The Tribune

As more details emerge about Ukraine’s stunning incursion in to Russian territory two weeks ago, its significance has become more apparent so that the subject is now unsurprisingly top of the world’s news agenda.

This lightning assault on the Kursk region inside Russia came as a huge surprise to all. It has reshaped the military and political dynamics of the Ukraine war, and there are now genuine fears of a wider conflict – with the threat of deployment of nuclear weapons ever present.

As soon as it became clear that the Ukrainians’ action was considerably more than just a small raid but instead a full-fledged mechanised operation, the world’s media has been focused on it with a vengeance. It is the biggest such incursion since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.

At the time of writing, the latest information is that Ukrainian forces have demolished a second major bridge after destroying last week a strategically important one over the river Seym that was used by the Russians to transport troops and supplies. The Ukrainians are said now to be strengthening their positions around Kursk and have set up an administrative office there to maintain law and order and meet the immediate needs of the local population. They now control over 1,000 square kilometres of territory comprising some 80 settlements, including the border town of Sudzhato, and have successfully attacked and occupied the neighbouring Belgorod region. They are continuing to advance while the Russian response remains unclear.

All the while, however, President Zelensky and his colleagues have provided assurances that they do not wish to occupy Russian territory on any sort of permanent basis. As I wrote in last week’s column, their stated aim is to stretch Russian positions, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the border area, forcing Russia to redeploy its forces away from the eastern part of Ukraine. They also calculate that, if the incursion continues successfully, Ukraine’s negotiating position in any peace talks will be strengthened. In one of his nightly addresses to the Ukrainian people, Zelensky has said that he wants to get Russia to “negotiate on our terms”. He made it clear that he was trying to persuade Moscow to “enter a fair negotiating process and restore a just peace”.

I recorded, too, last week that the Russians had evacuated large numbers of civilians – with some 120,000 fleeing to safety – from the affected regions. Since then, evidence has also emerged of a measure of apathy about the fighting among ordinary Russians in the border areas who, in some cases, appear even to have welcomed the arrival of Ukrainian troops.

In the Western media, there is now endless speculation about the implications and potential danger of Ukraine using, within Russia, weaponry supplied by the US and other NATO countries specifically to enable it to defend itself within its own boundaries. As the biggest Western supplier, Washington’s stance on how American-supplied weapons can be used is said to be “long-shifting”. While trying to empower the Ukrainians to defend themselves, President Biden imposed limits to avoid the risk of escalation of the war which Putin portrays as a conflict between Russia and the West. But the Kursk operation has raised new questions for the White House about whether the boundaries or limits can be expanded.

Some say that, in practice, any widening of the limits would be meaningless because of difficulty in determining for sure what weapons are being used at any particular time. So, it is hard to know to what extent Western-supplied weapons can be used within Russia without crossing Moscow’s red lines about Washington’s involvement? But the risk of a wider conflagration and the nuclear threat remains real.

Nonetheless, most observers consider that use by Ukraine of such weapons in the incursion was highly likely and the US maintains officially that that would be “within policy boundaries”, since in May Biden reportedly authorised use of American weapons across the border into Russia but only in proximity to the border. Officials are now saying that Ukraine could anyway legitimately use them in self-defence – and determine themselves how this should be done – in accordance with their rights under the United Nations Charter.

In Britain, the Ministry of Defence has said that Ukraine “had a clear right” to use UK-supplied weapons for “self-defence against Russia’s illegal attacks”; and it is worth noting that the UK was one of the first countries to provide modern Challenger 2 battle tanks to the Ukrainians. According to reports, these were used in the cross-border incursion.

Western commentators are now saying, almost with one voice, that for Vladimir Putin all this has been an international embarrassment and personal humiliation, not least in relation to the large numbers of Russian soldiers who have been captured or have surrendered. His much-vaunted “invincibility myth” has been severely dented, and a separate Ukrainian strike on Crimea – which cannot now be ruled out – would be a disaster for him. The past two weeks allied to two and half years of Ukrainian resistance have shattered the Kremlin’s strategic assumptions. Following the Kursk incursion, Western nations will presumably need to reassess their policies and options. But – with the Russian leader in power for some 25 years, making his stint as a Kremlin leader the longest since Stalin – the consensus is that no coup in Moscow is looming at the moment, though his position within the Kremlin will have been weakened.

The latest developments seem to have put paid to Putin’s vision of a restored pan-Russia encompassing Ukraine and Belarus. His authority has been undermined; and it is said that, as a despot and true fanatic accustomed to getting what he wants whatever the price, being forced to face up to that failure might produce an irrational response. So there is widespread grave concern about how he will react in the longer term to Zelensky’s latest daring initiative which no one predicted.

FAIR AND FIRM APPLICATION OF THE LAW

Having written two weeks ago about the recent riots on the streets of Britain, I should like to follow up today by examining further the way the authorities handled them and the implications of cracking down hard on the miscreants.

Amongst the comprehensive coverage in the UK press of the violence up and down the country in July and early August, one commentary caught my eye as an accurate assessment of events. Dynamic resolution – the author wrote in thunderous tones – displayed by government, the courts and the police showed that lengthy jail sentences and tough policing do work.

How right that must be on the basis that if the state locks up sufficient miscreants they are at least unable to misbehave further because they are off the streets. But it also acts as an effective deterrent.

The commentator went on to state that, in the darkest moments of the violent unrest after the murder of three young girls attending a dance class at their school, parts of Britain tottered on the brink of anarchy. Now, the storm had subsided but the new government’s authority had been enhanced as a result of its firm action during this baptism of fire, and it had no doubt helped that some years ago the new prime minister, Keir Starmer, had been the nation’s director of public prosecutions.

Later in the article, the author opined that this handling of the crisis resembled a born-again Conservative since, traditionally, the Tories have a reputation for being tough on crime. By contrast, progressive campaigners and the Labour Party preach leniency and tend to paint criminals as victims of society because of economic deprivation and mental health problems while also putting the human rights of offenders before the needs of the public.

Liberals also tend to give greater weight to invented grievances and cultural sensitivities while preaching that prison does not work so that what is needed is community sentencing and a greater emphasis on rehabilitation. It is said that, according to socialist doctrine, jails are “colleges of crime” and allegedly make bad people worse. By contrast, Conservatives tend to think that, although rehabilitation is a key element of the British penal system, there is often too great an emphasis on that rather than punishment for those convicted of a crime – and that the longer the sentence the lower the chance of recidivism.

The general conclusion following the riots is that the kind of dynamic resolution already mentioned that was displayed by government, the police and the courts should be the default mode. But, as more evidence emerges, others worry whether such tough action and long prison sentences can be justified in all such circumstances – and, in cases which do not sound right to the man in the street, there is sometimes the need even in a well-run functioning democracy to limit action by authority against the public that it is deemed to be undeservedly or unjustifiably harsh. In the interests of the majority, there must always be curbs on the exercise of excessive official power and protection against any perceived hint of collusion between the executive and the police and the courts that goes beyond providing them with a firm lead.

That said, some commentators are now arguing that, in addition to strong action by the authorities in face of mindless violent unrest, the government has much work to do in addressing the problems that some maintain have been precipitated by the existing cultural and ideological divide in Britain, exacerbated by unsustainable levels of immigration in recent years.

The riots have revealed fractures in UK society and the new government must deal with the deeper causes of public dissatisfaction – not just economic inequality shown by some of the worst rioting in northern towns like Rotherham and Hartlepool that have high levels of joblessness and deprivation but also grievances connected with, for example, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia together with illegal immigration which successive governments have failed to act on despite the public making clear its serious discontent.

REMEMBERING HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

Many believe that in a modern world of nuclear arsenals, the importance of remembering the dropping of atom bombs by the US on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 should never be underestimated.

It was on August 6 and 9 that year that these heavily populated urban areas were obliterated by the unimaginably catastrophic impact of single such bombs. They caused wholesale destruction and some 200,000 deaths and injuries.

President Truman’s decision to use the atom bomb on civilians to force Japan to surrender and bring to an end the Second World War remains controversial to this day on ethical, moral and even military grounds. The Allies were already conducting conventional bombing raids on the Japanese mainland after progressively driving their military forces out of islands in the Pacific. But some historians argue that Truman’s decision was justified in order to avoid the massive casualties that would have resulted from an invasion of the mainland. The Allies had earlier warned Japan through the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the required terms of a surrender, that Japan’s failure to do so would result in “prompt and utter destruction”.

In today’s troubled world, the threat of the use of nuclear weapons remains real. Many people are now saying that those who have doubts about this danger and tend to disregard its significance should look no further than the annihilation precipitated by use of the atom bomb more than 75 years ago.