PUTIN’S RAMBLING UNREHEARSED SPEECH STARTS A WAR IN EUROPE

 

                              …One of the first Russian tanks to appear in Ukraine

 

The dictator of Russia decides to attack a former Russian held territory

 

Well, it’s started.  It is expected to be the worst war in Europe since that of World War II. Just one more example why we should be concerned about any authoritarian leader that decides to attack a democratic nation.  Based on this one man’s delusional desire to re-unite a failed communist nation, now thousands of Ukrainians will be killed.  Yes, based on one man’s decision as he lies to his own Russian people, saying that another nation is responsible, while all the expected deaths will leave the blood on his hands and it will all be due to his personal decisions.

So, based on this one deranged leader, Russia has launched an attack on cities and military installations across Ukraine, forcing thousands of civilians to flee, as the Ukraine’s president called for his nation to fight in the streets.  NATO’s leaders said Europe’s security had been fundamentally altered.

President Biden called the Russian action “a premeditated war.”

The assault was startling in its scope, as missiles and rockets rained down across Ukraine’s vast territory and Russian military vehicles rolled across the border from multiple directions. It came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on state Russian television that Russia was beginning a military operation for the “demilitarization and denazification” of eastern Ukraine. He said that Russia did not intend to occupy the country, just demilitarize it.

Flashes could be seen and explosions could be heard in Kyiv, as highways became clogged with people trying to get out of the city of 3 million Ukrainians.  Lines formed at a border crossing between Ukraine and Poland.

A senior Ukrainian official said the capital’s main airport was under assault. Explosions could also be heard in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, which lies close to the border with Russia. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said cities ranging from Ivano-Frankivsk in the west to Odessa and Mariupol in the south were under assault.

“Ukraine is defending itself and will not give up its freedom, no matter what Moscow thinks. For Ukrainians, independence and the right to live on their land according to their will is the highest value,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a national address. He said that his country was being attacked “from the north, east and south.”

Ukraine’s Western backers scrambled to react.  European leaders vowed crushing sanctions against Russia and planned to meet later Thursday to discuss them.  NATO ambassadors gathered for emergency consultations in Brussels to bolster the alliance’s own defenses against Russia and also to discuss how to further support Kyiv.

“It will be a new Europe after the invasion we saw today,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after a first round of meetings. The alliance planned to hold an emergency summit of its leaders.

Calling Russia’s moves “a brutal act of war,” Stoltenberg said there will be more alliance forces in the east “in the coming days and weeks.”

“Peace on our continent has been shattered,” he told reporters in Brussels. “This is a deliberate, coldblooded and long-planned invasion. Russia is using force to try to rewrite history.”

The explosions marked the beginning of a conflict that Ukraine and its allies had worked for months to avoid.

“The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces,” Biden said in a statement late Wednesday. “President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring.”

Biden said he would meet with allied leaders Thursday morning, then would announce further measures against Russia. He vowed to work with NATO “to ensure a strong, united response that deters any aggression against the Alliance,” adding, “Tonight, Jill and I are praying for the brave and proud people of Ukraine.”

Putin’s declaration of operations against Ukraine was broadcast on state television shortly before 6AM Moscow time and was the culmination of months of threats and a military buildup that Ukrainian officials said had brought 200,000 Russian troops to their borders.

“Russia cannot feel safe and develop and exist with the constant threat coming from the modern territory of Ukraine,” Putin said in his off-the-cuff speech, and he shown that he was very angry. “We simply weren’t given any other option to defend Russia and our people other than that which we will use today.”  This was all a very big lie.

Putin said that the “goal is the defense of people who for a period of eight years have suffered the scorn and genocide of the Kyiv regime, and for that we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine and bring to justice those who have carried out the many bloody crimes against peaceful civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.”

He added that Moscow would not occupy Ukraine and that it had to end eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv government forces have been fighting pro-Moscow separatist militants.

Sitting alone at his desk, with two Russian flags arranged behind him, Putin spoke directly into the camera and said that he intended to protect Russia from “those who took Ukraine hostage.” (Also a lie.)  And he strongly suggested that he planned to annex parts of the country, as Russia did in 2014 when it seized Crimea from Ukraine.

“Let me remind you that when the U.S.S.R. was created after the Second World War, people who lived in certain territories included in modern Ukraine, no one ever asked them how they themselves wanted to build their life,” he said.  But they obviously did not want to be part of Russia.

The Russian assault took many Ukrainians by surprise. That was despite the months-long military buildup.  Many people had trouble imagining a real attack from a country with which they share deep historical and linguistic ties. Many Ukrainian and Russian families span the border.

“It’s just terrible, unbelievable,” said Vitalii Koval, 50, who was crossing into Medyka, a small town in Poland, on Thursday.  He said he had left his home in Kyiv for the western city of Lviv about 10 days ago with his wife and two daughters, ages 3 and 5. But after the assault overnight, they decided it was time to leave the country.

He turned away to stop the tears. “It’s the 21st century. Why?”

The attack came after President Zelensky issued a grim-faced plea for peace earlier Thursday, telling the people of Russia that only they could stop the invasion he said the Kremlin had already ordered.

In an emotional address that sounded as though it were a final request to turn back the Russian forces bristling along Ukraine’s border, Zelensky said he had tried to speak to Putin by phone on Wednesday but had been met with silence.

Speaking in Russian, he said that Ukraine is a sovereign nation seeking to build a peaceful future…. a different Ukraine, he added, from the violent one that Russian citizens are watching on warmongering state television broadcasts. “You are being told that this is a plan to free the people of Ukraine,” he said. “But the Ukrainian people are free.”

On Wednesday, Biden announced sanctions against the company and executives that run the Nord Stream 2.  The gas pipeline that links Russia and Germany.

A wave of new U.S. and European sanctions now seems certain.

As the Russian military offensive began, members of the U.N. Security Council made a succession of pleas for peace and dialogue in an emergency Wednesday night session that laid bare the limits of the world body’s influence.

The United States and its allies condemned Russia’s actions while other nations such as China, Brazil and India urged de-escalation.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield accused Putin of exhibiting “total disdain” for the United Nations by ordering military action “at the same time we’re gathered in the council seeking peace.” She called the moment a “grave emergency.”

In Neklinovka, a small Russian village close to the border with Ukraine’s Donetsk region, there were signs late Wednesday that something was imminent. Russian soldiers appeared to be stocking up, emptying the shelves of a local grocery store and grabbing instant noodles, water, bread and condensed milk. Wednesday was Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia, a military holiday, and dozens of soldiers were celebrating as heavy military equipment stood on train tracks, with barrels pointing toward eastern Ukraine.

The war equipment included an array of howitzers and armored vehicles.

Copyright G. Ater 2022