I wrote this article on Wednesday, October 5, a day recognised annually as World Teachers Day when we are asked to honour and appreciate the contribution teachers make to the development of students and to education. In fact, this years theme is “The transformation of Education Begins with Teachers.” I was naturally thinking of those persons who had been removed from their classrooms because of the ‘Vaccine Mandate’. But then I saw a piece from I WITNESS NEWS captioned, “Russia offering more scholarships to Vincentians.” I was dumbfounded but immediately tried to make sense of it and had difficulty doing so. Why would any parent want to send their child to study in Russia at this time? Or for that matter, anyone, want to go to Russia to study at this time. Not only because of the war, but Russia is now in a total mess with hundreds of males trying to leave in order to prevent being drafted into the army for military service in Ukraine. Many of us would have seen photos of long lines of cars trying to get to the borders and out of the country. There are protests although of course this is a risky thing to do in that country and some have already suffered because of it. Moreover, Russia is a pariah, that at the moment has few friends, with even some of its allies, like China seemingly critical of its actions. What signals are we sending, anyhow?

Russia’s “special operations’ have been uncovered and what we see clearly is a war for the annexation of Ukrainian territory. The “special operations” were to be Russia’s means of self- defence against an expanding NATO. It also sought the denazification of Ukraine, a country ruled by a democratically elected Jew. We were led to believe that the Ukrainians were ready to welcome the invading Russian army. What was to be a short and easy special operation has turned into a nightmare as the Western world has thrown its support behind Ukraine, and other countries the world over have been critical of what appears to be Russia’s barefaced effort to create a ‘greater Russia.’

Russia had succeeded in annexing four regions of the Ukraine. An attempt was made to have referendums showing that the citizens of those areas wanted to be annexed to Russia. This has been exposed as a sham with, it was reported, officials taking ballots to the homes of persons and getting them to sign those ballots. But this has not gone well for Russia for Ukraine’s army has been recovering those areas and driving out the invading Russians. Of course, Ukraine has been able to do this with unprecedented military support from the US and Europe. The impact of all of this on Russia itself is becoming serious for its president. Word is now out, and the Russian people are beginning to realise that contrary to what they had been led to believe things are not running smoothly for the Russians with large numbers of deaths and casualties and wide destruction of military vehicles. An attempt at partial military mobilisation of about 300,000 men to replace losses on the battle ground has led not only to people moving out of the country but to attacks on some of the recruiting centres. Putin will have his way in the end. He has long been able to cower the society with control of the media and the military police at his beck and call.

The Russian Foreign Minister stated that when he met with our PM recently, at the UN, he “emphasized their consistent rejection of the practice of using unilateral sanctions that violate international legal standards. It is good to know that the Minister is concerned about international standards, but perhaps only as it applies to sanctions against his country. Our PM on the other hand said he emphasized the “necessity and desirability for peace and mature diplomacy.” This however can only begin to happen if Russia withdraws from the country it invaded. I am surprised our PM did not offer himself as the one to begin the mature diplomacy process. But how would those affected by the economic fallout from the war and those losing men defending their country think of our PM’s close friendship with a country that has displayed unimagined levels of barbarity and has created severe hardships for those facing high gas prices, food shortages and rising inflation. Luckily for us here I suppose we do not fall into that category!

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian