As an ex professional soldier I’ve been watching and listening with interest how Ukraine have been standing up to the Russian military machine.
Recently I’ve befriended a Ukrainian lady who still lives in Zaporizhzhia which is at south eastern end of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnipro river. Which isn’t that far from one of the nuclear power plants.
The lady in question didn’t leave Ukraine but reminded in Zaporizhzhia as she’s self employed. She sent me some photos of her son when he was doing his National service when he was about 20. He served as paratrooper in the Ukrainian army. What struck me was his uniform. Blue beret and the famous Russian blue white striped tee shirt under his combat uniform. Evidently now the Ukrainian army have done away with any semblance to Russian airborne and have started to wear the maroon beret similar to the Britain’s airborne forces maroon beret.
Since the conflict started in 2014 after the maidan revolution against the then president Vicktor Yanukovych. What sparked this revolution off and leading to the invasion of Russia? The revolt started when Yanukovych refused to sign the political association and free trade agreement with the European Union. Probably through bribes and pressure from President Putin instead he choose closer ties with the Russian Federation.
Maidan square is in the capital of Kyiv. It highlighted to me the barbaric nature of authoritarian regimes against its colonised people. During the revolt by the Ukrainian people in maidan square the regime under Yanukovych used brutal tactics to try and quell the unrest by using the Berkut special riot police. 108 rioters were killed and 13 policeman. Plus many more rioters who were wounded.
There’s a Netflix video about maidan square revolution. Free to watch on YouTube called “Winter on Fire Fight for Freedom”. I was in awe of the utter bravery of mostly young Ukrainians who were unarmed and resisted the Berkut police and roof top snipers.
Once the corrupt leader Yanukovych realised all was lost with his presidency he fled Kyiv by helicopter to Russia, taking lots of his ill gotten gains with him in his helicopter. Not long after that the Russians, green men , invaded the Crimean Peninsula due to its strategic location on the Black Sea, with its Russian naval Black Sea fleet. The so called Ukrainian separatists back by Russia, started a military campaign in the Luhansk and Donetsk region on the eastern part of Ukraine near the Russian border.
In February 2020 Russia carried out a full blown invasion against Ukraine. This was poorly coordinated with the Russian airborne brigade trying to take Hostomel airport North West of Kyiv close to the infamous town of Bucha were the Russians committed butchery of unarmed civilians.
Fortunately the Ukrainians reacted and forced the airborne units to retreat and prevent them taken the airfield and the landing of more troops by transport aircraft. After that the Russian pulled out and the logistic support vehicles were slowly taken out by the brave Ukraine infantry using modern anti tank weapons supplied by NATO members. The invasion proved that the Russian army were ill equipped for such a large scale operation. The Ukrainians to this day are still hammering the Russians with modern high tech western armaments such as the Bradley armoured personnel carrier.
This is how the war has developed with virtual annihilation of the Russian professional army and of the private military contractor Wagner. The Russian military have shown themselves to be wanting in all aspects of their military operations. Now they’re having to rely on prisoners and conscripts with little or no military training. The Russians are that desperate for man power they are advertising for people to join the army from poorer less developed countries such as Nepal and Cuba. Both countries have denounced Russia for trying to conscript men from their nationals through financial inducements.
Now we hear of the so calls meat grinder of conscripts being forced to fight with non existent military training and antiqued equipment and prehistoric armoured fighting vehicles. The death toll is in the order 300,000 and god knows how many wounded and disabled? Obviously the Ukrainians are having to endure high losses as well. The fighting has become a war of attrition and small movements. However we must never forget how this small nation of Ukrainians are stopping the second largest army in the world occupying its sovereign lands.
For western military people it’s been a complete eye opener. How a highly motivated people, mostly of conscripts, but relatively well equipped and using novels ways of fighting. With the use of drones have caused high level’s of attrition against a rabble of unprofessional, poorly trained and poorly motivated Russian forces.
It beggars a big question why has Putin undertaken such a risky strategy to try and occupy a large nation of 40 million people? I think we need to go back in time and look at imperial nations mainly run by authoritarian dictators and what eventually brought them to their demise.
One of the probably most charismatic of men of antiquity is Julies Caesar the great populist, general and dictator. What caused his demise, the crossing of the Rubicon with his legionnaires and proclaiming himself the dictator of Rome. Dictator was a term for the emergency situation only to last no more than 6 months during a political crises or general attack on Rome, but not a dictator for life.
With his lust for power and vanity he destroyed the original republic. The senate leaders realised he was getting far too powerful and total power corrupts the individual, so it did with Caesar. The senators grouped together and assassinated him.
Charles 1 of England caused a civil war against the elected parliament through tyrannical rule. We became a short lived republic after Charles I was beheaded. Again total power corrupts the beholder.
Let’s move on to modern times to two men who became dictators Benito Mussolini or El Duce the boss as he was called by Italians. He was a strutting founder of the Italian Fascist party. He was like most dictators a populist leader with his fiery speeches and love of uniforms and medals. Marching bands to stir up the people. He ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943. Until he was toppled from power and eventually assassinated by his own people.
Adolf Hitler again another populist who copied Mussolini and created his Fascist movement. Modelled his political party on the italian blackshirts. Again he used fiery speeches to whip his supporters into a frenzy and looked for scapegoats such as the Jews and the down trodden. He took over the government calling himself the Fuhrer. Like Napoleon the Emperor both were outsiders .
Hitler was never a general but corporal in the Great War. He started his fascist movement and called it the Nazi party. He became the dictator from 1934 until 1945 when he took his own life in his bunker in once the Russian army had surrounded his bunker and in Berlin.
He had some brilliant generals during the war but he rode roughshod over them. Total power corrupts and the generals were afraid to tell him the full and total truth about their various military campaigns. Dictators get carried away with their own self importance and abilities! Hitler was famous for his uncontrollable tirades! The ex United State president Donald Trump is known for his tirades with his staff another wannabe dictator.
Hitler fully mobilised his country into a war machine. Using propaganda and capturing most of the German peoples minds. I’ll make Germany great again! Does it not ring a bell? He took his nation down a path of utter destruction. In the process killing many millions of people throughout Europe.
Benito Mussolini Dictator of Italy
Now we again have a totalitarian dictator taking his nation to war and in the process invading a sovereign fledgling democracy of Ukraine. Why because power has corrupted him like Caesar, Napoleon, Mussolini and Hitler. Like George Orwell stated in 1984 the regime perpetuates lies and mind controlling propaganda. The people in the end lose touch with reality and are coward too afraid to resist the tyrannical dictator.
Frighten to speak out against the regime and having to rationalise a monstrosity of an existence. Putin is in the process of destroying his country unless the people have the courage, like the Ukrainians and say “enough is enough” we must remove this despot for good. Isn’t this why Putin invaded Ukraine because he didn’t want a free independent European sovereign nations sitting on his doorstep, it would undermine his grip on power. That is why this war will only finish when he is removed or liquidated from power.
Finally I must mention the most powerful democratic capitalistic nation in the world the United States of America. Now when its forefathers wrote the United States of American constitution it was designed that no despotic leader could gain power. The forefathers had fought a war of independence from British colonial power. The US patriots as they were called were rag tag group of civilian militia men. Lead by George Washington. They succeeded in beating a militarily superior foe. Like the Ukrainians the Americans didn’t want to be subjugated people and they never wanted to be ruled by despotic king or despotic dictator. Never to allow any one individual to accumulate too much power and control over this fledgling nation.
George Washington could have become an authoritarian ruler but he choose not to. He abided by the United States constitution. Yes there was anomaly with black African slavery. Not forgetting indigenous native people of America. The US constitution was rather hypocritical in its declaration of independence which stated; We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty. Really!
That was rectified after the American civil war that made black African slaves freemen. Southern slave owners weren’t allowed any reparations like the British counterparts in the Caribbean when slavery was abolished in Great Britain.
Now the United States of America has an ex insurrectionists president running for power again in 2024. It states quite clearly on the 14 amendment details as follows;
Passed by the Senate on June 8, 1866, and ratified two years later, on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws,” extending the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states.
The amendment authorized the government to punish states that abridged citizens’ right to vote by proportionally reducing their representation in Congress.
It banned those who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States from holding any civil, military, or elected office without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate. The amendment prohibited former Confederate states from repaying war debts and compensating former slave owners for the emancipation of their enslaved people. Finally, it granted Congress the power to enforce this amendment, a provision that led to the passage of other landmark legislation in the 20th century, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Congress required former Confederate states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of regaining federal representation.
Trump the former US president aided and abated an insurrection against the US government on 6 January 2020 after he knew he’d lost the vote to the new president Joe Biden. Trump is a wannabe Dictator who will like Julius Caesar wants to destroy the US republic and its constitutional democracy.
Two US states Colorado and Maine have legally stated he can’t run on the primary ballot. Which is now gone to appeal! Like all populists they are a danger to democratic norms. Like Johnson another wannabe populist these men our dangerous for democracies. Because they lie bend the truth with spin doctors and propagandists.
The people eventually don’t know what the truth is or not. Dictators take over reigns of government and assassinate their opponents and coward the people with secret police such as the gestapo of the Nazis or the Russian KGB, FSB or Ukrainian Berkut they become tools of the dictator. He becomes the total ruler people have to curry favour with him. If they cross him they are quietly liquidated. Falling from high rise apartments blocks hotels or poisoned with radioactive materials.
Democracies are not a given my mothers generation fought in world war 2 against tyrannical leaders and Ukrainian is likewise fighting the good fight now for our continued freedoms and democratic norms. we must do everything in our power to always support brave freedom loving peoples of this world! Because their freedoms are all our freedoms!
