The Age of Empires is Back.

I stand with Ukraine as I always did with Palestine. Putin does not recognise Ukrainians as a separate people with the right to their own independent country. Netanyahu does not recognise Palestinians as a separate people with the right to their own independent country.

We are living in dangerous times.

Trump, Netanyahu and Putin are narcissistic, expansionist and imperialistic leaders wanting to return their states to a mythical past with a supposedly God-given right to consume their smaller neighbours.

We as an Irish people that suffered centuries of occupation and colonisation can empathise with the present day struggles of the Palestinians and Ukrainians. Their struggles are our struggles.

Beir bua!

 

A patriotic Green Irishman wears Blue & Yellow on St. Patrick's Day!

I was proud to dress up in the colours of Ukraine and hold the country's flag high yesterday as I took part on my bike in the Connemara Greenway presence in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Moycullen.

It was so lovely to be joined by so many good friends demanding the completion of an access-for-all Connemara Greenway including John Power (CEO for Aerogen & the campaign's No 1 supporter), Claire Lillis (what a fantastic job she did with the promotional signage!), Micheal Ó Cinneide (the great co-leader of the Corrib BEO initiative - the Corrib blueways & greenways are so interlinked!), Helen Caird (eco artist extraordinaire), Ronald van Dijk,  Gabe Bourke (who travelled from Donegal to join us!) Thomas Flanagan (who cycled from Barna) Kevin Jennings (chair of Galway Cycle Campaign & who cycled with friends from Galway city), Dick Delaney (who begins today a cycle with family from Galway to Dublin!), Thomas Ó Cadhain (who, in spite of being in pain with a severe injury, walked with his crutch), councillor Alastair McKinistry (who has been a staunch and strong political advocate for it) Pat Collins, Kyran O'Gorman (a great Blue advocate of Lough Corrib)....

All along the route of the parade, the watching crowd cheered and clapped their support for the Greenway. The enthusiasm was palpable! 

 

But I felt, as so many others across our country did yesterday, that it was important too that there should be a tribute and a remainder of the brave men, women and children fighting a people's war against Putin's brutal invasion of their country and his attempts to wipe an independent sovereign country of the map of Europe and assimilate into an anti-democratic new Tsarist Empire. So I dressed up head to toe in the colours of Ukraine carrying my home-made Ukrainian flag and tunic

 

I feel too that Irish people, because of our history, have a special affinity with small countries that suffer oppression and occupation from aggressive rulers of larger more powerful neighbours. Hence the popular support in Ireland too for Palestine.

I hope someday to visit a free Kyiv, Lvev, Kharkiv and Mariupol in a free Ukraine.

 

Marina Ovsyannikova: The Bravest Russian in the World

Marina Ovsyannikova is a true Russian patriot.

Say her name with pride.

 

An editor of the state-controlled flagship Channel 1 television station, she ran onto the set of its live evening news programme yesterday (Monday) shouting: “Stop the war. No to war" and holding a handwritten sign with the script "No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here."

Sadly she could have paid the ultimate price for speaking out against Putin's war machine and invasion of Ukraine as possibly torture and a harsh imprisonment sentence could have awaited her under recent draconian legislation enacted by the Duma. But the reality of what she could have suffered did not deter her.

Marina's bravery should never be forgotten and her message against the destruction of Ukraine by the neo-Nazi Putin regime should be spread far and wide.

She also released a pre-recorded video on the OVD human rights group in which she spoke of her shame at working for Channel One and facilitating the propaganda of the Putin regime in brainwashing the Russian people.

“Regrettably, for a number of years, I worked on Channel One and worked on Kremlin propaganda, I am very ashamed of this right now. Ashamed that I was allowed to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed the zombification of the Russian people. We were silent in 2014 when this was just beginning. We did not go out to protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny”

“We are just silently watching this anti-human regime. And now the whole world has turned away from us and the next 10 generations won’t be able to clean themselves from the shame of this fratricidal war.”

“What is happening in Ukraine is a crime and Russia is the aggressor”

“The responsibility of this aggression lies on the shoulders of only one person: Vladimir Putin.”

Marina pleaded with her fellow Russians to join the anti-war protests so that the brutal invasion and destruction Ukrainian;s peoples and their cities would end. “Only we Russians have the power to stop all this madness. Go to the protests. Don’t be afraid of anything. They can’t imprison us all.”

Thousands of Russians & Belorussians arrested in protests against Putin's war.

According to the United Nations, 12,700 people were arrested up until Sunday for taking part in anti-war street demonstrations across Russia as Putin's regime introduces emergency legislation to criminalise peaceful protests against his invasion of Ukraine in order to stifle the country's growing anti-war movement.

A similar situation is happening in Minsk and other Belorussian cities as many young Belorussians protest against the dictator Lukashenko' participation in Putin's war.

These people are the bravest of the brave, facing the threat of years in prison and deserve our respect and admiration.

So too do the populations of Russian-occupied Ukrainian cities who are regularly protesting against Putin's soldiers, telling them to leave their country and go back to Russia.

Like Bush and Blair who organised an illegal invasion of Iraq based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, Putin is a war criminal who fabricated a litany of lies to justify an illegal war. The results are the same- militarisation, destruction, economic collapse, civil conflict and population collapse.

The result of this ultra nationalist dictator who wants to recreate the Tsarist Empire is that thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have already being killed, cities destroyed by land and air bombing and circa 2 million people have had to flee their homelands. So many of these refugees fleeing west to Poland and other European countries are Russian speakers hence belittling Putin's propaganda that he came to Ukraine as their liberator to save them from genocide.

 

We will not be assimiliated

 

Message to Putin from the people of Ukraine: "WE ARE UKRAINIANS, WE WILL NOT BE ASSIMILIATED, RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE!"

Solidarity with the brave men and women of Ukraine in their fight against the huge invading army, air and naval forces of the anti-democratic tyrant who wants to wipe their country off the face of the Earth and absorb it into a 'Greater Russia'.

Civilians stand unarmed in front of Russian tanks and soldiers. Women and children make Molotov cocktails to defend their homes and neighbourhoods against one of the world's largest military.

Solidarity too with the brave ordinary men and women of Russia who have protested on the streets of Moscow, St Petersburg and dozens of other Russian cities against the invasion and 4000+ of whom were arrested and face punishment from a brutal regime.

 

Solidarity with the brave journalists, artists and politicians in Russia such as Katerina Kotrikadze, Tikhon Dzyadko, Dmitry Muratov, Yelena Kovalskaya, Elena Chernenko, Alexey Navalny, Lisa Peskova, Tatyana Yumasheva, Valery Meladze, Oxxxymiron and Ivan Urgant who spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine.

 

Solidarity with the sports players and fans from all across the world who at tournaments and matches over the weekend proudly held and applauded flags and banners in support of the Ukrainian resistance and against the imperialist Putin.

 

Freedom to all nations. No to dictatorships

This is a dark day for Europe and the world

The invasion of Ukraine shows clearly that the anti democratic Putin, who suppresses human rights and assassinates opponents in Russia, to be an imperialist. The excuses given and lies told by this dictator, supported by his fellow dictator in Belarus, have so many similarities to those of the Hitlerite regime for justifying the Nazi invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland which involved portraying a brutal invasion as a war of ‘self defence’ but with the clear intention of wiping a nation or nations off the face of the Earth.

 

90% of the people of Ukraine voted in 1991 for full independence. Their wishes should be respected. Now sadly thousands of these freedom-loving peoples could die and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will become refugees far from their homeland. 

 

My thoughts and prayers are with my Ukrainian friends and their families at this dangerous time.

I was against the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan (both Soviet & US), Cyprus and Yemen, the decades long sanctions against Cuba as well as the ongoing occupation and colonisation of Palestine.

I have been to Russia, have great respect for the Russian peoples, their struggles against Nazi tyranny and a deep love of Russian culture particularly its traditional music. But I have no time for Putin or any autocrat. Nor do many ordinary and prominent Russians who are bravely protesting against Putin's invasion of a fellow Slavic neighbouring country even when it means arrest and probably worse.

Whilst democratic Ukraine should have every right to be part of EU if that is what its peoples want, in my humble opinion it should nevertheless have declared itself neutral as Austria did in the 1950s and remain outside both NATO and Russian military blocs.

 

There is no justification whatsoever for the brutal invasion, occupation and suppression of any independent nation. Putin is trying to roll back history and reestablish the colonial Tsarist Empire.