Vladimir Putin, Trump’s Kremlin pal, says he’s invading Ukraine for “peacekeeping” reasons. It so happens the Nobel Prize organisation awards a hefty sum for those who have helped maintain world peace. Sometimes the recipient has been chosen out of a sense of irony – Remember old Hank Kissinger? And Cambodia? But giving $1m to Vlad The Inventer might just beat them.
It is said: in war the first victim is truth but that needs updating. When an aggressive government runs the only TV channel breath-taking fibs outrank reality. A strangely middle-class woman, resident in Moscow, with a good command of English, gets all her info from local TV. Interviewed by a BBC reporter about deaths in Kharkiv, she said, rather sweetly I thought, “Mr Putin has said he is avoiding civilian targets. So Ukrainian civilians must be safe.”
Surely she actually lives in Woking and will vote again for BJ, forgiving him his “little mischiefs”.
One depressing aspect of war is its vocabulary. Kept on ice during piping peace, it emerges when the first missile hits the first hospital. For instance, artillery is used to “soften up” the opposition before the infantry go in. Softening up as in reducing to a jelly. Choose your flavour.
The 14-mile-long (later inflated to 40 miles) queue of Russian lorries bearing down on Kjiv was said to be carrying “logistics”. For me, retired editor of a logistics magazine, logistics is a principle or a practice. So what were those lorries carrying? Old copies of my old mag? Alas, it died after I left it.
“Opening a corridor” is the aim of Russian “forces” in the south. The first euphemism suggests a series of doors, not wastes of wrecked buildings. The second converts soldiers into abstract natural phenomena; wouldn’t hurt a fly, would they?
It's all so surreal to me. Imagine being in an underground train station in Ukraine! Mothers with their newborn babies. I love that people are leaving restaurant reviews on Google in Moscow, telling the people the truth about the war. Who knows how effective that is? But it helps to know there are efforts. (Found your blog via New Dharma Bums)
ReplyDeleteTara: The Moscow restaurant reviews are new to me. Mind you The Guardian (printed version) has roughly ten pages a day about the war and I'm finding it difficult to fit them all in.
ReplyDeleteAs of yesterday, McDonald's, BurgerKing, and Kentucky Fried Chicken have all pulled out of Russia. Hardly a notable action, but perhaps the Russian people might notice that their favorite American indulgence has closed their doors on them.... Sometimes it is the mundane that will reach out and grab you by the socks or stomach---in this case, and cause wonder. Seriously, we (the US) started with the grand action of a Tea Dump Party. Let us hope so, as the only way to stop Putin is from within at this point! Sandi
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