Diplomats say Putin’s brutalisation of Ukraine has brought back darkest memories of occupation under Stalin

Nato must be ready for Russia launching an “existential” war against the Baltic states “masked by a blizzard of disinformation”, ambassadors from the three countries have warned.

Writing exclusively for The Sunday Telegraph, the top diplomats to the UK from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said that Russia could “pivot quickly” from Ukraine to invade the Baltic.

And they said that Vladimir Putin’s brutalisation of Ukraine is evoking the three countries’ “darkest memories” of occupation under Stalin.

The Estonian ambassador Viljar Lubi, the Latvian ambassador Ivita Burmistre, and Lithuania’s charge d’affaire Lina Zigmantaite, wrote the joint article to mark Friday’s 20 year anniversary of their countries acceding to Nato.

  • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    4 months ago

    To answer your multi-part question: yes, he can and will. On all counts.

    Don’t underestimate his will to destroy what he already has to obtain what he does not yet have.

    With what? Dry Russian wit and empty vodka bottles?

    With starving Russian bodies, local Russian wars (including a new Chechnyan uprising) a Russian populace decimated into the next three generations, the gutting of all Russian social services (including education and whatever else that does not directly serve the war machine) and any physical thing he can rip off its foundations and flog to international buyers (as he has been doing all along), right down to the last museum artifact or liter of oil, and served with as many mountains of disinformation as he can pay to produce.

    No regrets, either. Once he wins and gets what he wants, which is all the ex-Russian land of Eastern Europe, he can replace whatever he stole – or so he thinks, because living things are as fungible to him as rubles.

    Putin is a cornered rat whose time is running out, and who is delusional enough to actually be chasing dreams of Russkiy Mir (the recreated Russian Empire of ages past) across the golden fields of Ukraine. What he has done to Ukraine – and specifically to Ukrainian citizens – he will gleefully do to his own, as well as to those of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, and anywhere else any fucking Russian soldier ever planted a successful foot.

    He’s insane. Literally. Putin thinks he’s on a one-man holy war, and he will not hesitate to strip the homeland bare of not only his own people but anything he can convert to battlefield gains, no matter the cost for centuries to come, no matter if it starts WWIII, and honestly he’d probably enjoy that part. Why should we enjoy what he cannot? Why should we have peace when he has war? “If I can’t have it, no one can. Blow it all up.” And he will.

    The countries I just mentioned know all this because they’ve had to live with Russia’s and Putin’s shit for ages. They too saw him take Crimea, and Georgia, and march on to Ukraine, knowing that it could have been them just as easily. They don’t think this is laughable at all. Anyone who does . . . well, I just hope you’re right, but I wouldn’t count on it.

    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      4 months ago

      Ukraine . . . Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, and anywhere else any fucking Russian soldier ever planted a successful foot.

      I can’t believe I left out the badass Finns. What was I thinking??? Many apologies to the good people of Finland, who have taken far more than their share of Putin’s shit – so much so that they finally just closed the border last November.