‘UK must prepare for the Russian threat’ says former MI6 head. No shit, Sherlock?
By an astonishing coincidence, the Russian economy is in free fall because of the entirely separate issue of tumbling oil prices and sanctions from the west. One day we are reading about further atrocities in the Ukraine, Russian nuclear bombers turn up over the English channel and today we hear that the former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov has been murdered by a mystery gunman. Is there any other sort of gunman? Reassuringly, former KGB thug President Vladimir Putin is in personal charge of the investigation into the murder, so that’s all right then.
Nemtsov was a fierce critic of Putin’s Ukraine adventure and knew that this would do him no favours with the President.”I’m afraid Putin will kill me,” he said on 10 February. “I believe that he was the one who unleashed the war in the Ukraine, I couldn’t dislike him more.”
“If you support stopping Russia’s war with Ukraine, if you support stopping Putin’s aggression, come to the Spring March in Maryino on 1 March,” he said in his final tweet, but thanks to this ‘mystery gunman’ Nemtsov himself won’t be there.
Sir John Sawers, the ex MI6 chief, warns that we could be heading for a Cuban style crisis, with both sides armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. Maybe it could be even worse than 1962 because most experts believe Putin is capable of virtually anything.
What a time to be alive, although it does beat the alternative. The return of the Russian bear, the clear and present danger of islamic fascism and the world still trying to recover from the financial crash of 2008. Oh, and climate change. This is a time for real leaders to emerge to confront and tackle the threats to our world. It won’t be Obama because, despite the fact that we love the guy, he’s a lame duck president, lurching towards the exit door and there’s no one of genuine status in Europe, except maybe Merkel who is herself better at bullying smaller countries and dealing with bigger ones. Even in Britain, we’re closed for business until May, caught up in the longest election campaign ever and the PM, never a political heavyweight, more a PR man and manager, has other things on his plate.
I worry that we are sleepwalking to oblivion. I fear that Putin poses the biggest threat of all, occasionally reminding me as he does of some of the worst dictators of the 20th century. Power is his raison d’être and nothing else and it seems he will stop at nothing to maintain it.
