Namibia said they should talk.
That didn’t work.
South Africa sat on the (border) fence while the Russians ploughed straight through it.
That didn’t work.
Malawi: Let’s plant some trees, baby!
Well, it’s got about as much chance as the other two…
It’s Day 700 of South Africa’s “lockdown” (we’re not locked down at all), but upon waking this morning, that landmark (such as it is) was obviously overshadowed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine overnight. It’s an odd thing for them to have done, because they repeatedly assured us that they weren’t going to invade Ukraine, but actually, all along, it seems that they were.
Almost like it wasn’t the full truth that we were getting from Vlad and his team.
Like I say… weird. I mean, who knew?
Some scary scenes this morning in Ukraine, and it’s only going to get uglier once the initial aerial onslaught has been completed and the ground-based operation begins.
Thankfully, this is a case of double overshadow though, as I also woke to the memory of Ben Davies scoring a 92nd minute winner in the crunch game against Blackburn Rovers at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane last night. After suffering the slings and arrows of a red card and then a penalty against us soon after, it was an unlikely victory, but one that I’m more than happy to take. So some small mercies (well, one) as the sun rises over Cape Town this morning. Although while this one is probably less likely to influence global foreign policy and the potential imminent outbreak of World War 3, it was a pretty amazing evening.
And so the march continues onto Millwall (and Kiev) this weekend.
Months of build-up, rhetoric and sabre-rattling have brought us to the point where a Russian invasion of Ukraine seems basically guaranteed, despite the repeated assurances of Putin and his government that they have no such plans.
It’s a crisis situation. Numerous envoys from numerous countries have tried – and seemingly failed – to negotiate some sort of solution to the potential invasion. In truth, it’s quite difficult to threaten sanctions or military action in order to get someone to not do what they say they aren’t going to do anyway.
But when all else has failed, if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them…
maybe you can hire The A-Team Namibia.
Clearly, other countries weren’t quite sure what exactly was required between Russia and Ukraine, and this was probably a bit of a stumbling block in any negotiations. Imagine you go in to chat to Vlad. He asks you what you want, you say that you don’t want him to invade Ukraine. He laughs and says he’s not going to do that anyway, so why are you here, what do you need? You stumble… er… I don’t really know. Why are you here? What is needed? A cup of tea would be nice, please. Hold the Novichok. Thanks.
Not Namibia. They’re bang in there with the big statements, like:
Peace needed between Russia, Ukraine.
That wisdom, tho’!
The world had been on the edge of its seat, hanging on a thread, attached to a tenterhook, awaiting Namibia’s thoughts. And now those thoughts have arrived and they say: Peace needed between Russia, Ukraine.
Cometh the hour, cometh the second least densely populated sovereign nation on the planet.
The crisis has been averted. Stand down, Vlad. As you were.
As the threat of World War III moves ever closer – despite Putin’s assurances that he has no plans to invade Ukraine – there are other connected issues which need to be addressed up front.
Anyone – and I mean anyone – attempting to dismiss or make light of criticism towards any hostile advance into Ukrainian sovereign territory using the phase (or any derivation thereof):
Crimea river
will immediately lose all respect from me. That’s if they ever had it in the first place.
I hope you take this warning seriously. I have no time for tired, old puns on this blog. So if you were planning on using it, I hope that you’re now Russian around looking for an alternative.
There will come a time when I end this section on the blog called “The Lockdown Diaries“. And that might be soon.
The fact is that we’re not really in much of a lockdown anymore, but the “State of Disaster Diaries” seemed a bit wordy when I started. But there is much talk about the SoD being dropped real soon now, probably because it’s not actually doing very much at the moment. The kids are back at school every day, there’s no curfew, nightclubs are clubbing at night, we can buy beer and wine, and so it seems that there’s no real need for any further regulations regulating… virtually nothing.
At the first hint of this possibility, all the anti-lockdown crews suddenly renewed their vociferous calls for a return to normality (whatever that means), so that when the inevitable change comes, they can claim that they were the ones who instigated it. It’s a bit like that time when I called for the sun to rise in the morning, and wow: guess what happened the very next day?!? All because I suggested it.
Some people might like to pretend that they influenced a government policy; I told God what to do.