Freedom

 One old lady wants to go outside. Her cries grow ever more plaintive: “I need some fresh air, help me.” Then, more urgently: “I’m dying! Let me out!” The carers are endlessly patient: “We’re doing the medicine round, Edna. You’ll have to wait a minute.” She’s just been out for a cigarette, but is restless again.

I reflect that this will be me, if I end up in a care home. Driven mad by the sweltering rooms, frustrated by the combination lock on the door. Just before I leave, Edna is taken outside in a wheelchair and I pass her on the patio sitting alone, clattering a table to be let back in. She doesn’t want to be inside or outside. She wants the freedom, which infirmity has stolen, to choose.

What has happened to Putin?

 What has happened to Putin? Why has he flipped? The major question of the day is how can he withdraw Russian forces without losing his job/head?

Both Sir John Sawyers, former head of MI6 and Donald Trump who met Putin on several occasions agree that he has changed from a strong, rational leader with a deep sense of Russia and its proper place in the world to an irrational leader doing very strange things. It is reported that Tump thought that the massing of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border was a negotiating tactic and one that he could see the sense of.

Something within Putin has changed over the last two years; what is it? We need to understand Putin so that he can be persuaded to withdraw his forces whilst appearing to have gained something.

If he cannot do that then he will say and more and more innocent lives on both sides will be wasted.

What happens to former dictators? Where does Putin go?

The reason for asking this is that sooner or later, and I hope that it is sooner,  we have to start thinking about the end-game of the war in the Ukraine. From what I have read Putin is stubborn and can be brutal. He will not voluntarily give up on the course of action that he has started. I suspect that currently the chances of a "palace coup" in Russia and replacing him are very slim; particularly if he feels that he has no where to go, no escape route apart from death.

In the seventies I took a Diploma in Management Studies. I still remember the module on negotiations. One of the key points was to see things through the eyes of the people that you were negotiating with and to leave them with some "wiggle room" so that they have a positive view of the end result. As a supplier you can screw a customer just the once, as he will never come back. Work out a settlement that he is happy with and you have repeat business. Similarly from the customers perspective if you have a good supplier who makes what your business needs you want the supplier to remain in business to keep on supplying you.

What does Putin really want? If we do not understand this we have no hope of any settlement. I am not saying give him what he wants, but we need to understand what motivated him to start the conflict. If the conflict does not end in some form of negotiated settlement then there are, as I see it three possible outcomes:

1. Putin keeps shelling and bombing Ukraine and its cities until they are completely uninhabitable. Then he takes them in a somewhat Pyrrhic victory.
2. The war keeps going for many years with the Ukrainians/Russians living in a state pf perpetual conflict.
3. We slowly but surely drift into a major global conflict that engulfs us all.

There are some that say that World War 2 was a result of the punitive damages that were imposed on Germany at the end of the First War. Somehow Putin has to be persuaded that ending the conflict is in his best interests, that he has a way out. A mighty difficult task but if we do not succeed we are doomed to years of conflict and suffering.

Request from the Chief Rabbi in the Ukraine

 The Chief Rabbi of Ukraine has asked for Christians to recite the following verses of Psalm 31 aloud.

Psalm 31 21-24

21 Praise be to the Lord, for he showed me the wonders of his love when I was in a city under siege.

22 In my alarm I said, “I am cut off from your sight!” Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.

23 Love the Lord, all his faithful people! The Lord preserves those who are true to him, but the proud he repays in full.

24. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.