Quote of the day for Christmas Day

This is supposed to be the season of peace and goodwill towards men. And usually on Christmas Day I post about that.

Unfortunately nobody seems to have told the Kremlin.

As the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, has just commented by posting on X, formerly Twitter, about Russia’s attack today on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.


"Russia’s Christmas gift to Ukraine: more than 70 missiles and 100 drones, directed at Ukrainian families celebrating in their homes and the energy infrastructure that keeps them. For the third holiday season, Russia weaponizes winter."


Putin has again acted as the Grinch this Christmas, leaving half a million families without heating on Christmas Day, in temperatures just a few degrees Celsius above zero.

What makes Putin's actions so stupid is that until he launched this war there were plenty of Ukrainians, though probably not a majority, who actually wanted to be closer to Russia if not rejoin Russia. But because of the amount of carnage and suffering caused by Putin's invasion, no Ukrainian will say a good word for Russia even if they wanted to, for fear of infuriating their neighbours. Putin has ensured that the vast majority of Ukrainians will viscerally hate Russia for decades if not centuries.

So much so that the worst thing which could happen to Russia would be if they won this war and conquered Ukraine because the cost in blood and gold of occupying the country or propping up a puppet government would make the cost that either the former Soviet Union or the West paid in Afghanistan - and which neither ultimately sustained - look trivial.

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