— Satire
I have a solution to the end of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
It is so simple I am somewhat surprised I did not think of it before.
Nor have I seen it in print.
OK.
On to the dénouement.
Why cannot Vladmir Putin, leader of Russia, say, as then POTUS and Commander in Chief George W Bush did to American troops from aboard the aircraft carrier U S S Abraham Lincoln in June, 2003: “Mission accomplished”?
Before the rotten vegetables start coming my way, hear me out.
Let’s examine matters more closely.
How did this war start?
As the result of one man.
And it can end with one man.
It started because of flawed thinking on the part of Vladimir Putin, leader of Russia.
On February 24, 2022 (of course it started before then, but probably no one knows exactly when, so we will use the date when Ukraine was invaded), to be precise.
He thought (to the best of Western intelligence) he could sweep into Kyiv and replace the democratically elected Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, with a puppet government loyal to Moscow.
Russian soldiers would be welcomed with open arms. Yellow petals of sunflowers, the national flower of Ukraine, would line their path as liberators.
Ukraine would be demilitarized and deNazified.
Whatever the latter means.
Citizens would throw down their Kalashnikovs, relieved to be liberated from the shackles of democracy.
Ukraine would re-enter the fold of the former USSR, any hopes of membership in NATO but a dim and distant memory.
Presumably other nations would follow.
The former USSR might be at least partially restored to its former glory.
That is not what happened.
Unlike what happened in 2014, when Crimea (previously part of Ukraine) was annexed…
