http://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1300505650361441
Russian military are being repelled.

Perhaps a needed sense of proportion may be found in this article about Tolstoy.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/tolstoy-s-war?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Eureka%20Street%20Weekly%20-%20Friday%204%20March%202022&utm_content=Eureka%20Street%20Weekly%20-%20Friday%204%20March%202022+CID_199e2425141f800491c8917f7e79b5db&utm_source=Jescom%20Newsletters&utm_term=Tolstoys%20war

Dear davidf,

Religious differences certainly play a factor in so many conflicts. The Catholic Church’s tie to the Ustase in Serbia during WW2 is a case in point. By all accounts their brutality eclipsed that of the Nazis.

But historical factors which are ingrained into cultures can be powerful prompts. The toll on Russian through WW2 are hard to grasp. This is a video which sets out the statistics of the human loss during that conflict.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU

It is unsurprising the security of buffer states remains a powerful theme for the Russians.

On the Ukrainian side the Holodomor would still be a formative part of their collective consciousness.

It takes a special brand of leadership to move countries past their histories. While Gorbachev may have been of that ilk Putin is certainly not one of them.

Dear Steele Redux,

If Russia had a leader who could talk honestly he could give a speech thusly:

"We have had two terrible invasions, one by Napoleon and one by Hitler. With great sacrifices from the Russian people we have been able to defeat both. We fear another. When countries on our borders belong to NATO the potential exists for another invasion. Our incursions to the west have been in the course of repelling those two invasions. Earlier in our history Alexander Nevsky repelled the Teutonic Knights. Enough! We want to live in peace and security with the west, but security is an illusion when hostile armies sit on our borders. Can you understand?"

Putin is not that leader.

Many Ustase members fled Eastern Europe post WWII and settled in Australia, where they joining the Liberal Party of the Nazi admirer Pig Iron Bob Menzies. Within the Liberal Party they formed the influential faction known as the Uglies. Some of their offspring are still influential in the Liberal right faction today.

Paul, stop talking nonsense Menzies was never a supporter of the Nazi's.

http://joshfrydenberg.com.au/latest-news/menzies-an-enemy-of-tyranny-and-friend-of-freedom/

In Mike Kelly’s case this is more than apt. In an attempt to explain away Labor’s abstention on the UN vote for Palestinian state observer status and Bob Carr’s aggressive campaign to distance Australia from Israel, Kelly has opened a new front in the history wars “Labor’s abstention explained” AJN 18/01.

His portrayal of Sir Robert Menzies as a Nazi sympathiser and appeaser “not concerned for the fate of the Jews of Germany” is a despicable slur. Kelly’s claims are not only patently false but intellectually dishonest.

Menzies understood the true nature of the Nazi threat, referring in his memoirs Afternoon Light, to the “sinister figure of Hitler”. When it came to attributing responsibility for the war, Menzies made clear “the guilt was that of Germany alone”.