They Say - 4

Peter Hitchens writes in the Mal on Sunday: "Forget 'evil' Putin - we are the bloodthirsty warmongers".

I seem surrounded by people who think that war might be fun. This seems to happen when wartime generations are pushed aside by their children, who need to learn the truth all over again.

And more for you to remember:

We think we are the heroes, setting out with brave hearts to confront the Dark Lord, and free the saintly Ukrainians from his wicked grasp.

This is all the most utter garbage. Since 1989, Moscow, the supposed aggressor, has – without fighting or losing a war – peacefully ceded control over roughly 180 million people, and roughly 700,000 square miles of valuable territory.

The EU (and its military wing, Nato) have in the same period gained control over more than 120 million of those people, and almost 400,000 of those square miles.

What's the conclusion?

But do we have any idea what we are doing? Ordinary Russians are pretty stoical and have endured horrors unimaginable to most of us, including a currency collapse in 1998 that ruined millions. But until this week they had some hope.

If anyone really is trying to punish the Russian people for being patriotic, by debauching the rouble, I cannot imagine anything more irresponsible. It was the destruction of the German mark in 1922, and the wipeout of the middle class that resulted, which led directly to Hitler.

Stupid, ill-informed people nowadays like to compare Mr Putin with Hitler. I warn them and you that, if we succeed in overthrowing Mr Putin by unleashing hyper-inflation in Russia, we may find out what a Russian Hitler is really like. And that a war in Europe is anything but fun.

I have emphasized Hitchens' idea by bold letters. In fact, the currency collapse of 1998 was by far not the most difficult thing we Russians went through in our recent history; the very period of the USSR collapse and first years of building 'capitalism' in post-socialist Russia were really terrible for many millions of my compatriots; yet we survived then, and we are not going to lose now.

Anyhow, don't let 'them' fool yourself. Read various opinions and try to think different.