Hard to believe it’s the 21st century

It is hard to believe we live in the 21st century if one is following the destruction of humans and their livelihood in Ukraine. An unprovoked invasion by Russia under the orders of paranoiac President Putin, who is also delusional about restoring the failed Soviet Union.

The current shift of Russian forces with more reinforcements to eastern Ukraine from Kharkiv through the Donbas down to Mariupol and Kherson along the Black Sea and probably all the way to Odessa is Putin's strategy to reduce this territory to rubble and to permanently occupy militarily. The tenacious resistance elsewhere by Ukraine's army with the assistance of foreign volunteers resulted in this shift.

Then he will be ready for a ceasefire. Russia will have gained valuable Ukrainian territory, the mining region of the Donbas and the southern coast on the Black Sea. Ukraine will be landlocked. It will have to beg Russia for any access to tidewater, and it will be on Russia's terms. The Slavic Family will be back together as ‘brothers and sisters the Russian way.'

The Western nations and NATO will relax because Russia's aggression is over for now. War with NATO has been avoided. Ukraine, with the second largest territory in Europe and with 44 million people, has been sacrificed for peace, and Putin has not been overly angered. The relationship, the supply of Russian oil and gas to western Europe, should be back to normal.

NATO countries have helped arm Ukraine, but this assistance has been controlled. Ground-to-air missiles were never delivered, and Poland was not allowed to provide Russian MIGs. Ukraine was not to escalate its defence against Russian forces so Putin does not resort to nuclear weapons. The sanctions probably contributed to a change in the mission of annihilating Ukraine and its people.

Again, Ukraine's future will be its struggle to be independent, to rebuild, to clean up the longstanding corruption and to maybe provide a little better life for its people.