The war Vladimir Putin has launched against Ukraine will not be limited to that country, a reality that “the banal Chamberlains” of the West today have failed to recognize and respond to and that the world will suffer from as a result unless and until a new Churchill emerges, according to a Russian commentator.
Andrey Ivlyev, who writes for the Noviy Region news agency, says today that Putin’s seizure of Crimea and his intervention elsewhere in Ukraine has angered Western leaders but not led them to recognize the true nature of the threat he poses or to take actions to block it.
Putin’s actions “have become possible” in large measure as a result of Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and its “cynical” willingness to try to engage in peacemaking with someone who has shown himself to be an aggressor who shamelessly lies and is seldom if ever called for that.
“History is repeating itself,” Ivlyev says. “Over the course of 70 years of well-being, Western leaders have degenerated into banal Chamberlains. The world is waiting for the appearance of a new Churchill.” If that does not happen, “mir” in both its meanings – “the world” and “peace” – “will come to an end.”
By its pathetic failure to respond with anything more than economic sanctions, he continues, “the Western countries are in fact pushing the Putin criminals to carry out serious military crimes.” And it is now clear that “sanctions are a fake which are not capable of stopping the fires of the war which has already begun.”
Everyone is aware that Ukraine by itself “is not capable of opposing the military might of Russia” and that the West has condemned it to defeat by its “demonstrative inaction.” This Western “policy” is “in every respect immoral,” especially given Western expressions of “concern” about what is going on which in turn are a reflection of “banal hypocrisy and exceptional cynicism.”
“The blame for the continuation of Russian aggression in Ukraine lies in full measure on the West” which its “beautiful and correct words” have done nothing to conceal “the traitorous nature” of its failure to act against Putin and Russian aggression, Ivlyev says.
“But,” as he points out, “the earth is round, and a time will come when understanding will come as well. Only the price of this understanding,” just like 70 years ago, “will be very high,” yet another confirmation of the truth of the ancient observation that “the most expensive thing on earth is stupidity because one has to pay for it most of all.”
