Kick the dog!

 

I have noted some pathetic attempts in various media to validate Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This unprovoked war has led to the murders of thousands of civilians in Ukraine including women and children plus serious instability worldwide.

Apart from creeping international inflation caused by the disruption and increases in oil prices, the war has also had serious repercussions in poor, drought ridden countries, where starvation is now rampant. They had previously been able to buy basic foods such as wheat and corn from fertile Ukraine, but the disruptions caused by the war, have driven up the prices of these products where they are available.

If it wasn’t so serious, it would be hilarious to see and listen to the excuses by the apologists whose reasoning seems steeped in nothing but the ‘kick the dog’ philosophy!

For those who are not familiar, the kick the dog reaction is most often used by cowards. For when one cannot confront the real source of their displeasure or hurt, they find the weakest thing to abuse and take out their anger.

Often this is a harmless dog lying around at home!

This philosophy shines clearly throughout the writings and reasoning of most who have come out in support of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The latest attempt at justification was written by one Maxim Artemyev, a so-called journalist at the state-run media empire in Russia called RT. His piece published on 9th September, is entitled “The West took advantage of Russian weakness in the 1990s and is unable to understand the trauma it unleashed.”

It begins “A series of articles published in the Washington Post in August about the events leading up to Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, and its first stage of operation, raise a significant question. “How realistically and objectively do people in the West perceive the situation?”

In putting forward his justification for the illegal invasion of Ukraine, Artemyev spouts a series of injuries/indignities he claims Russia suffered since 1985-1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev pulled the USSR out of the arms race and ended the Cold War.

In the long diatribe which wreaks with self-pity (as a Russian), he itemizes the various indignities, financial and reputational losses Russia has suffered since 1985. While doing so, he pointed an accusing finger at many in the west and NATO but reading it through carefully, I could find nowhere that the Ukrainians were the villains.

Clearly by his own admission, Ukraine is just the dog!

And he knows that too, since he places the blame squarely where it should fall, writing; “The collapse of historical Russia was the result of Gorbachev’s remarkably weak leadership and Yeltsin’s personal ambition, as the latter tried to consolidate power even if only over a smaller state.”

So, Mr. Artemyev, if the Russian empire disintegrated as a result of poor leadership in Russia, how does that justify the murder of thousands next door?

Maybe this article was intended to be a salve for those Russian readers who wondered why their brothers and sisters in Ukraine were being murdered by Russian soldiers and not for an international audience.

What is clear though is that Russia had expected the dog to run away whimpering, but instead, it is biting back!

So, the carnage and war crimes continue.