a little callous and self-centered.”
Right, enough prophetic words, let’s switch to pathetic ones.
At the forefront comes Boris Johnson never knowingly talking sense. He’s suggested that British forces should not wait for a ceasefire, but must be sent to Ukraine immediately. Such soldiers are, in Johnson’s words, to be “peaceful troops” (whatever that oxymoron means) and to continue the moronic, they’re to be stationed well away from the front lines.
First, there’s the old argument that we don’t have enough manpower for such a commitment - let alone ‘peaceful’ ones. Johnson should know this after his active attempts to emasculate our forces when he was in Downing Street.
Then there’s Russia’s unbending stance on such deployments. Even if we had the people to send and even if they were ‘peaceful’, they’ll still be killed. What is it with prime ministers? Is every incumbent devoid of common sense?
I have no idea who initiated this next bit of nonsense, but it’s being peddled by both sides. Apparently Britain and France are to provide Kiev with the components of a nuclear ‘dirty bomb’.
There’s one word to dismiss this: Chernobyl. No one understands the enduring horror of nuclear explosions better than Ukraine.
And on that note I’ll take back just a little of what I’ve said about Boris Johnson. Posing for the cameras in Kiev on Tuesday he said that there must not be a fifth anniversary of this war: amen to that.
Patrick Mercer is a former MP for Newark and Army Colonel.