Atavistic.

This is coolbert:

Courtesy here the English tabloid "Daily Mail" the article by the distinguished military writer Antony Beever.

Sir Antony Knight Bachelor!

"From the Tsars to the Bolsheviks, Putin is just the latest incarnation of Russia's lust to dominate its borderlands with bloodshed: War historian ANTONY BEEVOR on why the horror in Ukraine was all too predictable"

By ANTONY BEEVOR FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY 14 May 2022.

"No country is as much a prisoner of its past as Russia. And no leader has become as much a victim of his own obsessive lies as Vladimir Putin. But where did this tragedy for the Russian people as well as Ukraine begin? And why did we not see this coming after the unspeakable brutality of Putin's conduct of war in Chechnya and Syria, deliberately using barrel bombs and nerve gas against civilian populations?"

"I [Beevor] certainly cannot claim to be one of the very few who had foreseen Putin's reckless gamble of invading Ukraine. I [Beevor] also underestimated the lingering resentment against the West among the majority of largely older Russians who get all their news from Kremlin-controlled media."

"Putin is famous for his pronouncement that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geo-political disaster of the 20th Century. This was backed by a widespread conviction in Russia that the Cold War had been lost through a dirty trick after the US under Ronald Reagan deliberately outspent them on armaments."

"The consequence of that collapse was war veterans and widows begging in the Metro, after their pensions became worth less than £4 [$ 6 USD] a week."

Devoted readers to the blog please read the remainder of the article. Antony his expertise and knowledge of Russia very good indeed.

THE UKRAINE CONFLICT! WHY? I SUPPOSE ASK TEN DIFFERENT EXPERTS AND YOU WILL GET ELEVEN DIFFERENT ANSWERS. ALL SEEMINGLY VALID.

coolbert.