The Dardanelles Revisited...

 

I really want to address the Ukraine conflict, but as I said yesterday, the situation is so fluid and unstable it's difficult to get a grip on it. There has been news today that Turkey may well block the Bosphorus Strait to Russian warships, which at least would staunch naval incursion into the Med and the rest of Europe. The key NATO territory of Poland is firmly in the way on the landward flank of the region - any invasion of which would precipitate a broad military response from the Alliance - whether this would escalate into a World War is pretty moot, given the extremely patchy support Putin has both at home and abroad.

This is not thus far  an echo of the Europe of the 1930s, and it is unlikely that Putin can go much further; but that will be small comfort to the people of Ukraine, who sadly sit outside the NATO club. Whilst I take serious issue with those on the Left - my lifelong political allegiance - who are dim enough to still act as apologists for Russia(!), I do think that the West and NATO have been too slow off the mark in dealing with what has been a long and slow-burning threat from the Bear; the Western nations seemingly content to harbour and launder the vast sums of the oligarchy's cash in return for profit and/or favour.

This has only been given frankly trite lip-service thus far in this conflict, and is an issue that will need urgently to be addressed fully at some point when the situation cools, and when we can hopefully deal with those collaborators complicit with Putin and his corrupt and violent autocracy. I'm not, as I always say, holding my breath...