On Ukraine and Covid
Widespread power outages in our area from Storm Eunice were surely the worst since the 1970s. I will be pressing for a plan to improve the resilience of the network.
On top of all our woes we now have a Putin shaped crisis in eastern Ukraine as the wretched man unilaterally recognises two ‘republics’ of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent, sending ‘peacekeepers’ to prop up the territories. This is a violation of the Minsk peace agreements and of international law.
Putin has form in destroying the prospects of the Russian people, Previous in Syria, Georgia, Crimea and the Baltic suggests he is fundamentally opposed to any form of western democracy and the international rules based order and is intent on reviving the supposed glories of a Soviet, even Tsarist, past.
Whether Putin will just consolidate the breakaway so-called republics or push beyond the Dnieper to Kiev and beyond is unclear. Given his bizarre and tendentious ramblings on the non-existence of Ukrainian statehood (see his latest speech and the 5,000-word essay he wrote in the summer) we might conclude that he is after the lot.
However, the implications of such a move for Russia would be severe. Occupation would spark insurgency and not just from Ukrainians. Islamists from Chechnya, Libya, and Syria have been known to fight against pro-Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014. One is left thinking that this is the latest in a series of Russian regime miscalculations and one that will have dire consequences for the long suffering Russian people.
There is some good news, however – that is the lapsing of Covid restrictions.
I commended the Prime Minister before Christmas for holding his nerve in lifting covid restrictions when it would have been easy to do the reverse amid omicron and do so again now.
The vaccination programme has been massively successful in reducing hospitalisation, particularly ITU admission.
I also called for the mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers to be rescinded given the evidence. I'm pleased that has now happened.