UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace delivered a speech at the National Army Museum in London yesterday in which he thoroughly trashed the Russian military operation in Ukraine as nothing but a repeat of the totalitarian campaigns of World War II. “Through their invasion of Ukraine, Putin, his inner circle and generals are now mirroring the fascism and tyranny of 77 years ago, repeating the errors of last century’s totalitarian regimes,” he said. “They are showing the same disregard for human life, national sovereignty, and the rules-based international system. The very system, not least the United Nations Charter itself, that we conceived together and for which we fought and were victorious together in the hope of saving future generations from the scourge of war.”
“Their unprovoked, illegal, senseless, and self-defeating invasion of Ukraine; their attacks against innocent civilians and their homes. Their widespread atrocities, including the deliberate targeting of women and children; they all corrupt the memory of past sacrifices and Russia’s once-proud global reputation.
“The response to this failure by Russian Forces on the ground in Ukraine has itself been a disgraceful display of self-preservation, doubling down on failure, anger, dishonesty and scapegoating.” And on and on Wallace went, expressing his self-righteous anger at the alleged conduct of the Russian army, the Russian general staff, and Putin himself.
While responding to questions at a separate event at King’s College London, Wallace retailed an argument against NATO being a threat to Russia, one similar in cognitive incompetence to the argument that there can’t be any Nazis in Ukraine because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish. “One of [Putin’s] claims is that he is surrounded. NATO accounts for 6% of his land border. That’s not being surrounded if only 6% of your land border is NATO countries,” Wallace said, reported Sky News.
On Putin’s claim that Russia has obtained documents of the planned invasions of the Donbas, and also the subsequent planning for a possible invasion of Russia itself, Wallace revealed possibly more than he wanted in his response: “But let me put on the record categorically: NATO, Britain, eastern Europe is not planning to invade Russia and never has done.”
