Just Wrong

It feels just wrong to be posting a picture of tranquility on a day filled with such sadness and dread. I felt fortunate to have a window of beautiful weather to be able to escape on the bike for a few hours, being able to turn physical wheels through the countryside rather than spinning thoughts around in my head. Along with running, it's the only way I've ever been able to switch off from sorrow and depression.

This is a war that Putin has already lost. It's also a war that he cannot lose. That's a terrifying juxtaposition of statements. Both are undeniably true.

Putin is so removed from reality, so utterly devoid of empathy, that he's like a bored teenager with a games console, shuttered away in his head, playing a computer game, pushing buttons with no fear of any consequence. 

Ukraine's defence of their country is extraordinary, yet no one, it seems, is prepared to speak of its futility. The more we applaud them, the more we supply them with weapons, the more loss of life and appalling suffering there is going to be. But how can they not dig in and fight for their lives. Their country is now bound up irrevocably with their identity, their very existence. In that situation, I suspect my boys would take to arms in the same way. I'm not sure I'd try to stop them. The stakes are far higher than we dare to acknowledge. 

The West may not choose to wage physical war with Russia, but as this conflict escalates, as it surely will, we are entering a third world war, one fought with soft weapons. Those can be powerful too, but will they be powerful enough? What we need is a virus to infect the Russian command system. Some humanity. It's surely not an impossible thing to hope for, is it?

Apologies for the doom and gloom. I have to remove this stuff from my head and writing it down is the only way I know of trying to achieve that.