THE UKRAINE CRISIS

After his rambling speech yesterday, Putin has today sent Russian forces into the breakaway areas in the eastern Ukraine. This is an act of military aggression.

This aggression comes after the UK sent one destroyer towards the territorial waters of Crimea last year, provoking a military response from Russia; after the spectacle of one of the UK’s new aircraft carriers sailing into the Pacific with only a token number of aircraft on board (most of those were from and piloted by the US) and with support from foreign ships as the UK ships had engines that did not work properly; after bold threats of sanctions from the UK should Russia invade the Ukraine; and after the Munich conference at the weekend.

At that conference, Boris Johnson (BJ) said: ‘If Russia invades its neighbour, we will sanction Russian individuals and companies of strategic importance to the Russian state; and we will make it impossible for them to raise finance on the London capital markets; and we will open up the matryoshka dolls of Russian-owned companies and Russian-owned entities to find the ultimate beneficiaries within.’

BJ set out the UK’s military response:

‘We are increasing the British contribution to Exercise COLD RESPONSE by sending our newest aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, and 3 Commando Brigade. We are doubling our presence in Estonia to nearly 2,000 troops; we have increased our presence in Poland to 600 troops by sending 350 Marines from 45 Commando; we have increased our presence in the skies over south-eastern Europe with another six Typhoons based in Cyprus; we are sending warships to the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea; and I have placed another 1,000 troops on stand-by to respond to any humanitarian emergency, which we all fear is increasingly likely.’

The HMS Prince of Wales has no aircraft of its own and will presumably either deploy without aircraft or have to use those few currently upon the HMS Queen Elizabeth.

The Tories do fancy that the UK is a ‘development superpower’ by virtue of the vast sums given away to foreign, often hostile, governments.

By comparison, Russia has amassed a force of 160,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders and has a total of 12,420 tanks, 30,122 armoured vehicles, 6,574 pieces of self-propelled artillery, 7,541 pieces of towed artillery, and 3,391 rocket projectors. It has 772 fighters/interceptors and 544 attack helicopters. The Russian navy is larger than the UK’s.

Russia is a genuine world power due to its size, geography (with borders in both Europe and the Pacific region), its economy (being roughly the same size as Italy’s), and due to its military capability. Putin has also been sufficiently wily to take measures to ensure Russia’s economic independence (such as reducing its reliance on the $US and building up its foreign currency reserves) and to ally with the emerging superpower of China, from whom he can expect economic assistance.

Today, after all the previous big talk about the devastating sanctions that might be implemented in response to a Russian invasion, BJ has announced that there will be sanctions placed against 5 Russian banks and 3 oligarchs.

The Tories might think that the various gimmicks, stunts, big talk, and token deployment of the UK’s limited military forces is a sign of strength, that they do so is a sign of the extent of the UK’s weakness. Coming after the debacle in Afghanistan, it is not the case that the Tories are unable to deal with these geopolitical problems, the Tories are the problem. Their posturing, globalist mindset is a sickness that is dragging the UK down.