Responding to the war in Europe

Dear Constituent

Many of you will be sharing my horror at events in Ukraine. The daily scenes of death and destruction, of mass movements of people fleeing the violence are harrowing. They are a constant reminder of why war is wrong. They are what happens when politics and negotiation fail.

Some of you write wanting the U.K. to enforce a no fly zone over Ukraine to stop aerial bombing. This  would mean declaring war on Russia, as a no fly zone would require contesting Ukrainian air  space with the Russians. Escalating the war in this way would be full of hazards. Nuclear powers  taking each other on requires restraint by both sides over first use of nuclear weapons. NATO could of course defeat Russia at likely great cost to life and property but the U.K. alone would be stretched. Our allies led by the USA  do not want to take  NATO to war with Russia over Ukraine. A successful No fly zone after a bruising set of air battles would not end the ground artillery and missiles raining down on Ukraine unless a victorious NATO airforce went on to bomb Russian forces in difficult urban locations with likely deaths of the very people we wish to help.

Some of you wish to see more rich Russians in the U.K. sanctioned, with confiscation of assets. Ministers  are keen to do this to all cronies of Putin who might still have some influence  over him, and to those who came by their wealth through crime.  They do need to proceed according to the rule of law. Many rich Russians living peacefully in the U.K. are neither Putin supporters nor criminals. The government should sanction those where they have a good legal case against them. This can take time to research and establish.

Some of you want a generous offer to those fleeing the violence. The government is expediting entry to the U.K. to those with family here who wish to come to stay. The needs and wishes of the hundreds of thousands crossing into Poland and Romania is to be housed and fed  near to Ukraine with a view to returning to their homes as soon as possible. Many are women and children temporarily separated from their menfolk who have stayed at home to fight. The U.K. is offering substantial financial and practical aid to assist with the temporary camps. The U.K. will keep its support under review as the situation develops as needs and wishes may change.

The U.K. did lead a stronger response from NATO with deliveries of weapons to help defend Ukraine before others and by working with US Intelligence to reveal the true nature of Putin’s plans to encourage preparation against the onslaught. The U.K. is striving to do all it can as a good ally short of declaring war to pressurise Russia to end the violence and helping brave Ukrainian defenders hold off the attacks.

 

Yours sincerely

John Redwood

261 Comments

  1. Mark B
    March 5, 2022

    Good morning.

    First of all let me commend ur kind host for responding to the concerns of his constituents and keeping them abreast of what the government has, and continues to do. I alas have a faux Conservative for and MP and have received nothing. This is his first time as an MP and, I think it is fair to say it will be his last.

    > . . . mass movements of people fleeing the violence . . .

    Yes, mostly women and children fleeing to the nearest country for safety. NOT men of fighting age travelling across various safe European countries ,and then a short hope across the channel by dinghy. This is where you see the difference between REAL refugees and fake refugees / economic migrants. Yet the former has to make do with tents in the freezing cold, whilst the latter lives the high life in 4 star hotels and pocket money. What is it going to take for those in charge to realise this discrepancy and do something other that talk tough ?

    The rules that the UK signed up to after the Second World War were to help those in REAL need, not those seeking a better life off the sweat and toil of another.

    Some of you wish to see more rich Russians in the U.K. sanctioned . . .

    To the detriment of their children. I thought we were against punishing the innocent ?

    1. Mary M.
      March 5, 2022

      It is clear that the UK is responding in a measured, practical and humanitarian way.
      Thank you, Sir John, for explaining this clearly.

      Mark B. I agree with you 100%.

      1. Ian Wragg
        March 5, 2022

        Yes I Gree Mark B.
        The channel invasion must cost the government the next election. It’s no good saying liebour would be worse, that’s nor possible

        Once bitten etc.
        I see Bozo has gone full astern on the NIP.

        1. Hope
          March 5, 2022

          Worse, it is deliberate and now they are deliberately hiding the figures from public view hoping no one will notice.

          Dishonesty at the heart of this govt in every key policy issue: economy, Brexit, immigration, illegal immigration, energy, law and order, sentencing, prisons, fuel prices, ELZ charging of cars. It clearly mirrors Johnson’s behaviour.
          The solution is to oust him.
          12 years and four elections of failed policy/dishonest policy as there was no intention of implementing.
          I hope people vote with their feet in May.
          If given a choice of two, I will vote Labour they are more right wing than the outfit in office!

          1. John Hatfield
            March 5, 2022

            Vote Reform.

      2. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        Yet the UK could do far more so easily.

        Oleg Sechin of Rosneft, the oil giant, is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and who has been described as the second most important person in Russia.

        The European Union has sanctioned him, the UK has not as yet, and it is unclear how often this is repeated.

        This can only undermine the efforts of other nations to stop this terrible attack on Ukraine.

        Sir John, please use what offices you might to pursue this.

        1. No Longer Anonymous
          March 5, 2022

          NLH

          Putin has declared that even sanctions are an act of war.

          His foreign secretary has declared that there will be no conventional war preamble but will reach for the nuclear button and there is no-one in the Kremlin who will stop this, so closely guarded is Putin.

          If Blair could invade Iraq because Saddam could attack bases in Cyprus (with WMDs that didn’t exist) then Putin has every right to invade a country with a land border and his main naval base if NATO and the EU threaten to take it over.

          I expect we’ll all be dead in the next two weeks. Where are the wise heads in all this ? The only person with the gravitas that Putin will listen to is Xi and we can take it, therefore , that privately he approves of the invasion.

          The EU – that bastion of peace – has brought us to this nadir in Russo/European relations. It has brought us to the brink of all out nuclear war. At the very least it has wrecked a whole European country and brought death among Europeans on a scale not seen since WW2.

          The EU dangled baubles and trinkets before the Ukrainian people and persuaded them that Putin would leave them alone. It may be NATO that Putin is afraid of but it is the EU that seduced Ukraine – situated on the ultimate geopolitical fault line.

          And thanks due to that master of EU policy, Merkel. Making the EU dependent on Russian energy whilst poking the Bear in the eye repeatedly with a stick.

          Way to go !

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 6, 2022

            Not quite.

            Putin says that sanctions are “akin to an act of war but thank God it has not come to that”

          2. Peter2
            March 7, 2022

            Oh well that just fine them.

      3. Hope
        March 5, 2022

        JR forgot the apology for the failed foreign policy of his govt which could have mitigated Russia’s concerns and help prevent this situation.

        Instead Cameron wanted to expand they EU to the Urals, accepting all those countries who wanted to join the EU with an increase to his unofficial mass immigration policy, Truss calling all countrymen to arms in the Ukraine etc etc. Allowing murders through poisonings on our soil without significant sanctions. In contrast quietly importing money, coal, gas from Russia! This is JRs party foreign policy for you!

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 6, 2022

          The Common European Home was Gorbachev’s vision.

          Cameron merely quoted him.

    2. J Bush
      March 5, 2022

      Well said.
      + many for clearly showing what the bulk of our duplicitous sad excuses for politicians really are: globalist puppets.

    3. alan jutson
      March 5, 2022

      Mark B
      Agreed with your comments
      In addition
      Perhaps those Mp’s who are advising the confiscation of assets of Russians living here, or with assets held here, (proclaiming it is all dirty money) should look at how that would be possible.
      Only a few days ago JR outlined that our banking and financial systems were sound, and fit for purpose.
      If HMRC are getting tax revenue from that money, or from those businesses, assets, or people who are employed or paid from that money, then surely they are either complicit in taking that money, they accept it is clean, or we are looking at double standards.
      Me thinks in some cases the politics of envy are at work here.
      Clearly dirty money should not be allowed into the Country in the first place, but if it is happening, then fix the rules so that is does not happen again, rather than complain about it decades later. !

      1. rose
        March 5, 2022

        Yes, this is a rich hunt. It is also an anti Conservative smear campaign.

        1. rose
          March 5, 2022

          They talk endlessly of dirty money swirling around but actually there is a lot more black propaganda swirling around.

        2. hefner
          March 6, 2022

          Why rose? The Level 1 Investor Visa program (the golden visa) for foreigners investing ÂŁ2 m in Britain, which facilitated the residence and obtention of British nationality, was introduced in 2008 by Labour.
          How what is presently happening be ‘an anti-Conservative smear campaign’?
          You have to be more explicit, otherwise you comments are hardly meaningful.

    4. glen cullen
      March 5, 2022

      Our politicians are once again patting each other on theirs back having agreed to extending Ukraine refugees stay in the UK for 3 years
.pure virtue signalling – Our politicians should be saying that Ukraine refugees can stay as long as the invading Russians occupy their country

    5. Mark
      March 5, 2022

      I rather fear that the security services will have been inundated with the numbers of people they need to keep a watch on as spies and potential terrorists. How much they have allocated to the Russian diaspora is of course unknown, but it may prove a costly oversight. Oligarchs and other Russian emigrĂ©s and sympathisers come in various flavours: those who support the Putin regime, and those who flee it for good and bad reasons (such as evading justice and taxes). There will be a number of “sleepers”, ready to disrupt in various ways when ordered to do so. We need to have a rather wider purview than just oligarchs.

      1. alan jutson
        March 5, 2022

        Mark

        Indeed it is delusion on a giant scale to think that we can keep tabs on all those who want to do us harm.
        Given it would take AT LEAST 20 people to keep track of just one persons movements and contacts (without following the contacts contacts), we would need a force greater than the size of the UK army to keep tabs on them all, given the numbers listed (perhaps over 4,000 alleged people on the so called people of interest list)
        Why do we ever let them in, in the first place.
        How many of the last 2 years, 50,000 boat people, could be people of possible interest ?

    6. Mickey Taking
      March 5, 2022

      ‘I think it is fair to say it will be his last.’
      Agreed, about half of the current Conservative MPs are at risk and will most likely be gone after the next GE. They have an entry on the CV and no doubt have ‘made friends’ in advantageous places and businesses….so will not dwell on the present government’s appalling time in office.
      A mere transitory spell in the social and economic ladder climbing.

  2. Fedupsoutherner
    March 5, 2022

    Well done Sir John. You are surely one of the most hard working, sensible and compassionate politicians out there. Your post makes a lot of sense and as you point out many of the rich Russians are not Putin supporters. Any kind of direct violence against Russian troops will lead somewhere we really don’t want to go. I fear it coukd be the total destruction of the UK and indeed much of Europe. I agree wholeheartedly with Mark B and his comments about economic migrants. The difference in the photos of women and children and those young men coming here is startling. Perhaps if we only took those genuine Ukrainian refugees we would be able to do more for them. Instead we are looking after many that have CHOSEN to come here to live off us. It is disgraceful. We can only hope those poor Ukrains have something to go back to one day soon.

    1. SM
      March 5, 2022

      According to reports I have read regarding non-European illegal immigrants, many females end up being used/abused in the European sex industry and also as domestic/commercial cleaners.

    2. Lifelogic
      March 5, 2022

      +1

    3. rose
      March 5, 2022

      A third reason for not having a no fly zone is that it would also stop the Ukrainians flying, and the very good Turkish drones. This is one small advantage the Ukrainians have.

      With three sound reasons for not having a no fly zone, I think the real reason it is being pushed is that some understandably want NATO to join the war in a full blooded way, as we did the Americans in WW2. That might entail fighting eventually against China, Iran, Pakistan, and N Korea as well as Russia – nearly all nuclear armed and none with sentimental ideas about human rights..

    4. Hope
      March 5, 2022

      Over 90% lone males.

  3. oldtimer
    March 5, 2022

    You do not refer to the domestic consequences of the war which is reflected in huge increases in the price of food and energy. Everyone is now affected by this and will be for months, if not years, to come. Everyone can make their personal contribution by adopting a wartime footing of more efficient, less wasteful consumption of both. It is obvious that this Johnson government’s “up the creek without a paddle” policies for national food and energy production are a direct threat to national security. Why is he still PM?

    1. Sharon
      March 5, 2022

      Yesterday evening, on return from a trip to see family, we decided to get some fish and chips. A normally quite busy shop was empty, apart from us. On commenting, they said that they’d had to put up their prices (ignore the because of Brexit) and showed us their new energy bill, to commence 1 April. The owner looked so worried. And this is an affluent area of Greater London! It’s sad to see.

      1. alan jutson
        March 5, 2022

        Indeed informed only yesterday by my supplier that my budgeted Gas monthly payments will need to increase by 85% for the next year, assuming the same usage.
        The price of course includes VAT and green supplements of the same percentages, thus the higher the gas price charged the greater the tax take by the Government.
        Same situation with all energy costs, and of course road fuel, even though petrol content has been diluted.
        Does all this sit easily with Mp’s JR. ?

        1. a-tracy
          March 5, 2022

          They’re not listening Alan, when MPs like JR retire we are alone.

    2. Mark B
      March 5, 2022

      He is still PM because the Tory party still consider him a vote winner. In truth, he is just lucky. But like all such people, as soon as their luck, and therefore usefulness runs out, they will be gone.

      1. rose
        March 5, 2022

        He must be the unluckiest PM there ever was: he came in with no majority, his predecessor having thrown it away. He was imprisoned by the Traitors’ Parliament in consequence and unable to negotiate. When he escaped Houdini-like from that poisonous situation, he acquired a majority, not by luck. But straight away he was into floods, then plague, and now war. During all of that time he has been under attack by vendetta and black propaganda on account of 2016, including by a whole lot of powerful people like judges, civil servants, and peers, to say nothing of the BBC, who are abusing their positions, including constitutional positions, to attack him. Donnez moi un break!

        Yes, there are policy errors galore, and Sir John and others are now correcting them, but this PM has not been lucky. That assertion is just yet more oft repeated propaganda.

        1. X-Tory
          March 5, 2022

          No Rose, that’s completely misreading the situation. The lack of majority and the Traitors’ Parliament were the very reasons that Boris was elected leader and then got his huge majority, so they were hardly unlucky for him, were they?! And the Covid epidemic did NOT mean he had to neglect all other policies; that was entirely due to his laziness and incompetence. The idea that a government can only focus on one issue at a time is absurd. The same applies now.

          And yes, he was attacked by all the anti-British establishment – but he did NOTHING to fight back and destroy them! That is the reason he was stymied by them. If he had sacked all the judges and civil servants who opposed him (and by implication the voters who elected him) he could have created a new Britain, and had a much easier life thereafter. His problems are all ENTIRELY his own fault. I hold in him nothing but contempt.

          1. alan jutson
            March 5, 2022

            X Tory
            Certainly agree about concentrating on only one policy at a time, its not a one person Government, or is it !
            We have tens of thousands of people employed by government across hundreds of departments, surely they can tackle more than one problem at a time can’t they, if not then sack them, and employ people who are capable.

        2. Mark B
          March 5, 2022

          Rose

          He is lucky because if you look at events and matters surrounding them he has managed to benefit from them with no effort on his part. May had to go after the BXP slaughtered the Tories in the Euro-elections. The same BXP that would stand down candidates to give the Tories a clear run. He got his majority (80 seats) but has not done anything to deliver the BREXIT we have wanted.

        3. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 5, 2022

          We now know who the real traitors are, and they are those who assisted Putin with his ambitions for this country.

      2. Mickey Taking
        March 5, 2022

        and the people, the long and short term losers bear the damage resulting from the self-satisfied hand sitters.

    3. Iain Moore
      March 5, 2022

      Agreed, they seem to have no clue as to what is heading our way and how their policies are endangering our country, they are living in some deluded bubble, not appreciating how much their Covid lockdown , their climate change policy , and now this war has destabilised the systems that keep us alive.

      The Government should be moving heaven and earth to limit the costs of fuel, but aren’t. They should be scrapping all their green nuttery and doing all that they can to limit the damage their Climate Change Act has done, but aren’t. We have already seen the knock on consequences of their stupid energy polices on fertiliser production here, now this war is making things even worse for Russia is a world supplier of fertiliser , like 25%-40% . US farmers are reporting a 200-300% rise in fertiliser costs, so that is going to effect food supplies, then we have to take into consideration that Russia and Ukraine are massive suppliers of grain. The fields in the Ukraine should be being prepared for this year’s crops , but instead have tanks going across them. The leadership in Hungary have noticed , they have banned all export of grains, but then they have a government who cares about its people, unlike ours.

    4. glen cullen
      March 5, 2022

      Totally agree – and where is the full published Sue Gray report

  4. turboterrier
    March 5, 2022

    There seems to be a lot of history of deals and intrigue from meetings over the relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe and the positioning of Nato members. This is what may be driving Putin on that he fe
    els that treaties and agreements have been ignored and he felt he was being hustled.
    No one is going to win out of this terrible situation and whether any agreements that are reached will secure a lasting peace I know not. Russia by its actions has isolated itself from nearly all the rest of the world and unless some real purpose comes out of the negotiations it will result in yet another country all but destroyed with its people displaced and for what?
    It will be the Russian people themselves that will sort this out not the politicians.
    Who will be paying for all the rebuilding of the properties and the infrastructure to enable all these woman and children to be able to return home?

    1. Dave Andrews
      March 5, 2022

      Who will pay?
      Russia.
      A reparation fund should be set up, with a sizeable proportion of the payments for Russian oil and gas (and anything else they make) going there before Russia gets a small amount to cover their basic costs.

      1. Dave Andrews
        March 5, 2022

        And will the Conservative party contribute to the fund all the money they have received from dodgy Russians, in return for a game of tennis with the PM or whatever?

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 5, 2022

          What a very good question.

    2. glen cullen
      March 5, 2022

      We need to hurt the average worker in Russia economically, so hard that they’ll realise that its their insane leaders fault and rebel 
we need to shut down every financial, economic and social instrument at our disposal and let them know that they’re the new ‘North Korea’ and will be for decades
      Start by removing Russia from the security council and the united nations

      1. Margaret Brandreth
        March 5, 2022

        No we need to tread carefully.Can you really believe that the ordinary workers want this and they have the power to oust Putin.?

        1. glen cullen
          March 5, 2022

          The working people of Russia need to understand that they’re in a fighting war and that there are consequences for being the aggressor

          1. L JONES
            March 6, 2022

            Perhaps most of them know this – as is shown by all the protests in Russia that don’t get much mention. And those people were (rightly) praised and lauded by our MPs – who immediately went away and voted for OUR people to be given tougher laws re protesting. (Was our esteemed host among them?) What hypocrisy.

  5. Sea_Warrior
    March 5, 2022

    Good letter. A few quick points:
    (1) Having looked at the Wiki profile of one of the ‘rich Russians’ sanctioned this week, I am appalled that he was ever allowed into the country in the first place. Where is the ‘due diligence’ in the Home Office?
    (2) Government planning, in concert with that of our allies, now needs to be examining how sanctions with Russia could be removed in such a way as to persaude Russia to leave Ukraine alone. Truss needs to have the answer to this problem in her briefcase. But the right-hand portion of that timeline should keep some sanctions in place until Putin has left office and reparations have been made to Ukraine. And even then, some sanctions will need to left in place for as long as we ever see Russia as a potential adversary.
    (3) I wonder if the OSCE missed a trick, a month ago, by not putting an army of observers into Ukraine.
    (4) Refuge should be temporary. The hurdles between refugee status and citizenship should be higher than they currently are.

    1. formula57
      March 5, 2022

      @ Sea_Warrior ” The hurdles between refugee status and citizenship should be higher than they currently are.” – What difference would that make in a U.K. that virtually never uses its powers of deportation?

    2. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 5, 2022

      To paraphrase Mrs. Merton “What first made you decide to admit the billionaire Dmitri —- to the UK, then?”

      1. rose
        March 5, 2022

        It was the Labour Party in government who instituted the practice of giving rich people precedence.

        1. X-Tory
          March 5, 2022

          The practice of allow wealthy businessmen who invest in your country, thereby creating jobs and wealth for all, to be allowed preferential entry is a very common one, with most countries having their equivalent to our Tier 1 Visa system. Not only is there nothing wrong with this, but it is an EXCELLENT scheme. Why do so many in Britain – including ALL our politicians (it seems) – want to commit national self-harm by scrapping this scheme?

          Why do we want to stop people bringing money into our country and boosting our economy? Britain is BROKE – we survive only by borrowing, a situation that would be intolerable for anyone, but as a country we just blithely ignore it and pretend that we are rich and can afford to spurn those who want to invest here. It is utter, deluded, madness.

          1. rose
            March 5, 2022

            I agree with you, X Tory. I was just setting the record straight for the attention of those who are saying the Conservatives should not have started the visa system for people with a certain amount.

            I also think it not a bad idea to keep the Oligarchs’ wives, mistresses, children, and property here as a secondary insurance policy against London being attacked.

          2. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 5, 2022

            The Tories have been in for twelve years now Rose.

      2. miami.mode
        March 5, 2022

        Sums it up completely NLH.

    3. graham1946
      March 5, 2022

      Oligarchs – Russia bombs the hell out of Ukraine whilst the UK does its paperwork. I heard on the radio that the government are giving the oligarchs 18 months to prove where their wealth has come from. That looks about right, civil service mentality even in war. The targets are known – get on with it. Probably sanctions will make no difference, but it needs to be done. As the saying goes, if it must be done, better it is done quickly.

      1. Mark B
        March 5, 2022

        The 18 months is time for them to sell up and go.

      2. rose
        March 5, 2022

        I would get your information from elsewhere. “The radio” is not reliable. It is mostly intent on smearing the government, at every opportunity, no matter how dire the situation. Don’t be played.

        1. graham1946
          March 6, 2022

          And the same to you, believing this lying crowd in government. Don’t be played.

      3. formula57
        March 5, 2022

        @ graham1946 – but the eighteen months time-frame would likely be needed in full by most oligarchs to unwind their complex and varied financial dispositions to offshore wealth before having to make reports. Our civil service can then see no evil and hear no evil – although whether it could fairly claim to have done no evil may be doubted.

        1. graham1946
          March 6, 2022

          Exactly, but Rose has her tinted spectacles on and sees nothing wrong.

    4. Philip P.
      March 5, 2022

      Sea Warrior, that would have been a very good idea. But consider who would have had to authorise the OSCE to bring in all those extra personnel: the Kiev government.

      Had the countries sponsoring Minsk II (France and Germany) acted on the OSCE’s findings of atrocities against civilians going back to 2014, and required both Kiev and the Donbas militias to cease military operations in the Donbas, people there might be living in peace today.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        You are confusing excuses with reasons.

  6. Philip P.
    March 5, 2022

    Some of us, Sir John, wonder if this conflict at the other end of Europe is really our fight, and feel that the government’s belligerence towards Russia in recent months did more harm than good. But your post does not acknowledge that point of view.
    Liz Truss and other ministers said and did nothing to recognise the years of suffering inflicted for years on civilians in the Donbas, with hundreds killed and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes. Nor of course did they recognise that Russia, like us, is entitled to have security concerns. They could have been incorporated in the security agreement that Putin proposed in December, but NATO rejected.
    The West should have insisted that the rulers in Kiev needed to talk to the separatists in East Ukraine, not just shell them and destroy their homes. That should have been a condition on the massive aid we gave Kiev. It might have achieved more than supplying arms to one side in a conflict, and sending some of our Army personnel to train them to fight better.
    But of course your government is only too grateful to have found an issue round which public support can be artfully rallied. And a police report into garden parties can be quietly forgotten as yesterday’s story.

    1. Sea_Warrior
      March 5, 2022

      ‘… the years of suffering inflicted for years on civilians in the Donbas, with hundreds killed and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes. ‘ Would you care to point me in the direction of an impartial report on this alleged violence towards Russian-speakers in Donbas? If you can, I’ll read it. If not, I’m going to have to file the assertion as something that RT would be proud of.
      P.S. A problem in the Donbas would not excuse Russia going to war against all of Ukraine. Such action fails the Law of Armed Conflict’s ‘proportionality’ test., as, I’m sure, the ICC will be aware.

      1. Philip P.
        March 5, 2022

        You can start with this one, SW:
        https://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/138906

        The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is probably as impartial as you’ll get, in this conflict.

        1. Michael McGrath
          March 5, 2022

          The report says that the munitions appear to be Smerch rockets, a Russian weapon.

          “The SMM identified them as parts consistent with 9M55K model “Smerch” rockets (calibre 300mm). ”

          Presumably this means the Russians were firing…..and claiming that the Ukrainians were guilty?

          1. Philip P.
            March 5, 2022

            You’re assuming that the UAF don’t have any Russian ordnance? Wrong:
            https://armamentresearch.com/9m55k-cargo-rockets-and-9n235-submunitions-in-ukraine/
            It says: ‘The Smerch is known to be in the inventories of both Ukrainian and Russian forces.’

      2. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        Philip, I think that you are mistaking Russian propaganda’s excuses for Putin’s actions for his actual reasons for them, which we are forced to deduce.

      3. glen cullen
        March 5, 2022

        Has anyone sent Russia a copy of the Internation Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) – a programme which every military person of the UK has to attend & pass every year

        1. Sea_Warrior
          March 6, 2022

          So far in this operation, Russia has failed the tests of:
          (1) Humanity.
          (2) Distinction.
          (3) Proportionality.
          (4) Necessity.
          4/4 – something to keep the ICC busy for a while.

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 6, 2022

            Indeed, SW.

            The democratic world needs a whole new strategy.

    2. Nig l
      March 5, 2022

      Perfect. Most people I know believe that our hand wringing virtue signalling politicians must very much bear a lot of the blame plus of course, like Northern Ireland an excellent excuse to push partygate under the table.

      Well I won’t and think Johnson as our national leader is an abomination.

    3. Mark B
      March 5, 2022

      +1

    4. BeebTax
      March 5, 2022

      +1. Good points.

    5. Mark
      March 5, 2022

      The Russian ultimatum amounted to demands for completely disbanding NATO and unilateral disarmament. It envisages a Russo-Chinese world order and the completion of the destruction of the West, militarily via nuclear war if necessary, but certainly through ceding its economic and military leverage.

      1. Mitchel
        March 5, 2022

        Over the years since the Crimea-related sanctions were introduced the $ share in international settlements has decreased from 60.2% in 2014 to 46.7% in 2020.

        “A vast process of Asiatic liquefaction”,to borrow an expression from Churchill, is underway.

      2. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 6, 2022

        Psychopaths like Putin are however, blind to the most important power, in which the European Union and other parts of the civilised world are supreme.

        That is, moral and legal normative power.

        The tyrants will never defeat the free at that level, no matter how much death they might bring.

  7. Sharon
    March 5, 2022

    Thank you, Mr Redwood, for this clear explanation.

    With regards to the asylum of the Ukrainian women, children and older people, I agree with your sentiments that they will hope to rejoin their men as soon as it’s safe so to do.

    Unfortunately, with the dinghy people breaking and entering into our country on a daily basis and abusing the asylum system, we’re not best placed to cope with genuine asylum seekers. That is a tragedy.

    1. MPC
      March 5, 2022

      The dinghy people are not breaking in they are being escorted safely in (‘intercepted’). Expect at least 100,000 of them this year as the people smugglers continue to refine and improve their service offering with impunity.

      1. Mark B
        March 5, 2022

        There would be no smugglers if there was no one to pay for their services. Demand always leads to supply and that, in my view, makes them (the illegals) more guilty.

        1. rose
          March 5, 2022

          Yes, Mark. Why won’t people see the paying passenger is the one to go after, because the paying passenger keeps the operation in business? Moreover, the paying passenger is not desperate, as people make out. Desperate people go straight to refugee camps in the first safe country, taking their women and children, their old people, and their portable possessions with them. These unencumbered passengers are ambitious, not desperate, and they have set their hearts on moving to London.

        2. Shirley M
          March 5, 2022

          +1 In my eyes they are criminals and queue jumpers that are pushing out genuine refugees AND they are mostly young men of fighting age and not vulnerable women or children. They were already in a safe country, and France may not be attractive to them, but they cannot claim death threats or persecution which is normal claim for asylum in another country.

          1. X-Tory
            March 5, 2022

            The problem is that our government – and expecially Boris and Patel – are so incredibly stupid that when these illegal migrants claim asylum they are judged on the basis of the situation they claimed they faced in their home country, rather than the country they have actually come from – ie. France. That’s why the majority are then granted asylum, and that’s why there is such a pull-factor! The only question I have is whether it is actually possible for our government to be so stupid, or whether they are actually traitors who are doing this deliberately.

        3. Original Richard
          March 5, 2022

          Agreed.

          These illegal immigrants are paying the smugglers to be transported all the way from their homes into the UK.

          I would not be surprised to learn that they are funded by the Russians and the Chinese.

    2. Mark B
      March 5, 2022

      Indeed

    3. Michelle
      March 5, 2022

      The fact that we have been handing out citizenship like sweets for years and encouraging untold numbers to come here is of course showing in many ways.
      As you say that then creates a problem for times when there is a genuine need.
      There are I believe many here still who could have and should have been returned to their homes, which are obviously safe to do so as they go a-visiting on holidays etc.
      That would then clear the way for any future genuine refugees.

      I keep hearing a lot about our amazing world class intelligence services and their tracking of the situation in Ukraine.
      Yet we can’t track and round up the human detritus that deal in the misery of human trafficking??
      I’m not reassured.
      For those smart Alec’s (I’ll be polite) that will say that’s different because it’s military intelligence, well shouldn’t we have and indeed expect and equality of super performance from all our intelligence sources?

  8. formula57
    March 5, 2022

    The U.K. response is as noisy but muted as everyone else’s so Mr. Putin carries on.

    The SWIFT sanctions, potentially very harming to Russia, are so limited as to be nearly worthless beyond appearances and energy exports by Russia continue be the mainstay of fund Mr. Putin’s adventures.

    In that light, our Foreign Office should be looking to the future to ensure Ukraine is and remains a dagger at Mr. Putin’s throat and an increasingly painful thorn in the flesh of the Evil Empire. It is unlikely to have framed British interests so or be that far-sighted, of course.

    Meanwhile, Boris misses the golden chance to advance his wish to give the Queen a new yacht by seizing that of some Russian. Even Evil Empire members have managed such seizures.

    1. Sea_Warrior
      March 5, 2022

      Could I suggest that:
      (1) Private property should only be seized when clear evidence of a crime exists, and that the proceeds from such seizures should then go to those from whom the money was stolen; and
      (2) There’s a limit as to how much bling the Royal Navy should have to endure. (Superyachts tend to have a passenger accomodation for just 12. That’s too few for a royal yacht and far too few for hospital ship. But I like your creativity!)

      1. Mark B
        March 5, 2022

        +1

      2. graham1946
        March 5, 2022

        If we wait for evidence of crime we could be waiting a long time – the police don’t seem much interested. The government have never cared where money comes from if it is large enough, they just chase the likes of us for pennies. The Serious Fraud Office don’t seem interested in fraud anymore. Frozen will do for now, not seizure, whilst enquiries continue. We seem to want to give them notice to get everything covered up and shipped out. I wonder why?

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 6, 2022

          Graham, have a look at Ben Elliot, Conservative co-chairman’s wiki page.

      3. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 6, 2022

        It appears that the oligarchs will have plenty of time to move their assets out of the UK, if they even need to at all.

    2. Roy Grainger
      March 5, 2022

      You don’t understand the financial sanctions. The SWIFT ones are a sideshow, the main ones will be on the Russian Central Bank. They will be undermined somewhat by Germany refusing to stop paying Russia for gas but are still very severe.

      1. formula57
        March 5, 2022

        The central bank had c. USD 600 billion of reserves, half of which has been frozen by sanctions. Yet Russia receives (at historical prices) c. USD 250 billion p.a. in energy sales revenue so evidently unanticipated though were the sanctions against the central bank, Mr. Putin remains in business whilst Germany and others keep buying – and Germany has said it will!

        The SWIFT sanctions may harm the state less but could have been serious for Russia. The Evil Empire has left unscathed Russia’s two largest banks and given ten days notice to the seven banks affected, leaving plenty of time for counter-measures to be devised to render the sanctions ineffective. So much for solidarity with beleaguered Ukraine.

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 6, 2022

          The European Union has sanctioned over 500 Russian entities.

          The UK fewer than 20 when I last counted.

          Reply Untrue

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 6, 2022

            You must have better figures then, to make that claim, Sir John.

            Would you care to share them?

    3. glen cullen
      March 5, 2022

      If you punch someone on the nose, make sure you break it and its bleeding
otherwise its pointless

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        The bystander’s ankle tap to the burly attacker in full charge can be very effective on the other hand.

    4. Mark
      March 5, 2022

      Think more carefully about the impact of exclusion from SWIFT other than for payments for energy. What are the Russians going to be able to spend it on? Effectively it is a blockade of imports from the West as the balances pile up uselessly. It is digital currency, not notes and coin, so it cannot offer the sort of hard currency internal alternative to the rouble that was provided by the DM in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile the rouble has collapsed. The Russian economy will be hit very hard by the loss of key Western imports. No spares for vehicles and aircraft for instance. It’s not just about shutting up shop at IKEA .

      For so long as Russia is prepared to supply oil and gas and coal it makes sense to take it, at least until we have built alternative supply to replace it. Cut off the supply, and the consequences would be disastrous in the short term, as there is not an adequate alternative supply. Of course, the Russians may decide to do that anyway, but at that point we would be at war. No sense in starting out with fuel shortages for our forces. Or in encouraging Russia to speed up development of its alternative market in China.

  9. DOM
    March 5, 2022

    Merkel and Obama’s quiet these days

    1. Mark B
      March 5, 2022

      They are busy working out all the CO2 that the invasion is producing.

      /sarc

      1. Mickey Taking
        March 5, 2022

        possibly easier and get more public outrage than trying to count the bodies as a direct result of invasion.

      2. glen cullen
        March 5, 2022

        +1

    2. ChrisS
      March 5, 2022

      Merkel has huge responsibility for weakening NATO throughout her 16 years in power as well as putting Germany at such strategic disadvantage to Putin through her energy policy. The fact that Schulz has reversed those policies so quickly shows how wrong she was. Her legacy is in tatters.

      As for Obama, his failure to follow through with action in Syria following Putin and Assad breaking his infamous Red Lines, was a clear indication to Putin that he faced no threat from a Democratic president. Biden’s disastrous exit from Afghanistan sealed Ukraine’s fate.

      I’ve been wondering how a Kennedy, Reagan, or Bush presidency would have reacted over the last decade or more ? Especially if they were being watched over by Margaret Thatcher from this side of the Atlantic ?

      1. SM
        March 5, 2022

        +10

    3. rose
      March 5, 2022

      Isn’t Obama having his third term? Isn’t that why we don’t see him? Anyway, everything always goes wrong under him.

      1. Mitchel
        March 5, 2022

        In 2014 Obama,following his sanctions, said the “the Russian economy is torn to shreds.”

        It wasn’t,of course.

    4. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 5, 2022

      Neither are in office, Domitri.

      1. No Longer Anonymous
        March 5, 2022

        Do you really believe that ?

    5. Original Richard
      March 5, 2022

      Yes, and I wonder if Russia was waiting for Mrs. Merkel to step down before invading Ukraine.

      Mrs. Merkel certainly created Germany’s reliance on Russian gas with no LNG terminals, the building of Nordstream 1 and 2 and the early closure of their nuclear power using Fukushima as an excuse.

      Plus of course, like our fifth column in the civil service, implementing Germany’s equivalent of Net Zero, Energiewende, using intermittent windmills for power.

      Hardly a surprise given that Mrs. Merkel’s parents mover from West to East Germany, she speaks fluent Russian and became a senior member of Agitprop, a Russian propaganda organisation, before the fall of the Berlin wall and the unification of Germany.

      1. ChrisS
        March 5, 2022

        I have always suspected Merkel as having been a deep cover DDR plant. Her actions in power could hardly have been more helpful to the Kremlin, could they ?

        It was inconceivable that anyone could go through the DDR’s elitist education system up to the level of gaining a degree and a Doctorate in quantum chemistry and then working as a research chemist without being firmly on message. She even became a government spokes person in the last DDR government before reunification.

        Having spent five years living in Northern Germany as a civilian in the 1980s, I have personal experience of both East and West Berlin as well as travelling more widely in both Germanies. The contrast between the economic and political systems could not have been greater.

        1. rose
          March 6, 2022

          Agreed ChrisS. She destroyed the mighty Christian Democrats by the way she always coalesced to the left; she destroyed the stability and unity of Germany and Europe with her open borders lunacy; she ended nuclear power on an absurd excuse; she drove Mr Cameron’s Britain out of the EU – not that we minded; she made her rich and successful country dependent on Russia and did over the aspiring Ukraine at the same time; she destroyed the environment by resuming open cast mining of lignite, tearing up ancient forest to do that; she drove a wedge in NATO between Turkey and the rest. And she did all this stupidity as a scientist whose husband was a scientist. You will have more but I have never doubted she was a sleeper.

  10. The Prangwizard
    March 5, 2022

    Dodging the real issue as usual. NATO cannot do anything beyond supplying some weaponry because it is too weak.

    That is why it is refusing any action beyond this. It doesn’t have enough of everything because of government leaders living in a soft wooly fantasy world.

    Russia has being building its forces for twenty years, we’ve been neglecting ours. Tbat is why Russia has felt free to attack Ukraine.

    If Russian steps on NATO protected land now we would be ineffective in defending it. European NATO is not big enough or equipped enough.

    It has thought the US would be there to bail it out. Stupid complacent weak political leaders, including here, the present one and predessors who were too afraid to face facts.

    Fantasy obsessed leaders will be responsible for deaths of many of us.

    1. The PrangWizard
      March 5, 2022

      If I may add a point I forgot to mention. The west has fallen for the Russian arguments about NATO. It has been forced to defend itself in an apologetic way, and it is as if the Ukraine must remain unprotected.

      There should be no reason why a country or group should not be able to volunteer of their own accord to defend another under attack, but it seems countries do not believe they can do anything because they are NATO members and this impression has been given by NATO. Convenient of course if they don’t want to do anything.

      If free options were accepted Poland for example, and Germany say ought to be able move to Ukraine’s defence but this option, as with NATO as a whole I believe, is not possible because they are not sufficiently armed because of western political weakness and resolve and concentration on NATO, as if it must be the answer to everything and all costs conveniently diluted and decisions avoided.

      1. rose
        March 5, 2022

        Any country in NATO is free to operate anywhere. The problem is that if they are attacked, then the rest of the 30 have to come to their aid. That means world war in this situation, considering who might line up on the other side.

    2. Roy Grainger
      March 5, 2022

      Look at the state of the Russia army bogged down in the mud – NATO would obliterate it within days. The issue is not NATO weakness, it is Russian strategic nuclear missiles – you ignore those for some reason ?

    3. glen cullen
      March 5, 2022

      NATO member Norway border Russia
      NATO member Estonia border Russia
      NATO member Latvia border Russia
      NATO member Lithuania border Kaliningrad
      NATO member Poland border Kaliningrad
      The arguments about NATO are a Russian distraction

      1. a-tracy
        March 5, 2022

        Yes Glen I agree with you, what is under or on the land he wants to grab?

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 6, 2022

          France Inter listed the resource potential of Ukraine.

          It is huge.

        2. Mickey Taking
          March 6, 2022

          and grows on it !

  11. Donna
    March 5, 2022

    I suggest those asking for NATO to intervene or implement a no-fly zone listen to Kontant Kisin on this week’s Question Time. They are asking for WW3.

    Kisin is a Russian who moved to the UK in the late ’90s and now has British nationality. He speaks more sense than the vast majority of our MPs and our Governing Class (including the EU because we were still members when The Bear was poked) and who have, collectively, left us so vulnerable by weakening our defences, destroying our energy independence and leaving us vulnerable to tyrants like Putin.

    And whilst our Political Class are pontificating about Putin and the horrors of war, perhaps they could spare a moment to explain the difference between Putin attacking and killing innocent civilians in Ukraine and Blair attacking Iraq and doing exactly the same thing.

    1. Mark B
      March 5, 2022

      +1

    2. BeebTax
      March 5, 2022

      +1. What convenient amnesia and hypocrisy there is in our political class.

      1. Donna
        March 5, 2022

        In the DT, Gordon Brown has written an article demanding that Putin be prosecuted before an International Court-Nuremberg style. This is the Chancellor who supported and made the funding available for Blair to carry out an unprovoked war in Iraq.

        I’m all for prosecuting Putin ….. as long as Bush and Blair are held to the same standard.

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 6, 2022

          The authorities have examined the allegations against Blair, and found that there is no evidence for your claims.

          He made a tragic error, and was very naĂŻve in trusting US “intelligence” but that’s about as far as it goes.

    3. rose
      March 5, 2022

      “the difference between Putin attacking and killing innocent civilians in Ukraine and Blair attacking Iraq and doing exactly the same thing.”

      Kosovo is more relevant here because that is what has gone deep into the Russian mind. Putin is even using the same language (of genocide and nazis) Blair and Campbell used as justification.

    4. Michelle
      March 5, 2022

      Well said.
      I think there are an awful lot who have spent too much time on the war games on their computers, who think it would all be over by Christmas.

      As I read around I note a lot of those talking tough and in effect calling for war with Russia would be the least able to cope with what would come our way.

      As for the financial sanctions whose to say Russia hasn’t already accounted for much of that, they are very close to China and this will only strengthen that.
      I think many believe that punishing the Russian people will drive them into the arms of Johnson and the rest of the West.
      It could do quite the opposite.

    5. No Longer Anonymous
      March 5, 2022

      +1000

      Last paragraph.

  12. Sir Joe Soap
    March 5, 2022

    2 points:
    1 “Many rich Russians living peacefully in the U.K. are neither Putin supporters nor criminals.” But they haven’t necessarily paid tax here on their accumulated wealth, which itself pays for the infrastructure we all enjoy-and which impoverishes us to provide for them too. Rather like graduates at Scottish Universities have a free pass on loan repayments when they come down to London to work, hence compete easily with English ex-students.
    2 Occupying Ukrainian airspace with planes/drones versus occupying Ukrainian ground with our weapons is a fine distinction. Will one be read any differently than the other?

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 5, 2022

      Most of the Russian multi billionaires are ex-Russian security services seniors.

      If you follow their respective trails as to how they got their hands on the assets then it generally takes quite a strong stomach.

      1. Mickey Taking
        March 5, 2022

        basically Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin got dementia and Putin ‘whispered in his ear’ so that enormous Russian owned state businesses we valued at a fraction of worth, and sold to dubious leaders (entrepreneurs) favoured by Putin on the basis he takes 50% of all profits and value.

        1. glen cullen
          March 5, 2022

          As our own politicians are always saying ‘I’ve done nothing outside the scope of the law’

    2. Mickey Taking
      March 5, 2022

      ‘ rich Russians living peacefully in the U.K. ‘ do so because it has been clear for years and years that London has been a wonderful location for living and making ill gotten gains multiply wonderfully.

      Even Governments condone !!

  13. bill brown
    March 5, 2022

    Sir JR

    We need to open our borders to the Ukranians, what the government is proposing for the Ukranian refugees is not enough, all of Europe is opening its borders and so should we.

    1. Donna
      March 5, 2022

      We haven’t got any available accommodation for them. It’s all taken by the chancers who have forced their way/been escorted across the channel and put up in 4* hotels at our expense. Perhaps if we didn’t have 30,000 young male economic migrants here, who they refuse to deport, we’d have some accommodation for the uprooted women and children of Ukraine.

      They can’t find accommodation for Afghan citizens already allowed here or the ones they have promised a safe haven to but who got left behind in the scramble to leave Afghanistan.

      It’s why the Government has been careful to say they will allow in Ukrainians who have family here ….. and who can basically put them up for a while.

      1. R.Grange
        March 5, 2022

        Agreed, Donna. In Wokingham where I live a family with children has been living in damp unhealthy council accommodation, with rotten floorboards, for a year or more while the council does nothing to rehouse them. This isn’t the first such case, either. Yet the Wokingham council leader was proclaiming last year Wokingham would find accommodation for Afghan refugees, and now seems to think we should do the same with Ukrainians. Where are our priorities?

        1. Mickey Taking
          March 5, 2022

          you paint a brutal truth about those elected in power here.

        2. bill brown
          March 5, 2022

          R. Grange

          this is much more than just about accomodation this is about our freeedom and way of life and we shold do much more as our European allies are doing and helping the Ukranians also by takint them in.

          Do you think th Poles have space and accomodation for 500.000?

          1. R.Grange
            March 5, 2022

            No idea, Bill. I just know the Wokingham council leader can’t find space for one family living in damp unhealthy council accommodation.

      2. Andy
        March 5, 2022

        Perhaps if we didn’t have millions of miserable old women living alone in two rooms of large four bedroomed detached houses – and perhaps if those miserable old women had not spent decades as NIMBYS, objecting to every single local development plan – then we wouldn’t have a housing crisis in the first place.

        1. Mickey Taking
          March 5, 2022

          perhaps if miserable idiots were not allowed blog space for writing hatred we might make some progress with social care?

          1. SM
            March 5, 2022

            +1

        2. alan jutson
          March 5, 2022

          Andy

          You missed out miserable old men, happy women and happy men, come on, include all for the sake of balance. You usually insult all older people, are you going soft ?

          1. MFD
            March 5, 2022

            No Alan , I think his dementia is getting worse!

        3. Original Richard
          March 5, 2022

          Andy, “Perhaps if we didn’t have millions of miserable old women living alone in two rooms of large four bedroomed detached houses….”

          I expect there are also many young people in the UK who own two houses, or live in a house which contain more bedrooms than they need.

          It’s because we don’t confiscate property when it becomes larger than an occupier needs that makes us different from Communist regimes such as Russia and China.

        4. No Longer Anonymous
          March 5, 2022

          Really Andy !

          You’re the Old Woman here. Or is it the sixteen-year-old woke schoolgirl ?

          Can you not see ?

          Your blessed EU has brought us to the brink of WW3 and – at the very least – caused death and destruction in a country not seen since WW2.

          It took us right up to the ultimate geopolitical fault line, put on its little black dress and wiggled a bit to seduce the Ukrainians into thinking that Putin was full of wind and that they could join the EU and NATO without consequences.

          Well he wasn’t.

          And Ukraine looked pretty good to me when it was neutral. People did more or less what they wanted and bands like MUSE held rock concerts there.

          Now look at it.

          Way to go Merkel ! Way to go EU.

          Bastion of peace and stability in Europe ? You and everyone you love may well be dead in two weeks !

          1. glen cullen
            March 5, 2022

            +1

          2. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 6, 2022

            So what do you think that Putin would be doing these days, if Russia bordered twenty-seven neurotic nations, all squabbling amongst themselves over bent cucumbers, passport colours, electric kettles, and all the other pettiness of the UK leavers, instead of the European Union?

        5. Fedupsoutherner
          March 5, 2022

          Andy. You’re obviously practising hard to be a miserable old man before your time.

      3. bill brown
        March 5, 2022

        Donna,

        This is much more than just about accomodation this is about our freedom and democracy and we have to help as the rest of Europe does by taking in refugees as well. They are fighting for our freedom as well.

        Do you think the Poles have accomodation for 500.000 refugees?

        1. dixie
          March 6, 2022

          What has taking in refugees to do with our freedom and democracy ..
          Perhaps the EU should cease it’s protectionism and not require countries to give up political and economic control to simply trade with it, stop pretending to be a government when it refuses to accept any responsibility for the mischief it causes.

    2. Dave Andrews
      March 5, 2022

      Well Europe must have plenty of space, given the numbers that have come here from there. What do you think? 3 million vacancies available for Ukrainians?
      We would be happy to take in a couple of families until stability returns to their country, but I would expect the government to take care those they let in aren’t orchestrated by criminals, taking the opportunity to traffic people.

      1. Mickey Taking
        March 6, 2022

        Merkel was happy to inflate her cheap labour workforce by forcing open borders in EU. Now is Germany or whole EU going to encourage Ukraine’s desperate evacuees of Russian war waged on innocents?

    3. Michelle
      March 5, 2022

      Many in Easter Europe can do that because unlike here they haven’t had decades of endless immigration, illegal or otherwise.
      Even a child grasps the concept of when the cup is getting near to full switch off the tap.
      Not so it seems with those running things here.

      We’ve taken people in before and then let them stay even when its’ safe to return to where they’ve come from.
      That has a knock on effect.

    4. Sea_Warrior
      March 6, 2022

      The EU is on the border of the Ukraine; the UK is not. Yes, we should help but to a lesser extent than the EU that has helped create the mess. I would also suggest you consider that an EU country, France, has been turning a blind eye to the cross-Channel people-smuggling operation.

  14. Nig l
    March 5, 2022

    Ps. As stated by Charles Moore our regular statements about what NATO will not do, is emboldening him and in a similar vein I would like to apologise for our toothless sanctions and responses to him going back to Salisbury and the Crimea, indeed supporting his economy through buying his gas because we have deliberately run our own industry down to achieve Net Zero.

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 6, 2022

      Some would claim that the interests of certain people in high places were paid not to respond.

  15. Nig l
    March 5, 2022

    And in other news Camilla Tominey in the DT highlights this governments continuing commitment to mediocrity and failure by honouring people who conspicuously don’t deserve it.

  16. Lisa
    March 5, 2022

    What a shame all the outrage being expressed now was not evident when NATO broke it’s agreement not to expand further eastwards towards Russia’s border. Or when the EU and Washington engineered a coup using extremist elements overthrowing a legitimate government in Ukraine. Or when the new Ukrainian government failed to meet any of it’s obligations under the Minsk Agreement and continued to attack the population of Donbass and Lugansk for 7 years. Previous to that I never heard any such outrage when the west invaded or attacked the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria- all under false pretences.
    An impartial observer would conclude that all the vitue signalling is either hypocrisy or for personal advantage.

    1. Denis Cooper
      March 5, 2022

      Most people are busy with their lives and it is easy to forget what happened even in the recent past.

      In my files I find a long forgotten comment posted here:

      https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2014/03/07/wither-the-merkel-alliance/#comments

      on March 7 2014, eight years ago, which started:

      “On BBC Question Time last David Aaronovitch claimed that the UK had guaranteed the independence and sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and Simon Hughes agreed with him that we are under a treaty obligation to defend Ukraine against Russia, and Michael Heseltine conceded that to be the case but questioned whether we were in a position to do anything effective to fulfil that guarantee.

      Thus millions of viewers were given the false impression that in 1994 the UK had given Ukraine a guarantee similar to that given to Poland in 1939 under the “Agreement on Mutual Assistance”, the text of which may be read here …

      That is simply not true, and one might have thought that a Times journalist and a brace of national politicians might have bothered to read the 1994 “Memorandum on Security Assurances” to see what it says before telling the public what it says …”

      “And if one wishes to discuss it not legalistically but geopolitically, it was a foolish and dangerous idea that Russia under a strong leader like Putin would stand idly by and not react in any way when the NATO-backed EU was openly setting out plans for a southern encirclement, not just around the Black Sea but around the Caspian Sea and as far as the Urals, as Cameron told his audience last July when he was in the Kazakhstan capital Astana, 1200 miles east of Stalingrad and actually beyond the line of the Urals.”

    2. Mitchel
      March 5, 2022

      There was a very well attended,noisy march through Belgrade yesterday in support of Russia and the Donbass republics,lots of flags, the Russian National anthem blaring out,and people chanting “Krim je Rusija,Kosovo je Srbija.”(Crimea is Russian,Kosovo is Serbian).I’ve also seen pictures uploaded,particularly from the global south, of vehicles carrying the Z marking of the Russian tanks.

      The “world” is not western mainstream media.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        I don’t think that anyone here is claiming that it is.

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 5, 2022

          This is well reported on the BBC at least.

          What is your point again?

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 5, 2022

            If you put /news/av/world-europe-60630351 after the BBC’s usual address then you will see it

    3. bill brown
      March 5, 2022

      Lisa,

      One or several wrongs does not justify killiing civilians in the Ukraine, whatever other opinion you might have

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        Well said Bill.

        False equivalence is Putin’s and his shills’ first line.

  17. oldtimer
    March 5, 2022

    Lord Ashcroft managed to commission a poll of Ukrainians about the war with Russia. Details are posted on the Conservative Home website here:
    Lord Ashcroft: What Ukrainians think about the war, Putin, Russia, NATO, Europe – and Britain. A remarkable poll from Kyiv.
    It reveals a remarkable determination to resist the Russian onslaught and total rejection of Putin’s assertion that Ukraine is Russian and belongs to Russia. Many think the conflict will be over by end March. But most do not accept that the annexation of the Crimea should be accepted as a bargaining chip to achieve a negotiated settlement. I do not see how there can be a lasting negotiated settlement can be achieved between the parties. It seems there can only be a winner and a loser. If the outcome rests on the battle of wills between the defenders and the aggressors, then the defenders can win. If the outcome rests on superiority of fire power then the aggressor can win.

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 5, 2022

      I’m sorry to say that I think the expectations are over-optimistic.

      Putin has made clear that he intends to occupy the whole of Ukraine, and by his actions that he will do so even if it means levelling the country.

      The best hope is that the sacntions bite and cause real problems for the Russian people, and that they learn the truth about what is being done to their fellow Slavs by their monstrous leader.

      1. Mitchel
        March 5, 2022

        He actually said he wants to de-militarise and de-nazify Ukraine.Do you realise that most of the reporting in the UK and the west is outright propaganda-with no fact checking,not even for basic errors?

        This morning Borrell,foreign minister of your beloved EU,was reported by the BBC to have issued the following rallying cry:”Kyiv is resisting!Tarkov is resisting!Mariupol is resisting!”Sounds like he thinks he is still fighting the Spanish Civil War but I’m afraid there’s no such place as Tarkov in Ukraine,I gather it is actually a location in a fantasy computer wargame.

        I see Lord Dannatt,in print, last week thought Mr Putin would next turn his attention to “Kaliningard in Lithuania.”

        I’ve given up reading anything in the MSM on this issue.

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 5, 2022

          I’m not sure what your point is.

          The survivors of Grozny and Aleppo might have their take on what is likely to happen on the other hand.

          1. Mitchel
            March 5, 2022

            The “survivors of Grozny” are part of the Russian army in Ukraine-the Kadyrovtsy,the Chechen special forces under the command of Chechen President Kadyrov.

            Three-quarters of Aleppo was pro-government.It was the terrorist-harbouring quarter which was reduced to rubble.

          2. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 6, 2022

            So, the pro-Russian bits of Ukraine can expect to be left alone, but the rest of it – most of it – reduced to rubble without more.

            Thanks for the clarification.

      2. Clough
        March 5, 2022

        He has not made that clear except to those like you who want to believe it. Putin stated Russia’s objectives at the outset, and they did not include occupation of the whole of the Ukraine. Of course the war-hawks in Washington are hoping Russia will be pulled into another Afghanistan, and maybe secretly you are too.

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 5, 2022

          He wants to “demilitarise” Ukraine and more.

          That’s Ukraine, not “part of Ukraine”.

          1. glen cullen
            March 5, 2022

            Agree

        2. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 6, 2022

          Macron has again spent nearly two hours talking to Putin by phone, and his understanding remains that he intends to take the whole country.

    2. Philip P.
      March 5, 2022

      Oldtimer, please source your claim that Putin asserted Ukraine belongs to Russia.

      1. hefner
        March 6, 2022

        P.P, RUSI, Andrew Wilson, 23/12/2021 ‘Russia and Ukraine: ‘One people’ as Putin claims?, rusi.org (BTW it is the Royal United Services Institute).

  18. Dave Andrews
    March 5, 2022

    Having been in favour of a no fly zone, I now agree it’s not a good idea. Not for the reason it would pitch NATO planes against Russia, as NATO would have legitimacy if Ukraine requested it, whereas the Russians would have no right to be there.
    However, with the Ukrainians still flying Russian made jets, the no fly zone would include them. It seems too that air-power plays little part in the conflict. Perhaps the Russians are rightly scared their planes will be shot down by Stinger missiles.
    I suspect too there is a lot going on behind the scenes with western military aid to Ukraine, that we don’t hear about. The Ukrainians are well focused on the conflict, whereas the Russians don’t know what they are doing.

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 5, 2022

      Your last sentence is absolutely pivotal

      1. Mickey Taking
        March 5, 2022

        you mean ‘whereas the Russians are lied to by Putin and the old generation of warlords so people don’t know what they are doing.’

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 5, 2022

          If you like, but I think that the OP was referring also to the soldiers on the ground.

        2. glen cullen
          March 5, 2022

          Putin and his senior military elite don’t care, their middleclass are paid off and their working-class are too scared

a bit like the UK under Boris

  19. Dave Andrews
    March 5, 2022

    To all those who claim the EU brings peace, I see Finland are considering joining NATO. So they feel they can’t rely on their EU membership to ensure their safety.

    1. graham1946
      March 5, 2022

      They’ll be refused as well in case it upsets Mr. Putin.

    2. rose
      March 5, 2022

      Neutral Sweden too.

      1. bill brown
        March 5, 2022

        Rose

        Sweden has a very close and long term defence collaboration with Denmark, NOrway (NATO) and Finland and has been given a security gurantee by the US. If, they apply they will be granted membership of NATO immediately.
        You really do not ahve a clue do you ?

    3. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 5, 2022

      The European Union’s purpose is to preserve peace between its MEMBERS, at which it has been extremely effective.

      It has no military in the sense that some nations do, so no country ever would rely on it for that purpose and never has done.

    4. Mickey Taking
      March 5, 2022

      Given the history of Finland and the immediate area, coupled with Putin’s now clear madness, is it any wonder they will worry who is next?

    5. glen cullen
      March 5, 2022

      I’ve no doubt that the ECJ will probably impose a fine on Russia

      1. Mickey Taking
        March 6, 2022

        the only fine that works is to stop buying Russian gas and electricity.

        1. glen cullen
          March 6, 2022

          and Vodka

    6. bill brown
      March 5, 2022

      Dave Andews

      Read the treaty of Rome and the understand why the Finns might ask for NATO membership

  20. ChrisS
    March 5, 2022

    It’s clear that the West never had any intention of coming to Ukraine’s assistance.
    The time to act was when Putin was putting his forces in place around the country. A few goodwill visits by NATO warships, aircraft and soldiers might just have made Putin think twice. If not, it would have given us justification for acting. Now it is far too late. Once Putin has his hands on the port cities, the country will be finished as a state.
    However, you cannot subdue a country the size of France with the forces Putin has available, particularly as we have already seen how ineffective the conscripts are. It will be Afghanistan all over again, Russia will face years of gorilla warfare which Putin will not be able to effectively counter.

    Sooner or later, Russian mothers will revolt against the loss of their son’s lives and the Generals, who must have know from the start that the “special Action” was doomed to fail, will act. Putin will be removed and almost certainy shot rather than be sent to the Hague. The Generals can then withdraw their forces without losing too much face and a tiny fraction of Russia’s oil and gas revenue can be divertes to rebuild Ukraine.

    That may be wishful thinking but, given the West’s cowardly inaction all around the world over the last decade or more, I cannot see any other way that this can end.

    1. Hat man
      March 5, 2022

      Indeed it may be wishful thinking, Chris. Your wish is the same as NATO’s – to get Russia involved in another Afghanistan. I think Putin has thought this through and won’t make that mistake. That’s why the Russian army is avoiding combat in heavily populated zones, and trapping the AUF troops in pockets in open country where they can be destroyed. Of course the last-ditch neo-nazi battalions are trying desperately to entice the Russians into built-up areas where they shelter behind civilians. But it isn’t working, and they may prefer to take advantage of the civilian refugee corridors, throw away their uniforms and weapons, and get to safety that way, hoping to fight another day.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        Right, big fur hat man…

    2. Mark
      March 5, 2022

      The time to have acted was long before that. The Ukraine has been a basket case since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with economic collapse and divisive and corrupt politics. It was a difficult problem, and attention was largely diverted elsewhere. Russia itself was also an unstable wreck, which did not make finding solutions any easier.

  21. miami.mode
    March 5, 2022

    One thing we have learned is that you do not need to be a nuclear power to wage a version of nuclear war.

    As US Secretary of State Blinken said in an interview with the BBC about getting rid of Putin “and in any event it’s not up to us. The Russian people need to decide their leadership”. Unfortunately the only external way of doing this may well be to virtually bankrupt Russia with economic sanctions until such time that the Russians rise up against him.

    1. Bill B.
      March 5, 2022

      And wow, didn’t that work well against Cuba, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, etc…?

    2. Paul Cuthbertson
      March 8, 2022

      M.M -Do you believe anything Blinken or indeed the whole of the “present US government” says?

  22. William Long
    March 5, 2022

    This is as usual, a very clear explanation of what is happening and in particular, why it would be wrong to go down the ‘No fly zone ‘route, at the risk of a ghastly extension of the conflict.
    I can only view what is happening with a great sense of horror, and huge respect and sympathy for the Ukrainians. However, the approach of the’West’, which is to give every promise of support to Ukraine, short of war with Russia, does pose to me a question, which is a very uncomfortable one: is it right to be going down a path that can only extend the conflict, causing many more deaths and much extra suffering, without any real prospect of bringing it to an early end? I think that gunfire is the only language Mr putin has any respect for.
    If, quite understandably, we are not prepared to go to war, are we right to continue to give Mr Zelensky false hope?

    1. Mark
      March 5, 2022

      We need to appraise Putin’s wider aims. The ultimatum issued in December demands the disbandment of NATO, leaving a world to be dominated by a new Russo-Chinese axis. We need plans to handle that.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        Yes.

  23. James1
    March 5, 2022

    Many of our politicians should focus less on perceptions and more on realities.

  24. Mike Wilson
    March 5, 2022

    What has happened to the Partygate investigation? Seems to have gone awfully quiet. I bet Johnson can’t believe his luck that Russia decided to take the headlines.

    1. William Long
      March 5, 2022

      Yes, a very good time to bury bad news!

      1. glen cullen
        March 5, 2022

        or bury good news like the MPs ÂŁ2,500 pay rise….good for them !

  25. Fedupsoutherner
    March 5, 2022

    Off Topic. I found this when looking at Unredacted on my laptop. Yet more control coming and laws to make us consider giving up our cars?

    Carbon dioxide emissions must fall by the equivalent of a global lockdown every two years for the next decade for the world to keep within safe limits of global heating, scientists claim.

    COVID-19 allowed for supposedly temporary measures to morph into two years of “emergency” restrictions. But it seems that COVID was only the opening act, and another proclaimed crisis is the main event.

    Calls for harsh government measures in the name of saving the environment are becoming common. In November 2020, the Red Cross proclaimed that climate change is a bigger threat than COVID and should be confronted with “the same urgency”. Bill Gates recently demanded dramatic measures to prevent climate change, claiming it will be worse than the pandemic.

    Now scientists believe that lockdowns, which significantly reduced carbon emissions during 2020, could be the solution. What could climate lockdowns look like? Most likely a gradual and discrete ramp-up of restrictions. Special carbon taxes have been discussed which would limit the miles you can drive or fly. Schools, especially those heavily influenced by teachers’ unions, could impose permanent online-only days.

    At the same time, areas of the country could regularly experience rolling blackouts. And as fossil fuels go by the wayside, consumers may be prevented from buying new cars, lawnmowers or chainsaws.

    Anyone against such measures would be labelled a “climate denier” or simply a “domestic terrorist”. Facial recognition and plate-reading software, already in use across the country, could lead to severe enforcement.

    But don’t expect the new rules to apply to everyone equally. During the pandemic, elites didn’t wear masks in private — only their servers, drivers and cleaners do. You will be held responsible for your personal carbon footprint, enforced by either law or social convention. But climate evangelists such as Jeff Bezos will receive special dispensations for their carbon use.

  26. glen cullen
    March 5, 2022

    They came for Georgia but not for me
    They came for the Crimean but not for me
    They came for Donbas but not for me
    They came for Ukraine but not for me
    They’re going for Moldova but not for me
    I’m safe I’m in Europe

    1. Mitchel
      March 5, 2022

      A better meme doing the rounds is:

      Never ask a woman………..her age
      Never ask a man……………..his salary
      Never ask a Ukrainian nationalist …………….what his grandfather did in 1941-1945.

      1. Mickey Taking
        March 5, 2022

        Never ask Putin how much he is worth 

..just rest assured it is known to be 50% of every Oligarch.

      2. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        There were plenty of collaborators across central and eastern Europe, and more than a few here.

        Why should Ukrainians get more opprobrium for what their grandfathers might have done than today’s Germans anyway?

      3. dixie
        March 6, 2022

        Never ask the Russians what they did in 1939 – 1941
        But why is a Ukranian soldier responsible for their grandfather’s actions but the Russian soldiers not responsible for their current actions ..

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 6, 2022

          Spot on, Dixie.

    2. Mickey Taking
      March 5, 2022

      how sure are you of that?

      1. glen cullen
        March 5, 2022

        I’m not very sure as our stock market has tanked, energy & fuel prices hitting the roof, inflation & interest rates increasing and we still have Boris as our leader…..so hell no I’m no sure we’re safe in europe

  27. Edwardm
    March 5, 2022

    Putin is a very dangerous man, who rather everyone loses if he can’t win. Finding the right tactics against him is difficult – but inaction is not the answer. That he doesn’t have full backing from he Russian people is a small compensation. Good on Boris and our government for leading the way in opposing Putin,

    1. DOM
      March 5, 2022

      It’s the Ukrainian people that are facing that bastard Putin, not Mr Boris Johnson who by the way fell silent when the odious Trudeau targeted Canadian truckers fighting to avoid State oppression with his special brand of progressive authoritarian crackdown. Davos in full view for all to see

      Both Putin and Trudeau played the ‘Nazi card’ against the Ukrainian FREEDOM FIGHTERS and Canadian truckers during their FREEDOM CONVOY respectively. No wonder Trudeau has crawled away into the undergrowth

      I don’t know which way to turn in the C21 to repel threats to freedom and voice and liberty. If it isn’t China-Russia, it’s online restrictions coming in soon….

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 5, 2022

        It’s a pity that you worked so hard to get Putin what he wanted with this country really, isn’t it?

        If he had failed, then maybe he wouldn’t have been so emboldened?

      2. Hat man
        March 5, 2022

        Coming soon? They’re here, Dom. Try and find the RT or Sputnik channels if you can.

        We’re now into Soviet-style information control. And unlike in the Covid era, news is being censored without needing to appeal to the authority of Ofcom, the WHO or some similar body.

        We don’t like it, we cancel it.

        1. Mickey Taking
          March 6, 2022

          I’m all for cancelling propaganda lies, aren’t you?

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 6, 2022

            Well, you seemed happy enough with tripe like “the EU’s accounts have never been signed off” and “75% of our law is made in Brussels” but we’ll let bygones be bygones on that matter – for now.

      3. Edwardm
        March 5, 2022

        Yes, it is the Ukrainians who facing Putin’s onslaught, I should have said of non-combatants BJ has done the most.
        I agree too about Trudeau and the potential threat to free speech coming from Boris’s government.

  28. turboterrier
    March 5, 2022

    From the Watts Up With That website. A very interesting piece that also gives thoughts about Putin and his thinking. Well worth the read.

    The Strategic Threat from Net-zero Emissions
    by Eric Worrall

    This essay, originally published in American Thinker, was reproduced with kind permission from Lord Monckton. It is a deep dive into Lord Monckton’s perceptions of why the world is so messed up and fixated on ruinous Net Zero fantasies.

    1. Mark B
      March 5, 2022

      Nice one mate. The bit about ‘unpersoning’ makes me think of what they have tried to do with Mrs.T. The Left always tries to demonise her and that I believe what led the likes of Theresa May MP, and others, to distance themselves from her.

    2. formula57
      March 5, 2022

      @ turboterrier – a most interesting article, and shocking. Thank you.

    3. forthurst
      March 5, 2022

      Trying to interpret the present state of world affairs through the lens of Tory paranoia at the time of the miners’ strike isn’t very helpful. Furthermore the explanation as to how Putin came to power is an outright lie.
      Russia’s steering of every conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is surprisingly missing from this. Did the Russians manage to ‘unperson’ all the delegates who didn’t follow the party line?

  29. agricola
    March 5, 2022

    I think you have got it about right. We should contribute to the welfare of refugees wherever they choose sanctity. Most seem to be settling for adjacsnt countries to their home in Ukraine. Note that the majority are women and children unlike the economic migrants crossing the Channel who are mostly young men. The difference between refugees and opportunists.

    I suspect that for the russians it will be another Afghanistan. We should keep Ukrainian resistance well trained and supplied and run it in house or within NATO. No way should the EU be trusted, we do not know where their real interests lie.

    We then need to have a radical rethink of UK defense policy. We need an airforce of sufficient size to ensure air superiority over our own territory as a minimum. We need to look at the adequacy of our underwater hunter killer submarine fleet. Is it big enough to cause our enemies serious worries. When considering what sort of an army we need, home defence should be the first consideration. That said we need an extensive guerilla capability that makes any incursion of the UK untenable. Then a highly mechanised fast response battle group well supported with helicopter and airborne artilliary.

    My observation of the russian military in Ukraine is that they are fighting the day before yesterdays war. The sight of all their vehicle lined up over 40 miles suggest to me a Falaise Gap or highroad north of Kuwait opportunity. They may have numbers, but little imagination.

    Finally our capabilities should be sufficient to be free of american dependancy. Historically they only act when directly threatened. With sleepy Joe in charge they are even less reliable, however aware their generals might be. This war will have a constantly changing script and provide an excellent learning curve. Remember this war is against the ambitions of Putin not the russian people who will continue to pay the price for his folly.

    1. R.Grange
      March 5, 2022

      Excuse me, Agricola. I live not that many miles from the Aldermaston nuclear establishment.

      If NATO gets involved in the kind of war you’re slavering for, that could be a prime target for a cruise missile attack.

      You see a Falaise Gap or highroad north of Kuwait opportunity, do you?

      Please have your war on your video console, and leave me and others out of it.

      1. agricola
        March 6, 2022

        Sorry sunshine , there is no slavering for conflict, I believe in being seen to be strong enough to be respected and for our enemies to avoid conflict with. Where you live is irrelevant, in a nuclear conflict we are all toast. Meanwhile you can roll over and think of happier times at Greenham Common.

  30. X-Tory
    March 5, 2022

    I deplore the war in Ukraine and believe the best solution is to encourage a coup against Putin by declaring that as soon as a new president is appointed ALL sanctions will be lifted, not only those against Russia but also those against all the oligarchs. This will be their incentive. If thy think the sanctions are here to stay they have NO incentive.

    I also deplore however the hysterical witch-hunt that is taking place against ANY Russian who is wealthy. Roman Abramovich, for instance, seems to be a target just because he is famous, but he has done nothing wrong here in Britain and persecuting him and other Tier 1 Visa recipients is just shooting ourselves in the foot. Let’s focus on Russia and not start harassing individuals – especially when (as is now being reported) we are simply acting as idiotic sheep, copying the EU, an organisation that we left because we wanted to be independent! Boris really is an anti-Brexit traitor.

    Which leads me to the other thing that is really upsetting me: Boris’s decision not to scrap the NI Protocol, or even implement article 16, in order not to upset the EU at this time. But any conflict with the EU would be of THEIR making, and THEIR responsibility, for not agreeing to our request. Boris needs to stand up for our country rather than just be a cringing doormat. The man is a coward and a traitor. Northern Ireland is part of OUR country and we can do what WE want there. Why are you and the rest of the ERG who pretend to care about this issue doing nothing to force the PM’s hand? A few letters of no confidence would show that you really mean what you say.

    1. Mark B
      March 5, 2022

      He is happy for the EU to seize part of UK sovereign territory, but not for the Russian’s to seize Ukraine.

      1. dixie
        March 6, 2022

        +1 the EU has practiced through economic and political means with willing cooperation by pro-EU creatures in the UK what Putin is doing by militarily means.

      2. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 6, 2022

        The European Union has “seized” nothing, nor could it ever.

        I think that you should be in Mariupol to learn what seizing is.

        1. Mickey Taking
          March 6, 2022

          you mean ‘murder of the innocents’ don’t you?

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 6, 2022

            Yes, that’s the worst part of it.

            For Dixie to liken that to the UK freely agreeing with the European Union continued advantages for NI is as grievous an insult to those suffering as it is preposterous.

          2. dixie
            March 6, 2022

            Perhaps you underestimate just how angry the pro-EU shenanigans and spineless kow towing to the EU have made people who voted leave. We voted to leave the EU, we did not “freely agree” to carve up my country or adopt some sort of associate membership by other means.
            The parallels are there and the EU is playing with fire.

          3. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 7, 2022

            I couldn’t give two hoots how angry a silly, petty-minded, tiny obsessive minority might be.

  31. Lear's Fool
    March 5, 2022

    Thank you Nuncle, for your pacifist stance and voice of moderation. There’s just so much glorification of war around the world. The purpose of school and university education should be to discourage war and warmongering and machismo.

  32. Denis Cooper
    March 5, 2022

    I too have now sent a letter, not to Maidenhead constituents but to the Maidenhead Advertiser:

    “With due respect, I found it hard to make any sense of the latest letter from James Aidan.

    (Viewpoint, March 3, “United is how we should be standing”)

    For good or ill the UK government has acted against Russia in defence of Ukraine; there is little or nothing more than it could or would have done if we were still in the EU; and arguably it was able to act more speedily because we are not in the EU.

    Of course Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be condemned as unjustified, but taking a longer view it cannot be considered entirely unprovoked.

    Because it was always a foolish and dangerous idea that Russia under a strong leader like Putin would stand idly by and not react in any way when the NATO-backed EU was openly setting out plans for a southern encirclement, not just around the Black Sea but around the Caspian Sea and as far as the Urals, deep into its national territory.

    I mentioned this in a letter published before the referendum, asking local supporters of the EU to explain how they saw it developing.

    (Viewpoint, January 28 2016, “What about the risks of staying in the EU?”)

    “Do they expect it to stretch from the Atlantic to the Urals, as David Cameron told an audience in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, he wanted to happen?

    Do they assume our politicians will achieve their ambition of getting Turkey in the EU, along with Albania and the rest of the Balkans, and Ukraine, and other countries over to the Caucasus and perhaps beyond the Caspian Sea?”

    And let nobody think that if we were still in the EU our government would stop its reckless eastwards expansion, because only last week the supposedly “eurosceptic” Boris Johnson said that it would be “entirely reasonable” for Ukraine to join the EU.”

  33. forthurst
    March 5, 2022

    Ukraine is a victim of two elements, the kleptocrats that stole its wealth after the collapse
    of the USSR who have now almost all left Ukraine for the West in private jets and the US State Dept for their deliberate stirring up of trouble in Ukraine over many years, boasting of having spent $50m on this particular coloured revolution which came to fruition in 2014.

    That those that run the Tory Party go along with US foreign policy over Ukraine is par for the course, rendering the sanctimonious humbug over their humanitarian concern for Ukraine somewhat nauseating; furthermore they know perfectly well that sending arms to Ukraine will simply extend the conflict without affecting the outcome thereby leading to increased loss of life.

    1. Hat man
      March 5, 2022

      + 1

      A lot of ‘progressive’ people who for many years deplored the arms merchants and their ill-gotten profits ought to be speaking out, and agreeing with you. Yet some of them are strangely silent.

  34. Mickey Taking
    March 5, 2022

    OFF TOPIC.
    SAGE TO BE STOOD DOWN….
    Last man standing when the whole population of UK could tell the advice and estimates were an embarrassing joke.
    Sadly the joke became incredibly not funny and was a major disaster for response, organisation, staffing hospitals, materila purchasing, contracting and social and economic prosperity.
    Sack the lot and stop a couple of blokes in the street for advice instead.

    Never have so few caused so much distress to so many for so long.

    1. glen cullen
      March 5, 2022

      Oh no, does that mean the doctors, professors and forecasters of SAGE will have to go back to doing their first job
.how are they going to cope without their second or third wage and their TV appearances 
a least some got a few knighthoods honours & gongs

    2. Mark B
      March 6, 2022

      I think people have finally learnt NOT to trust the so called science. Next time I think we should consult the local Witch Doctor or some old lady with a crystal ball. More reliable.

      1. glen cullen
        March 6, 2022

        The so called scientists did everything apart from looking at history, like the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic; no world flu, plague, virus pandemic has only ever lasted beyond 2 years

      2. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 6, 2022

        Another acquaintance of ours died of covid19 a few days ago.

        Yes, of it.

        1. Peter2
          March 7, 2022

          Young fit and healthy ?

    3. APL
      March 7, 2022

      Micky Taking: “SAGE TO BE STOOD DOWN
.”

      When do the prosecutions start?

      Neil Ferguson over the years has cost the British economy an astronomical amount, has got nearly every forecast wildly wrong, and yet here he is sailing into a gold plated pension.

      The problem for Britain, is that we have such fundamentally unserious people in government.

  35. Original Richard
    March 5, 2022

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrates that leopard’s never change their spots and as long as the West’s populations remain more prosperous than those of communist states then these communist states , together with the help of fifth columnists and useful idiots in the West, will be working to destroy the West in order to keep their own populations believing in communism rather than capitalism and hence under control.

    The CO2 climate crisis is another communist contrivance to drive the West into poverty and military weakness through unreliable and expensive energy and the lesson to be learned is that the West must never be reliant on communist countries for energy, food, technology, raw materials or any strategic goods.

    This applies as much, if not more so, to China than Russia and this will come at a cost, but then freedom doesn’t come free.

    1. glen cullen
      March 5, 2022

      Putin tells his people what to do and robs them blind
      Boris initiate bans and uses the law to increase taxes & levies
      One is criminal and the other uses state instruments, both under the guise of democracy
.What of Freedom

  36. Geoffrey Berg
    March 5, 2022

    Apart from moral considerations (such as freedom for Ukrainian people), the practical reality is that if Western countries don’t confront Russia militarily in Ukraine, Putin will soon send his armies into the small Baltic states which are in NATO. If Ukraine is not worth risking nuclear war for are Estonia or Lithuania which Russia could conquer much more easily than Ukraine? (And what will China try against Taiwan?)
    I would rather we confront Russia now and send Western armies into Ukraine (which is much more defensible) now than wait for Putin to attack NATO countries as he surely intends to do soon. (Indeed I recommended on this site a few weeks ago before the present Russian invasion started that we send Western armies into Ukraine which more likely than not would have prevented through deterrence this invasion in the first place.)
    If anybody doubts Putin (who aims to reconstruct the totalitarian Soviet or Russian Empire for which he worked as a senior KGB Officer) is much like Hitler, just read the book ‘Winter Is Coming'(published in 2015) by the former longtime World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov who having lived under the Soviet and then the Putin regime stated and substantiated precisely that.

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 6, 2022

      You may well have identified the problem correctly, but you propose madness as a solution.

      What do you think would have happened if Hitler had had nuclear weapons?

      The correct approach is, I think, for all the closely involved i.e. Ukraine, Russia, NATO, and the European Union to stop the present slaughter and destruction on a Without Prejudice basis.

      That might mean us and Ukraine accepting things in the medium term which are very unpalatable, but Russia cannot occupy the world.

      China, for instance – which has consistently emphasised the importance of the UN – could chair the talks, perhaps with others, and the solution could involve UN peace keepers in Ukraine.

      NATO would have to make concessions, and so would Ukraine.

      As I say, that would be on a Without Prejudice basis, and the campaign to bring peaceful open society and democracy to Russia would be continued by non-lethal means.

      At least everyone lives to fight another day.

      The alternative is unspeakable.

      1. Geoffrey Berg
        March 6, 2022

        Fat chance of Putin going along with that if he thinks he can take over Ukraine militarily. His word is never to be trusted (look for instance at his broken humanitarian evacuation corridor agreements for Mariupol these last few days).
        Putin’s game is brinkmanship which is he’ll do what he is confident he can get away with and we have to respond with threats to match his and our own brinkmanship. Otherwise he’ll win time and again and bring ever more tyranny to Europe.

  37. dixie
    March 6, 2022

    As a constituent thank for the summary.
    I agree direct confrontation such as a no fly zone in Ukraine is not sensible and NATO countries must instead provide other means of support to Ukraine while concentrating on defensive strengthening of NATO members.
    Considering our past and recent treatment I also think we should not be overly generous in our support to EU countries that should have been more active in preparations and less activist in pushing the eastward march of the EU.

  38. Original Richard
    March 6, 2022

    The people of Europe, particularly those whose countries import large quantities of Russian gas, such as Germany and Italy, could demonstrate their support of and greatly assist Ukraine by turning down their heating by a couple of degrees and thus considerably reduce the amount of money Mr. Putin has to finance his war against Ukraine.

  39. APL
    March 6, 2022

    Question for John Redwood.

    What treaty obligations do we ( The UK ) have with the government of the Ukraine?

    I am specifically thinking of the areas of defence. Do we have a mutual defence treaty with Ukraine, for example?

    I am aware of the treaty that has been presented to Parliament in January. Has that treaty been approved by Parliament and ratified yet?

    1. hefner
      March 6, 2022

      APL, Looking at gov.uk I can find various ‘comments’ by the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace
      17/01/2022 ‘An article by the Defence Secretary on the situation in Ukraine’
      21/02/2022 ‘DS updates Parliament on the latest situation regarding Russia’s actions towards Ukraine’
      04/03/2022 ‘DS discusses shared security response in face of Russian invasion of Ukraine’
      and the PM’s intervention on 25/01/2022 ‘PM statement on Ukraine’
      but could not find anything about a ‘treaty presented to Parliament in January’.

      Is the ‘Framework Agreement on Official Credit Support for the Development of the Capabilities of the Ukrainian Navy’ presented to Parliament on 22/11/2021 what you are referring to?

      1. APL
        March 7, 2022

        hefner: “Is the ‘Framework Agreement on Official Credit Support for the Development of the Capabilities of the Ukrainian Navy’ presented to Parliament on 22/11/2021 what you are referring to?”

        I found something on the UK government website, it was not a treaty more a memorandum of understanding. So as far as I can see, we have no obligations to Ukraine.

        I’m not sure why we are going to war over Ukraine when the west bulldozed Iraq, Libya, Syria – where are the human rights of the people of those countries improved by our actions?. Perhaps we should have a record of actually improving the human rights of the people we …. ‘ help ‘, before we go about ‘helping’ any more?

        We also destroyed much of Serbia, so when Joe Biden says “Mr Putin has invaded Russia [sic] something that has not happened in Europe since 1945 ” , he is wrong.

        Normally when a Politician spouts such dishonest inaccurate nonsense, I’d call it out as a lie, but unfortunately Biden is clearly ‘non compus mentus’.

  40. graham1946
    March 6, 2022

    We’ve already done that here. But just like installing low consumption lighting etc. the less we use, the more the price goes up and the bigger the bills get, despite the ‘free energy’ they say the wind provides. There is no world shortage of oil or gas, it’s just a scam. Look at the profits of the producers, such that one said they don’t know what to do with all the money and are going to buy their own shares to push the price up.

  41. John McDonald
    March 6, 2022

    Dear Sir John, I think All your constituents are horrified at the Full scale Invasion by Russia of Ukraine which has caused the mass evacuation of Millions of innocent Woman and Children. But the West must bare some responsibility for this, starting with the illegal overthrow of the elected, by all Ukraine’s, Government in 2014 by the EU and US. They could not even wait just one year for the next election. It is a complete failure of Western Politicians to come to some agreement with Russia to keep Ukraine Natural.
    And we are all now paying the price in one way or another.
    The annexation of Crimea and what has followed stems from this overthrow of a legally ( by EU standards) elected government.
    No one was too bothered about the shelling of ethnic Russians by the Kiev Government since 2014.
    There is uproar that Russia has clamped down on the Media. Has anyone notice that RT UK has gone off air.
    We are now in the information war were Lies are allowed by both sides.
    We have not actually seen any pictures of mass bombardment by Russia.
    No one doubts the destruction of airfields and military targets by Russia.
    And as in the UK war against Iraq innocent lives will be lost even it not intended. But where are the spy photos of this supplied by our UK government? Seems this is the job of the BBC from their sources.
    Beware of those on both sides who would stir up hate to justify their actions and cover up omissions and provocations.

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