Double standards in Ukraine war

Kyiv's shock offensive coincided with the intensification of the war,of its drone war against military and fuel targets which sparked blazes deep in Russia this week. New details yesterday emerged about damage and injuries caused by some of those attacks.A Ukrainian drone attack targeting a distant Russian air base in its Volgograd region caused significant damage to an airfield that reportedly housed glide bombs used by Moscow in the war. How corruption can ruin the war in Ukraine? Whilst Prime Minister Modi was visiting Kyiv days ago on invitation of President Volodymir Zelensky of Ukraine, the Times of India quoted the real reason for Russian forces are being pushed back in Kursk, Western Russian region. It quoted former US National Security Advisor who spent 18 months working under President Trump, who has declared as follows: “Ukraine saw a weak point in a series of weak points and took full advantage of it.” “The situation was similar to the one in which Ukraine had expelled Russian forces from Northern Ukrainian territory seized in the early part of the war after Putin’s invasion of February 24,2022, Bolton said. He further explained: “They (Ukrainians) noticed the Russian positions were undermined because the troops had been shifted to the Donbas and in very short order the Ukrainians pushed the Russians out of all their fortresses in Northern Ukraine that they had taken in the aftermath of the initial invasion”. Bolten went further: “I think it shows that all of the Russian efforts to overcome corruption, to try and build a really modern army for 20 years now have proven ineffective”. “It is hard to explain the inadequacy of their performance, other than by concluding that their units really had not come up to the standards they want. They were not combat ready”. That says little of the Russian Fighter Jets, SU 24 and SU34 or their pilots? But, note the real reason for his assessment? “Maybe a battalion of 500 men actually had 300 men in it, but they were saying they were 500 to get the salaries and the rations and the equipment that the Commander could then use or sell.” “That is how corruption under cuts a military’s capability, “he concluded?

The terrible cost of the War, which was thought to end in days? It has been a terrible human cost on both sides. We don’t know really what Russian casualties are? Some say 600,000 soldiers. Small wonder whether we will ever know or ever will? The Ukrainians too have suffered a lot, but mainly civilian casualties, in their towns and cities by daily bombardment. But, no one will admit, it has been a very costly war for the Russians so far, without a lot of territorial gain to speak of or even for the Ukrainians? What was the game of the West to allow the Ukrainians to suffer human life,” by doing their work for them,” for nearly two years, to get them battle ready? They talk about the human fodder, what about the Ukrainian refugees they have to house in the West? My experience in USSR and Ukraine some 62 years ago. Is it pertinent? As a Sri Lankan citizen I was treated very well in both territories, which then was one country? I was in Ukraine which was then part of the USSR. I spent more time in USSR than in Kiev. I had the facility, if not the “freedom” to stop over in the varied parts and met peoples of the then Soviet Empire. Besides Moscow, I visited Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa, Erevan, Tbilisi, Baku, and Tashkent. I returned to Ceylon in March 1962 and contributed my views in several articles in “Times of Ceylon”. I revisited Moscow and Kiev in 1966. During my stay in the USSR, I was happy to meet people of all walks of life. The times under Khrushchev and now are worlds apart, but the Russian people are a very warm and friendly people. Should I state, I have no grievances against any, but I wonder all the time, if I am capable of giving an unbiased account in my pieces. We in Sri Lanka are facing the problem of State Debt due to Corruption, which has caused many problems. We can correct it at the next Presidential Election, if we so desire? We have a very big lesson to learn from the war in Ukraine? We like to show we are invincible, we want to live beyond our means and the world will once again bail us out? Khrushchev put the fear of the Almighty in the four corners of the USSR then? We, in Sri Lanka are not Ukraine or Russia, and/or never will, but we have to completely eradicate corruption, if we want to move forward as a respected nation? Victor Cherubim