Russian killer scum must be answered with severe sanctions

Back in March I made a right cods of this. My instinct and my initial post agreed with the official line that Russia was responsible for the attack on the Skripals, but scores of your comments protesting that this couldn't be the case, and the sacking of Tillerson across the pond, prompted me to add a postscript saying in effect 'not proven'. 

Well now I think it has been. And I'm even more disappointed with Russia than I was in March. It wasn't the attempted assasination of the ex-GRU Skripal, but the casual and careless way that Putin's thugs discarded the poison container in a public bin, where it was retrieved by some poor bloke who gave it to his girlfriend; she sprayed it on her wrists and died. These Russian scum are heartless killers, utterly careless of human life, and we must now make their nation pay for their barbarity. 

Both Russians and Africans seem to value human life far more lowly than do we Europeans; Russia killed 30m of her own people in the name of an ideological mistake. This inhuman brutality from the land of the knout, where men were still serfs six hundred years after Britons were free men, cannot be permitted in our continent. I've been happy to offer the carrot, but now is the time to use the stick. Russia must be tamed.   

And I've learnt also that I should have trusted my initial instinct.  

 

Russia must be taught its limits

At the risk of sounding like a weary headmaster whose rogue prodigy has yet again let him down, I'm very disappointed with Russia. I've defended Russia (whilst happily admitting that Putin really is just a ruthless thug) and still believe that Russia is Europe's natural ally in a global alignment  of Enlightened North against primitive barbarous South. Personally, I was even prepared to forgive Litvenenko's murder. But this latest affront is an outrage too far.

It's easy to understand why we are the target. The UK is an attractive destination for Russian defectors, ex-spies and refugees from Russomafia thuggery; we have one of the world's best intelligence capabilities, a capable anti-terrorist capacity, a legal system largely free from bribery and corruption and easy access to Europe's best shops. If Russia can make defectors feel insecure in Britain, Putin must think, they will not feel safe anywhere.  

Economic sanctions against Russia are merely cosmetic whilst Europe is dependent on Russian gas. Russia's breach is not so grave as to demand military retaliation. Something in between, I think, would suit; perhaps a cyber attack shutting down Russian transport, broadcasting or banking for 72 hours would make the message clear. Something of that sort. Without any direct link to the UK yet clear to Putin from whom the retaliation came.  

Let's wait and see. 

Update
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Wise comments and Tillerson's sacking have led me to believe I've made a right arse of this, and that Russia's guilt is very much more remote than I've assumed above.

Mea Culpa. 

Russia - good fences and good neighbours

At the home in which I grew up, our plot was separated from the narrow country road that ran along a boundary by a 2m wide strip that belonged to Suffolk County Council. It was annoyance at the Council's lack of maintenance that drove my mother to add its grooming to my boyhood task-list of mowing and trimming. So for a length of 70 or 80m as the road ran alongside our land, an unkempt, blowsy country roadside assumed a neatly trimmed tidiness. It took three or four years for the Council to twig that we were maintaining their roadside - whereupon, they started regularly to send out a maintenance gang to pre-empt my efforts.

My mother took it as a sign that local bureaucracy was amenable to her own particular form of 'nudge', and was happy that she had a neat boundary. I was happy at losing the task of maintaining it. Now, of course, I realise that the Council had been prompted not by a sense of obligation to a ratepayer but from fear that if we maintained it for 12 years and they didn't, we could claim ownership of the 2m strip from them through adverse possession. I'm glad my mother had no knowledge of this quirk in British law - it would have prompted her to surreptitiously expand on all borders. 

And so with Russia. Russia will expand in any direction that is not clearly and signally defended and 'owned'. That includes land, sea and air. It doesn't make Russia any more of an enemy than cutting a verge made me an enemy of Suffolk County Council; Russia acts in a very proper Adam Smith type of economic self-interest. And peace is best served by NATO and the UK maintaining forces, fleets and air patrol and response capacities that signal clearly and without doubt where the boundaries are. A minimum of 2% of GDP but ideally for the United Kingdom, a spend that gives us a standing army of 100,000 men and a fleet of 50 warships. 

That Russia also must be an ally in the coming conflict with African mass migration, Islamist aggression and Malthusian challenges doesn't mean we shouldn't also keep clear boundaries and military parity in sight. The EU of course is blind to the realpolitik and risks conflict through its insane territorial ambitions - a dangerous stupidity that needs the UK's level head to counter. If Theresa May makes Presidents Putin and Trump her key diplomatic priorities, she is doing absolutely the right thing.

Con Coughlin coughing into his cornflakes

Poor old Con Coughlin must be coughing into his Christmas cornflakes this morning. Following instructions from his FCO and MoD masters, poor old Con has being doing his best to talk-up a war with Russia all year. No incident was too trivial to be mis-interpreted, no pretext too minor for Con to rattle his lightsabre on the Telegraph's Defence desk. And all year all the poor sod's earned for his pains is laughter, mockery and regular pillorying in blogs such as this. And now his own paper mocks his efforts; former Moscow Ambassador Tony Brenton writes

"Russia is not a threat to the West. Our defence expenditure is ten times, and our economy 20 times, Russia’s. Putin is ruthless but not stupid – he will not take on those odds. Current western policy towards Russia has failed. Sanctions have cemented popular support for Putin even as the Russian economy resumes growth. The Russians are winning in Syria, and show no sign of letting go in Ukraine. Meanwhile there are important things we should be working on together. Islamic extremism is a much greater threat to both of us than we are to each other. The British government has been among the most vociferous hawks on Russia. Time for us to be more British; lower the volume, and think harder about where our real interests lie."

Amen to that. Peace and fellowship between our Christian lands, and love to all men except the buggers trying to kill us. Have a wonderful Christmas all and thanks for another superlative year - your comments are a joy, and inspire me each day.