When you see it, the message is unmistakable.
A Risen People are preparing to make history.
Civilians getting together and making petrol bombs is a healthy indicator that events have moved to the insurrectionary level.
The featured image is a moment of rebellion captured on camera film for all time; the shutter snapped as the world was changing.
The people of the Bogside were telling the Orange State that Croppy wasn’t for lying down anymore.
Crucially that engine of political change can be summed up in one word:
Women.
I was reminded of this as I saw these scenes from Ukraine.
Scroll to 17.10 to see the brilliant and brave @lindseyhilsum witness ordinary people preparing for war in Dnipro.
In her report, she used an alternative term, a petrol bomb that has its origins in another episode of Russian aggression.
In the Winter War of 1939-40, little Finland bravely faced the might of Stalin’s divisions.
As with the invasion of Ukraine today, back then, in the dark days of the Soviet Union, Moscow was adept at disinformation.
Stalin’s Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov claimed that they were not dropping cluster bombs on Finland.
Instead, their air force was airlifting food to the starving Finns.
This led to these indiscrimnate munitions being dubbed “Molotov’s bread baskets”.
When the RED Army tanks came into range, they were pelted with petrol bombs.
The Finns said that these were “Molotov cocktails, a drink to go with his food parcels“.
The weapon itself had first appeared during the Spanish Civil war a few years earlier.
It is the AK47 of IEDs, simple, reliable and brutally effective.
Used in salvos, it is a nightmare for any tank crew, especially if the vehicle has been somehow immobilised.
For the avoidance of doubt, there isn’t such a thing as a nice war.
No matter how it is managed, killing people is always awful and repugnant.
These people in Ukraine have every right to incinerate those who have arrived uninvited into their country with orders to subjugate them.
Even when the Russians take a town, like here in Berdyansk, the locals make it quite clear that the fight is not over.
Dear reader, when you see these awful scenes you will quickly realise that the main weapon in the arsenal of the Ukrainian people is righteous anger.
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Righteous anger and Molotov cocktails are no defence against cruise missiles and nuclear weapons. God Bless the Ukraine. HH
Dear me. Still getting it wrong. You’re almost as bad as Bojo who speaks of “democratic and peaceful Ukraine”——well maybe that’s a slur too far. But your message is just the same and just as erroneous. You constantly refer here to the importance of history. Let me remind you of some important dates : 1812; 1918;1941; 1945, and 2008. The first date was when Napoleon invaded Russia; the second was when we invaded Russia, in the form of an ‘expeditionary force’ to, as that master of the well-turned phrase, Winston Churchill put it, “strangle the Bolshevik state at birth”; the third date was when Hitler took his turn—with the aid of not a few Ukrainians ; the fourth date was when, at the cost of 20 plus million lives, the Red Army entered Berlin, soldiers, and a nation, without whose actions we might all be speaking German today, and the last date was when the ‘peace loving’ guys of NATO said Georgia and Ukraine could join that ‘defensive alliance’.
What were the Russians to make of that, do you suppose, given this obsessive habit the west has for invading their country? Not surprisingly they declared it a ‘red line’. They would simply not allow it to happen. But the west would not listen and the result is events in Ukraine today. And what exactly is happening in Ukraine today? Have the Russian’s gone the ‘shock and awe’ route as practiced by NATO in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya? It doesn’t look like it. They have surrounded cities, they have encircled the Ukrainian army in the Donbas——while at the same time they are negotiating with the Ukranians. The same Ukranians who have for eight years refused to negotiate and instead have been shelling ethnic Russians in the Donbas, and whose escalation of that shelling—according to neutral observers, was the last straw for Mad Bad Vlad.
If the Ukranians listen to reason and follow the internationally agreed Minsk Accord which obliges them to negotiate with the Donbas republics, this could be settled peacefully. If not, or if the US and ‘peace loving’ NATO torpedo’s the talks, then who knows where it will end. Perhaps actually in the ‘end’ itself.
Change the country names and the UK police might consider this post a crime.
Some thought provoking comments on here this morning. I’m realising that sometimes there are many more than two sides to an argument.
I recall those days in the north of Ireland when everyone in nationalist/republican districts became adept at making ‘molotov cocktails’. Not everyone was adept at throwing them though.. I was 20 years of age and the oldest person on the barricades one night when a car stopped and two men got out and ordered us away. One of their plain clothes overcoats blew open to reveal the uniform of a B man. One young fella of about 15 or so picked up a bottle and threw it as the B men ran for their car. “Damned things dont work” he shouted as the contents spread over the street. “you gotta light them first ya eejit” I replied as we all fell about laughing. That was the week after August 15th. It didnt take long before everyone knew how to use them properly if properly is the correct word to use. Seemed fair enough back then when we were facing guns with stones and petrol bombs. Now, it seems brutal to try to incinerate even an enemy but then I have grown old and soft and more forgiving of my enemy. Hopefully, time will help a free Ukraine to regret the bombs and forgive their enemy but the operative word here is FREE. A subjugated people will never regret the means they must use to resist tyranny
I guess that’s how the Russian-speaking citizens in Donetsk and Luhansk have felt for the last eight years.
As their language has been banned (ring any bells?), and 14,000 of their people have been killed by the armed forces of that heroic bastion of democracy, freedom, and tolerance in Kiev.
Where they’re second class citizens in their own country, because they’re ‘different’ and have a fondness for another State (again, ring any bells?).
The history of Ukraine didn’t begin last week.
Sounds eerily similar to why a certain failed artist with a stupid mustache invaded Poland
I’m afraid thats guff, almost everyone in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk whether pro Russia or Pro Ukraine speak Russian. A fair number of the countries MP’s have Russian as the first language. The 14000 dead are from both sides of the war.
Their language was never banned and Russian is still widespread in Ukraine, Some MPs speak Russian as their first language. The story of the language being banned is pure unadulterated lies from propagandists. No one is treated as second class in the parts of Dombas that are still under Ukrainian control. Once again pure lies. The only people being treated as second class are the Ukrainian people by the Russian government. And BTW , trying to partition a country (ring any bells) never works. To coin a phrase. Ukraine divided will never be at peace. But I guess that having swallowed the propaganda hook line and sinker, nothing I say will open your eyes and start you thinking for yourself instead of dancing to Putin pulling your strings
TPMcH
Just as well we have you to see through the Putin propaganda. You’re right to trust our own leaders and media, of course, I mean, what was I thinking?
How many examples of our own lies do I need, to persuade you that you can’t blindly believe what our media tells us? Could, maybe, Julian Assange persuade you?
“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell.
The Russion speakees were planted there. I use the expression advisedly
Straight from the Putin bureau of disinformation and lies sunshine ? Pathetic absolutely pathetic !
Where are you getting your informtion? The president of Ukraine is a Russian speaker.
Yes , they have been fighting with rebels in the east, who are backed by Russia & mercenaries from the wagner group. Suppose that’s OK.
Ask any Russian speaker in Ukraine if they are treated differently and they will tell you no
Ukraine is a smoke screen. Something is fishy there.
Those are my thoughts too. Substitute the people of the Donbass for the nationalist population of the Six Counties, the Ukraine for the UK, and Russia for Ireland and you get an entirely different perspective. They’ve even had their own Bloody Sunday when 90 peaceful language protestors were massacred in Odessa by neo-nazis while the Ukrainian ‘security forces’ stood by and watched. And, of course, we have the usual one-sided, black and white presentation of the ‘facts’ from the British tabloids and good old Auntie Beeb. It would seem that the people of the Donbass are victims of ‘cancel culture’ whose voice must not be heard in the West.
The fight against British state terrorisms in Derry Bogside, was also an example of people power. Of course the UK media were apologists for Whitehall’s war machine. They were unwilling to condemn internment, Diplock courts, government collusion with loyalist hit gangs, or the shooting of civil rights protestors. The ‘European Union’ were ominously silent about a bigoted SS style police force in the province for decades. Not to mention blatant marginalisation of the nationalist community. The EU are no paragons of virtue. The new slogan is: ‘Football Stands Together’. That doesn’t include challenging Israel, who frequently bomb Gaza, and kill thousands of civilians. Let’s hope, and yes pray, for peace in Ukraine, but there’s a lot of hypocrisy out there.
Spot on Gael.People jump on a bandwagon without doing any research.Yours & John Griffin’s posts are two of the more sensible I have seen abpout this carry-on. Democracy,hypocrisy.
I did not know the the Finns invented the term “molotov Cocktails “.
Every day is a school day.
Putin must be taking heart from the praise that eejit Trump has been lauding him with.
Oh look he points to his critics, the former USA President is a big fan of mine, particularly the moves I’ve made in Ukraine.
Oh dear Putin, don’t you know that Trump is seen by most Americans, and the rest of the world, as a figure of fun, albeit a very dangerous clown.
Even Trump’s biggest supporters will be wondering what the hell have we signed up to after listening to his support for Putin and what Russia is doing in Ukraine.