Pieter Brueghel the Younger Construction of the Tower of Babel 1595
It’s pretty amazing, but finally Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said something that is actually true. Not because he intended to, but hey, beggars are choosers. Zelensk(i)y(y) today compared western weapons and sanctions to Covid vaccines. A tad late, for sure, given the vaccine fatigue, but then his audience are not the smartest sheep in the herd.
But he is so right it’s impossible to let this slip. Because any additional weapons delivered to Ukraine will have the exact same effects that the Covid vaccines have had. That is, they will kill more people and end more lives, than no vaccines and no weapons could ever have done.
A unintended brilliant insight from a murderous clown. There are actually Ukraine voices claiming that with enough weapons, they could take/retake Sievierodonetsk and other places in 2-3 days. I wish I was kidding you. They want you to ignore Russia’s warning that for them this is an existential issue, and to think Putin is just a madman looking for Lebensraum.
That way Raytheon et al can keep on adding up profits, and no Americans or British or Germans will die, so it all looks good in the media.
This is the Guardian’s take:
Zelenskiy: Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Is ‘Covid-22’ And Weapons Are Vaccine
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has compared Russia’s invasion to Covid and described weapons and sanctions as a vaccine, as Ukraine’s military position in Donbas worsens. The Ukrainian president, speaking via video link at a gala to celebrate Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year, lobbied again for more outside help because “the Ukrainian military are dying on the battlefield”. He asked rhetorically whether the US president, Joe Biden, and members of Congress were using “all the capacity of our influence and our leadership” and called on them to be “100% influential”.
“Weapons and sanctions are … a vaccine … against Covid-22 brought by Russia,” Zelenskiy said, hours after he warned that the fight for Sievierodonetsk could decide “the fate” of the entire Donbas – the name given collectively to the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the country’s east. [..] Russia’s permanent representative to the UN told the BBC that Moscow’s forces were making steady progress in Ukraine and predicted that the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions would be captured shortly.
Vasily Nebenzya said: “It seems to me that there is progress. No one promised a result in three days or a week,” and added: “Just give it time … and you will see the Donetsk and Luhansk regions liberated. And, I hope, this will happen very soon.” Overnight Zelenskiy acknowledged that the struggle for Sievierdonetsk, which has been raging for several weeks, was “probably one of the most difficult throughout this war” and that “in many ways, the fate of our Donbas is being decided there”.
Ukrainian insiders have previously argued the city is not particularly strategic and that their goal has been to inflict heavy casualties on the Russians but Zelenskiy’s statement suggests the city has symbolic importance, not least because it is one of the last two population centres in Luhansk province that Kyiv controls.
Western media and politicians continue to claim that Ukraine can win. They can’t unless NATO goes in full force, and even then. Besides, they won’t.
In precisely the same way that the leaky untested vaccines (plus boosters) won’t stop the pandemic. It is a perfect metaphor.