Finland Announces: Gloves are off
Kremlin in a quarry
Finland’s Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen announced today that his country has not placed any “restrictions on what Ukraine can do with the weapons it provides”.
The first Western country to publicly say so.
“If necessary, Ukraine should also strike military targets on the Russian side. It is a completely legitimate defensive battle that Ukraine is waging. The U.N. Charter allows military targets to be attacked across land borders,” said Jukka Kopra, chair of the Finnish parliamentary defense committee.
I had no idea that there is an U.N charter that allows military targets to be attacked across land borders.
Thank you, Mr. Jukka Kopra.
I feel like an idiot because I keep listening to a few world leaders who, it seems, never purposely spoke about this. They will sanction Putin for violating agreements, they will make statements, but still they will not allow Ukraine to wage a legitimate defensive battle.
France and Finland are messing up Putin’s head
French President Emmanuel Macron has undeniably caused quite a stir. His recent announcement, refusing to rule out the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine, has sparked a flurry of reactions from both allies and the Kremlin.
Moscow responded with anger to Macron’s remarks, cautioning that the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine would inevitably escalate tensions between Russia and NATO, potentially leading to conflict.
Now, hold on for a second.
Weren’t these guys telling the Russians that they are not fighting Ukraine but fighting the West?
“The point is not that they help our enemy, but they are our enemy, they solve their issues with their (Ukraine’s) hands,” Putin said during a meeting at a military hospital in near Moscow early this year.
Now Putin is threatening a nuclear response because the West agreed with Putin and called him the enemy. Why did we never tell Russia that they will face a nuclear response if they invade Ukraine? May be we should have. May be it could have stopped the war.
From day one of this invasion, the West has allowed Putin to set the rules of engagement. French President threatened to break it. Finland went a step ahead and broke it. Putin has carefully injected the idea that he is a madman with a gun and appeasement is the only way out to taste peace. He understands the West does not have the stomach for violence, and whenever he shows the willingness to unleash it, they will back off, giving him whatever he wants.
What we, the West, refused to understand for decades was his desire for the resurrection of the old Soviet empire. He is ready to build it on ruins if necessary. Take a cold, hard look at every place his army has stepped foot in. It will be no better than the ruins left behind by Saruman’s army in “The Lord of the Rings.”
Syria. Chechnya. Georgia. Now, Ukraine.
Who is next? How many millions are we ready to sacrifice in order appease a mad man with a gun? Where is the justice in it?
Georgia did not invade Russia. Russia did.
Ukraine did not invade Russia. Russia did.
They can pack their bags and go home whenever they want. But they wont because Putin wants to see how much he can get away with. One of the reasons behind his decades long success is we still keep allowing him to set the rules of engagement.
That trend has come to an end today. Many thanks to Finland.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said “everything” is on the table to help Ukraine beat Putin.
“I think it is also the signals that we are sending to Russia, that we are not ruling out different things,” Kallas told POLITICO’s Power Play podcast. “Because all the countries have understood that we have to do everything so that Ukraine wins and Russia loses this war.”
The west should stick to a single message. Which is: We will not rule out anything in order to stop Putin from establishing a fascist empire built on the grave of millions of humans.
Self imposed rules help only one man and his name is Vladimir Putin.
As has been the case with Ukraine, when something good happens, it has to be balanced with something bad. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has dug himself into a hole from which he is never going to come out. He tried to fight his way out of the mess the French President built for him by cornering him over his refusal to supply the German-made long-range Taurus missiles.
Whoever advises the Chancellor has to be fired because they sort of turned him into a ridicule. His response to the pressure piled on him is a classic case of what not to do when you are a politician.
Speaking to journalists in Berlin earlier this week, Scholz justified his continued refusal to send Germany’s Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine by saying it could require German troops in Ukraine to program them.
That would — in Scholz’s view — make Germany an active participant in the conflict. “This is a very far-reaching weapon,” Scholz said of the Taurus. “And what the British and French are doing in terms of target control and support for target control cannot be done in Germany.”
The insinuation here is that Britain and France are assisting Ukraine with their troops on the ground to fire the long-range missiles. The Chancellor thinks it is a great idea to use this as an argument for not providing Ukraine with the weapons.
And then he goes to the Munich Security Conference and tells the world that it needs to prepare to face Russia in the future, emphasizing the importance of manufacturing ammunition in large quantities. Then he tells Germans that Germany will help Ukraine defeat Russia. And then he tries to throw shade at Britain and France for helping Ukraine defeat Russia.
Glorious Chancellor.
Simply, glorious.
You have already written the playbook for your opposition. They don’t even need to spend a lot of time writing it. The worst part is he still believes people will buy his drivel. The only thing they will read is his open display of fear.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz: Ever the Fearful.
Incidents like these are never going to help him climb out of the hole he finds himself in.
The worst part is, in trying to dig in, he has made it difficult to make a turnaround in the future. For his desire to play politics, he has made it extraordinarily difficult to supply the missiles to Ukraine, ever. He may find something clever to say if he ever gets there. He has done it before. For months, he refused to supply tanks to Ukraine, coming up with all sorts of excuses. And then, one fine day, he turned around. He might do the same with Taurus missiles. But people are watching. It is only the politicians who simply assume they are not.
He should have kept quiet. But he didn’t. As a result, both he and Ukraine will be paying a price.
Even journalists never forget to use the word “fear” when they have to write something about Chancellor Scholz and Taurus missiles. Take a look at a recent Politico report comparing Finland’s willingness to allow Ukraine to use their weapons to strike Russian targets inside Russia.
That’s a stark difference from other Western countries including Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is reluctant to send long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, fearing the weapons will be used to strike targets deep inside Russia and draw Germany directly into war with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Ouch!
I am starting to agree with majority of the Germans. They deserve a leader.
