Stop the War Coalition and Ban the Bomb have gone oddly quiet since the unprovoked Russian attack on Ukraine. Within 24 hours of the attack Putin said that he had put his nuclear force on ‘a high state of alert’.

The attack has shown that Ukraine was right to want to join NATO. Had they been in NATO Putin would not have attacked. The attack has shown that the UK is right to maintain its nuclear capability, The attack has shown that the UK and other western countries should not let their armed forces deplete.

This lunatic assault will backfire on Putin and unfortunately the Russian people. The deliberately weakened German army will be strengthened; there is a determination to move away from the European heavy reliance of Russian gas supplies (we need to restart fracking now). A bickering Europe is working together as never before to confront Russia

I was a child in the bombing of Birmingham and only recall that it was petrifying. What I fail to understand is how well educated and cultured (mainly) men like Lavrov the Russian foreign Minister can glibly talk about the destruction of people’s homes, workplaces, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure as if it were a rational thing to do.

The Russian leaders look like normal family men and women with no doubt children and grandchildren where they may be doting grandparents and yet shrug when their forces are killing women and children.

Do they not see the similarity with the German SS butchering their way through Russia in WW2? Do they not see the similarity between Russian troops surrounding bombarding and starving Kyiv and the German army doing the same around Stalingrad?

HISTORIAN