NATO may be wary but time will come where military options must be explored to halt Russian barbarity
THE city where Putin bombed a maternity hospital on Wednesday, burying women and children under tons of rubble, has endured a barbarous siege by Russian forces for ten interminable days now.
The 500,000 women, children and old people trapped in Mariupol have no water, heat, electricity or medicine after Russia deliberately targeted vital civilian infrastructure.
To survive, Mariupol’s citizens collect snow and boil it.
The strongest among them hunt for wood and build fires to ward off the cold as night-time temperatures plunge to as low as minus 10.
Food supplies are dwindling. The International Red Cross, the only foreign presence in the city, has described the situation as “apocalyptic”.
Hundreds of people have died, including at least three killed when a 2,000lb Russian bomb obliterated City Hospital No3.
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Many more are feared to have died in that attack, which the duplicitous Russians sickeningly described yesterday as “fake news”.
Mariupol’s authorities have given instructions on how people should dispose of their dead. The hands and feet should be tied, the corpse wrapped in plastic and left on the doorstep for collection.
The bodies are gathered each morning and buried in mass graves.
The Ukrainian defence of Mariupol has been fierce. The Russians, despite vastly outnumbering the city’s defenders, have so far failed to take it.
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So, Russia has resorted to keeping its troops on the outskirts, instead shelling and bombing the population around the clock, in the hope they will surrender.
Since the Russian encirclement began, the Red Cross has tried to get the besieged citizens out on four occasions.
But each time the perilous exodus to relative safety has been tried, the Russians have attacked the human convoy with artillery and it has had to turn back.
Mariupol is hell on earth. What is happening there is a war crime.
Damien Lane
Mariupol is hell on earth. What is happening there is a war crime.
The Russian army’s medieval tactics of siege, surrender then annihilation have been part of Putin’s playbook since 1999.
He razed Chechnya and did the same to large swathes of Syria - with impunity.
What his forces are doing in Ukraine should come as no surprise to those who’ve followed the military adventures of Mad Vlad.
The grim fate of Mariupol and Ukraine’s other cities similarly under siege should jolt Western leaders to do more to bring Putin to his knees.
SANCTIONS NOT ENOUGH
Economic sanctions alone won’t stop Russia.
Yes, the West is heavily arming Ukraine so it can defend itself, but Russia, by dint of its military superiority, will eventually prevail.
Not before much of Ukraine is reduced to ruins.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has begged NATO to enforce a no-fly zone.
But the West balks at intervening in the air.
To do so would ignite the possibility of World War III, pitting the two biggest nuclear powers, Russia and America, against each other.
NATO is right to tread carefully. But there comes a time when evil must be confronted head on.
MILITARY OPTION
How much more Russian barbarity are we expected to endure from the sidelines before the military option is put on the table.
Mariupol is the modern day Srebrenica.
The siege of the Bosnian town between 1992 and 1995 remains a great stain on the conscience of the free world.
Srebrenica’s trapped citizens endured an indescribable horror, surrounded on all sides by the Bosnian Serb army, with no escape.
When the Serbs eventually took the town in July 1995, they went on to murder 8,000 men and boys in the greatest war crime committed since World War II.
It is imperative that the West, feeble in its response to mass murder in Srebrenica and throughout Bosnia in the 1990s, never allows the same fate to befall Mariupol, or anywhere else in Ukraine.
If that means battling Russia on the ground, then so be it.
lROMAN Abramovich is now a global pariah.
The British government moved yesterday to freeze his assets, effectively banking the €3billion his team, Chelsea, is worth.
Abramovich desperately tried to sell the club before sanctions were imposed.
He failed. The future of the European and World club champions is up in the air.
Only fans with season tickets can attend home games from now on.
The club shop is banned from selling merchandise. When Chelsea play away from home, they will only be allowed to spend £20,000.
The private jets that ferried players to games are gone.
The exodus of star players is inevitable. Sad, if you support the Blues.
THE exodus of western companies from the Russian market mounts by the day.
McDonalds, IKEA, Coca Cola, Louis Vuitton and the makers of Toblerone are among dozens of famous brands who have upped and left Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
They were joined by Victoria’s Secrets yesterday.
There were incredible scenes in Moscow yesterday as sex-hungry Russians flocked to buy knickers, suspenders and bedroom toys before Vic’s Secrets packed up and headed for the airport.
Surreality meets reality.
If they haven’t already, every western brand worth its salt will leave Russia immediately.
Fuel Fix Cancels Tax Cuts
AHEAD of the government’s announcement it would cut excise duty on petrol by 20 cent and diesel by 15 cent, some unscrupulous fore-courts increased their prices by those exact amounts.
Social media was flooded with photos and reports of petrol price gouging.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said price fixing by petrol stations was disgusting.
And it is.
But without the power to stop them, forecourt owners can do what they like.
Strong words from the government will do little to thwart those who profit from the economic insecurity the war in Ukraine has generated.
One way to conserve petrol is to reduce your speed. Failing that, ditch the car.
“RUSSIA did not invade Ukraine. We have not killed civilians.”
The words of the modern day “Comical Ali”, Russia’s foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday.
Putin’s stooge was in Turkey for talks with Ukraine, dialogue that yielded nothing.
Lavrov has been batting for his evil boss since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
He has ludicrously trotted out the claim that Russia was engaged in a “special military operation” to “denazify” and “demilitarise” Ukraine.
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He and his ilk in the Kremlin might believe that nonsense. But no one outside Russia does.
As long as the psycho-paths are in charge in Russia, the world, not just Ukraine, stands on the precipice.
UAE Weak Link Amid Boycott
THE super-wealthy friends of Putin have a haven for their billions – Dubai.
The United Arab Emirates, the playground of the rich, has yet to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and hasn’t imposed any sanctions.
The UAE abstained in a UN vote last week that condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Up to 40 of Putin’s allies, including a former governor, a nuclear power plant boss, a building magnate and a tobacco tycoon, own dozens of villas in Dubai valued at more than €350million between them.
Most of the Western world has united to impose crippling sanctions on the Russian banking system and the coterie of lickspittles who fawn in the presence of Putin.
But Dubai has so far held out. So it’s really no surprise that it has become a favourite haunt for Russian oligarchs as the oil-rich emirate asks few questions about the origin of foreign money.
Roman Abramovich – the owner of Chelsea football club who had his assets frozen by the British government yesterday – has a Boeing 787 Dreamliner based in Dubai.
Dubai’s ruler, Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has close ties to the Kremlin.
When Putin visited Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, in 2019, the city was illuminated in Russian colours.
The sheiks who rule Dubai have sought to attract money, no matter the source.
And Russian cash has flooded in for more than a decade.
Sanctions only work if everyone is on board. Until Dubai changes its stance, it will continue to be the weakest link in the economic war on Putin.