THEY LAUGHED AT ME WHEN I MADE a speech in the House of Commons in 2014 during one of the interminable European debates. I explained I had no wish to remain in the EU because I’d seen a clear desire by the United States and some EU member states to pick a fight with Russia.
I used to be a frequent visitor to Crimea and earlier that year I had witnessed the Russians occupy Sebastopol and shocking, unexpected fighting in Kyiv. I tried to explain the complexities of this to my audience, but they were more interested in fishing quotas than gunfire as I trembled at the idea that Britain, then a member of the EU, might be dragged into a war with Russia. Well, Brexit or no Brexit, we haven’t been dragged, but leapt into the fray with extraordinary, myopic jingoism.
While I have no truck with what Russia has done and my eyes are fully open to the sophisticated agitprop she uses, we seem to have wilfully deluded ourselves about Russia’s capabilities and intentions and joined the rest of the West in a fool’s paradise.
Some expected the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some did not; what became immediately apparent, though, was that this was an unparalleled opportunity for the media — it was almost like the Afghanistan debacle, but simpler because Russia was painted as ineluctably bad while Ukraine was impossibly good: there were no nuances.
Anyone who even hinted at Ukrainian deficiencies or defeats immediately became a “Putin apologist” and no criticism or even informed commentary was tolerated for many months. Indeed, only now
