From late monarch’s last flight to delivering deadly warheads
LESS than a month after flying Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin from Edinburgh to London for the sovereign’s state funeral, this RAF C-17 Globemaster was delivering essential military aid to boost Ukraine’s fightback against Vladimir Putin. The C-17 carried 35,000lb of highly explosive warheads – 62 precision-guided Brimstone missiles, each capable of destroying a Russian tank or bunker position from 40km away – to an unidentified air base in eastern Europe, near the war zone.
The aircraft, recently rechristened Lizzie in honour of the late queen, was flown by 32-year-old flight lieutenant Searle, 99 Squadron’s only female pilot. She said: ‘I’ve flown six of these missions since the middle of this year. So much is at stake – we just want to play our part. The RAF has really stepped up.’
THE enormous human cost of Vladimir Putin’s murderous war in Ukraine was highlighted this week with the tragic death of 23year-old Meath man Rory Mason while fighting with the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine close to the border with Russia. His death follows that of Irish Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski last April.
The scale of the conflict unfolding in Ukraine is truly mind-numbing.
The Ukrainian government has already suggested that more than 10,000 of their own soldiers have been slaughtered, with another 30,000 wounded and a further 7,000-8,000 missing or captured.
But, even that pales by comparison to reported Russian losses. The United States Pentagon says as many as 70,000 to 80,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives or been injured so far and even if that claim is double or even four times the actual casualties due to spin, exaggeration and propaganda,
the toll is still appalling. Meanwhile, at the beginning of September the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission said the war had killed or injured more than 14,000 civilians. The agency’s head, Matilda Bogner, warned with grim resignation: ‘We know that actual numbers are likely considerably higher.’
This week the UN said there had been at least a further 1,222 civilian casualties in September, including the deaths of 11 children, five girls and six boys. At least 6,114 civilians have been killed, figures more speculative than certain.
Also, the exodus of over nine million people from Ukraine in the first four months of the war must be included in this bitter tangle of torture and terror.
The litany of death and destruction is set to worsen as Russians get pushed back in all directions, including in the northeast where Rory Mason paid the heaviest possible price for his determination to make a stand against brutality.