Putin’s sham annexation

This week, I accompanied a small convoy of three ambulances across the country. A guy from Oxfordshire who has organised a lot of humanitarian aid, Fynn Watt, had brought them the whole way across Europe. Fynn is only 21 and he is an inspiration to us all. He asked if I would give him a hand to get back across the country after the vehicles were dropped off. I said I would.

On the grueling 1,600km journey, I seen a lot of the newly liberated part of Ukraine. Some of these are the areas that Putin is claiming – his sham annexation.

But the debris of the war does not lie. Proof of a Russian retreat was strewn everywhere.

Putin’s nuclear threats are signs of his desperation – but that is not to say they are without substance.

Through the ruins

AFTER being driven the whole way across Europe, the ambulances were handed over in the Izium area – one of the newly liberated areas in the East.

I tagged along and brought the drivers back across the country after the handover.

As we traversed the devastated landscape, we stopped in Dnipro. We were 30 minutes out of the city when the central bus station was hit by rockets. Many civilians were killed.

Liberated but deadly

ON the way back, we travelled along newly liberated territories. Gutted tanks and unexploded bombs with the Russian symbols of ‘Z’ and ‘V’ emblazoned on them lay everywhere. Locals, in search of firewood, walked around these unexploded bombs scavaging for what they could burn. It is a sad reality that some of them – or people just like them – will become victims of the war when they least expect it.

Ambulances and
inspiring characters

THOSE three ambulances I mentioned are now in full service.

They are carrying critically wounded people out of places where there is no water, doctors or electricity.

Fynn has demonstrated what a young man filled with passion, equipped with strong leadership skills, is able to do. He has come here of his own volition because he wants to make a difference. He has certainly done that, and he will inspire others to do the same.

I also met a young man from Northern Ireland recently. I approached him after hearing his voice on a poorly lit road one dark night. I walked up to him and we spoke. I couldn’t believe it. He was a 19-year-old paramedic.

A faux annexation

THE perspective of the Ukrainians is that this is nothing more than a propaganda stunt.

Look at the accounts online coming from the likes of Lyman. The police, courts and administration buildings no longer wear the Russian insignia. It’s a joke. You cannot hold a referendum in a country that you just illegally invaded.

The Ukrainians have launched another offensive in the last 24 hours (as of Monday morning).

We know the Ukrainians have burrowed down into Kherson on the southern front, towards the city of Mykolaiv. The conflict is on a knife-edge on the battlefront. The Ukrainians are looking at making military history in terms of a smaller nation defeating a larger one.

The nuclear threat

KADYROV, the Chechen leader, has cried on propaganda videos and openly said that Russia should use tactical nuclear weapons.

The Russian army cannot conduct normal operations as it is, let alone on a nuclear battlefield; to use something like that would not only make them even more of a criminal state, but they would be putting
their own country in a suicidal position.

However, that is not to say that Putin would not do such a thing.

I spoke with the famous FSB-wanted laywer, Boris Kuznetsov, a few months back, and he told me that, knowing Putin as well as he does, he has no doubt that he capable of using nuclear weapons.

The same man told me that his greatest regret was not shooting Putin when he had the chance…

By Jonathan Baynard