4 Comments

Putin recognised the mistakes made in Chechnya. Remember the Chechen extremists were attacking Russian civilians in a devastating manner. Beslan, where they were responsible for 300 children being murdered. This is not an apology for the campaign in Chechnya but Putin had some sort of justification for using the sword against Grozny (albeit heavy handed and misjudged) which is just a little different from the heavy handed and misjudged wholesale slaughter of Iraqis (after murdering over 500,000 of their children in sanctions) as punishment for not selling their oil in petro dollars ('not followed the rules').

Expand full comment

"For weeks on end, Nato bombed swaths of Serbia..."

Swaths? Come on..!

Expand full comment

78 days of bombing, 12000 artillery strikes, 10,000 tons of explosives dropped, 3000 missile strikes. NATO bombed strategic economic and societal targets, such as bridges, military facilities, official government facilities, and factories, NATO air forces also targeted infrastructure, such as power plants (using the BLU-114/B "Soft-Bomb"), water-processing plants and the state-owned broadcaster, causing much environmental and economic damage throughout Yugoslavia. Causing over 500 civilian deaths. And let's not forget the illegal use of depleted Uranium munitions.

Interestingly Russia's military operation in Ukraine has specifically not targeted infrastructure, electrical plants, water etc. and is still pumping gas into Ukrainian homes.

Expand full comment

I’d go even further: Madeleine Albright, and the US, are far worse than Putin. In my mind, no comparison.

Expand full comment