The Dogs of War

The savagery of Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians is heart wrenching and that is not a strong enough word. Their military is being beaten back rapidly or continuously blocked in the one area they continue to attack. So they take revenge on the civilian population in the occupied communities, by shelling villages all along the front or by rocket and bomb attacks on cities. 

You may have seen pictures on the news of atrocities committed in Bucha which was occupied just a short time early in the war, or from Izium which was liberated not long ago and now there will be more from Lyman which was liberated yesterday. And every other liberated community. Torture rooms in every one of them.

Or pictures of a little girl pushing her doll carriage and another 30 minutes later of her broken body lying dead after a rocket attack on a medical centre in western Ukraine. Or of a little boy putting a can of beans on his grandmother's grave after she starved to death. Or of parents mourning their dead children or children mourning their dead parents from artillery, bomb and rocket attacks. 

Tanya says she can hear the overhead activity every night as Krivii Rih comes under constant attack. And Dnipro City day or night. No one knows when or where the next rocket will hit. There are more dead and wounded every day. 

All of that I have been able to take, grief without tears. But I broke down and wept for the dogs who have lost their loved ones and mourn for them, not understanding why their people have been taken from them. The dog in Izium who found his master's grave and lay on it crying. The dog whose master was killed in a bomb attack and lay with his head on the man's feet not knowing what to do. But mostly the old dog, blinded and deafened by the bomb attack which killed his entire family, grandmother, mother and two children, who sat on the rubble and cried all night. They brought the war close to me as nothing else could.

I can fill the blog with pictures of death and devastation. War is a terrible thing. As Hawkeye said in M.A.S.H, "War is not hell, hell is hell, war is war". People in hell deserve to be there. People who suffer in war are by and large innocent.

A convoy of 6 cars riddled with bullet holes and burned to a crisp.
25 to 30 killed, half of them children

Crater from a rocket attack in Dnipro City. Just missed the bus depot

Weeping over the dead

People huddled in bomb shelters, sometimes for months

So what is the end game? For Ukraine, at a minimum it is driving every Russian out of Ukrainian territory followed by the removal of Putin and ideally the demilitarization and denazification of Russia. Russia must lose the same way Germany lost and be forced to face their past which they have never done. Otherwise a stab in the back mentality will arise and we know how that ends. Russia will continue to attack Ukraine with bombs and rockets from inside the Russian border and will eventually launch a full scale war against Ukraine in 10 years.

What is Biden's end game? Simple replacement of Putin appears to be Biden's objective not based on what he says but what he does. After the first Iraqi war, USA wanted a replacement for Hussain and encouraged a revolt BUT they only wanted him replaced internally with an easier to manage dictator from the Baath Party. When the Shia and Kurds rose up, they were abandoned and suffered greatly for it. America had no end game whatsoever after the second Iraqi war and the world is going to pay for that for a long time yet. 

Russia was and remains an empire with all power concentrated in Muscovy which includes St Petersburg. All other parts are treated as colonies with their wealth flowing to Moscow. When Putin is removed, one possibility is a struggle for power between the elites of the military, the FSB/GRU, the oligarchy, and the siloviki. That will end, either in making Russia a true federation or more likely with each territory becoming independent and then forming their own links with each other.