Yesterday, Russia invaded Ukraine. There is no other way of saying it. Except if you are Putin, in which case Russia began to ‘liberate Ukraine from Neo-Nazi’s and drug addicts’.
I listened to Nick Robinson talk with someone on Radio 4, who quoted someone else (yes names well forgotten), who said, back in 1990’s, the long term effects of NATO ‘pressing on’ the boarders of Russia will have devastating and long term effect.
Todays analysis is clear: The one thing that caused Putin to cross the line was Ukraine’s growing closeness to the West, particularly NATO. Russia wants an assurance from the West that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO. Kyiv is currently a “partner country”, which implies that it will be allowed to join the military alliance in the future. Russia says that the West is using NATO to encroach Russia and wants it to cease its military activities in eastern Europe. Putin claims the US broke a 1990 security guarantee that said NATO wouldn’t expand eastwards. These are the bare bones, the general historical principals of preventative war are well explained in this short video.
Talk of NATO reminded me of Arne Naess, who’s book arrived from Amazon yesterday: There is no point of No Return, about Deep Ecology. Ah yes, I recall reading about this in Norway when I first came across Arne Naess, and I came across Arne Naess, as he lived on the opposite mountain to where Sugata and I were living (on the Hardangar Vida), on the Hallingkarvet mountain range.
A local journalist told me of this beautiful story, told with such light eloquence by a fellow journalist, Jens Bjørneboe. I find some of his books re-published here
Here it is, it is entitled The History of a Norwegian Nonviolent Action
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