‘Situation in Ukraine could happen here’

THE front page of The Times is dominated by events in Ukraine.

‘We could hear rockets and bombs. It is dark, and it’s cold down here, we are all very, very frightened,’ says Harry Richardson, formerly of Leek and now resident in Ukraine.

Due to the contacts between Britain and Ukraine similar stories must appear in all our local papers.

Taken in conjunction with the warning in a recent letter headed ‘No safe place for war to unfold,’ such stories should be taken as a reminder that wars spread.

Putin expected his ‘special military

action’ to go smoothly and soon be forgotten.

In fact it has necessitated a much bigger one. It might well be a case of double or quits. He is now talking of recovering all ‘the lands of Ancient Rus.’ Presumably this would include those occupied or conquered by the Rurikid-romanov and Soviet Empires i.e all east Europe from Poland to the Balkans, not to mention the Caucasus and Afghanistan.

Indeed, it would cover Alaska, sold to the US nearly two centuries ago.

One could add the Roman Empire, to which the Tsars laid claim on the grounds that in 1472 Ivan III had married Sophia, niece of the last East Roman Emperor, who had died in 1453 unsuccessfully defending Constantinople from the Ottoman Turks.

Tsarist Russia always saw itself as the protector of Slavs and Orthodox Christians everywhere.

After 1917, the Bolsheviks saw themselves as protectors of communists everywhere. Whatever the regime, it has always been infused with messianic and universalist zeal. This offers unlimited excuses for intervention.

Basically Russia, or rather its leadership, feels compelled by the fear of encirclement and justified

by its special place in the world, to behave in this way.

Putin does not realise that he has been pushing his luck and that times have changed.

What next indeed? Will he have a sudden attack of reality? Can he withdraw his tanks and armies?

And leave a shattered Ukraine as a monument to a massive own goal?

Can he continue and expand his ‘victorious’ campaign? What of the neighbouring countries? Especially those with memories of Russian occupation. Will they be cowed into submissiveness-or alarmed into increasing their arms budgets and tightening their alliances?

It is to be feared that Mr Richardson’s situation might, in various forms, be repeated on a Europe-wide scale. Even here.

Margaret Brown