History will judge Putin harshly for his invasion of Ukraine

I REFER to Paul Tembe’s article of April 8 and other comments by the Russian ambassador.

Tembe fully supports the stance of China (PRC) to keep out of the conflict and not to condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

He also claims that the PRC has never “ventured outside its borders to conquer and subdue other countries”.

He conveniently forgets that in 1950, the PRC invaded Tibet and made it a province of the PRC.

Then he mentions a six-point plan by the Chinese foreign minister which mostly focuses on protection of civilians and humanitarian issues.

Then he blames the West for supplying weapons to Ukraine and thereby prolonging the war. Not a word about Russia, which started this war by sending more than 120 000 troops into Ukraine together with thousands of tanks and other heavy artillery.

He also claims that the only solution to such a conflict is negotiation. I agree with this, but the condition is that both sides negotiate in good faith. Putin sends his teams to negotiations, but he is not seriously interested to negotiate. He only wants to push his agenda – to take over Ukraine.

Fact is, if the West would not have supported Ukraine with weapons and money, the independent country Ukraine would not exist any more; it would now be one of the provinces of Russia, like it was under the Soviet Union, with a new “government” under Putin’s control.

Putin originally claimed that he only wanted to destroy all the neo-Nazis in the Ukraine.

Of course there are some neo-Nazis in Ukraine, estimates are between 1 and 2%. But the same is in other countries, in the US and Germany and France and Italy, etc and, of course, also in Russia. There are probably more neo-Nazis in Russia than in Ukraine. Of course, his argument of destroying the neo-Nazis in Ukraine was just an excuse for his real motive, which is to conquer and destroy Ukraine as an independent country and include it into the Russian empire. Many times Putin has said and written that he considers Ukraine as part of Russia and that it has no right to exist as an independent country.

So for many years, Nato was a totally harmless organisation, which has now changed dramatically since Russia invaded Ukraine. All the members now speak with one voice, trying to help Ukraine. Certain right-wing circles, as well as the Russian ambassador and other employees of the Russian Embassy, have tried to justify this war, claiming what we see in the media is all lies and fake.

Russia would never attack civilians. Well, the facts speak for themselves. Thousands of civilians killed, houses and flats and hospitals and schools and crèches, etc, have been destroyed. And the atrocities committed by Russian troops in Bucha and other villages have all been denied by Russia.

First they said it’s all lies, then fake, then they said that “special units” of the Ukraine did that, etc. In the meantime satellite photos of these areas show that the bodies have been lying there while Russian troops occupied these areas. History will judge Putin as one the the biggest war criminals in history, after Hitler and Stalin. DR IVO REUNING | Gillitts