“The sense of relief in the Ministry of Defence and Downing Street was palpable when Putin finally made a move over Ukraine and recognised those rebel enclaves in Eastern Ukraine,” reveals a top government source. “After what seems like weeks of the Prime Minister and US President declaring, on a daily basis, that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent, they were beginning to worry that Putin would call their bluff by withdrawing all his troops from the border, leaving NATO leaders with egg on their faces.” Indeed, in the days leading up to Putin’s recognition of the self-declared ‘People’s Republics’ of Donetsk and Luhansk, the warning from UK, in particular, were sounding ever more hysterical. “There’s no doubt that the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, was effectively making a tit of himself on a near hourly basis, with his increasingly bellicose warnings,” concedes the high placed source, who, naturally, is keen to maintain their anonymity. “He was shouting himself hoarse, making ludicrous and alarmist statements, presumably in the hope of provoking Putin.” Yet still, despite Putin’s recognition of the breakaway regions and his stated intent to send ‘peacekeeping’ troops into them, no full scale invasion has yet materialised, resulting in yet more frustration in the west. “Putin is just toying with us now – he clearly knows that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is essential to Boris Johnson’s ‘Operation Save Big Dog’,” confides the source, referring to the Prime Minister’s plan to limit the damage to himself from the recent ‘Partygate’ revelations in the UK. “What better way to distract the public’s attention from his own wrong doings than a war of convenience?”
According to the source, such was the frustration in UK government circles at Putin’s failure to oblige them by launching an invasion of Ukraine, that drastic action was contemplated. “There were unconfirmed reports that the Defence Secretary was heard to bellow, at one point, that ‘if the bald bastard won’t invade, then we’ll bloody well do it for him!’,” says the source. “Inevitably, this has led to speculation that the UK might have been planning its own ‘false flag’ operation – sending in British troops, dressed as Russian soldiers, to attack Ukrainian border posts, thereby provoking the Ukrainians into retaliating against the Russians, in turn giving Moscow a pretext to invade!” Such a bizarre course of action was, however, considered highly unlikely by the source, due to the current state of the UK’s armed forces. “Look, we barely have enough troops these days to mount the Trooping of the Colour, let alone launching some kind of Black Ops mission like that,” they opine. “All those years of Tory ‘Austerity’ and cost-cutting have taken their toll – we can’t even offer Ukraine any military hardware as assistance as most of the reserve stores have already been flogged in order to generate funds to pay our servicemen!”
But is the UK government’s apparent eagerness for a war in Ukraine simply down to the need for a distraction from domestic woes? Labour back bencher Fred Rimwold acknowledges that while the combined effects of ‘Partygate’, the realities of Brexit and rampant inflation are causing Boris Johnson serious problems, but suspects that the desire for a war goes beyond mere diversionary tactics. “Personally, I think that it is the next logical step in Johnson’s obsessive Winston Churchill cosplay,” he asserts. “I mean, he’s done the ‘Wilderness Years’, he’s been a crap journalist and most recently he partied through the national crisis of the Covid pandemic, much as his hero Churchill partied through the Blitz, drinking champagne in the War Rooms while the bombs fell on ordinary Londoners. Oh, and he’s done the shagging every woman with a pulse despite being an ugly fat bastard bit, too. So, it is only logical that he should now be keen to do his wartime schtick, leading the country against a totalitarian dictator. He just needs to stoke up a suitable conflict in order to tick that box.” Ukraine, Rimwold contends, presents a perfect opportunity – a war relatively close to home which can be fought by proxy, without actually endangering any British lives. “As previous PM’s have found, it is relatively easy to whip up a tide of populist patriotism on which to ride into a war, but it all gets a bit sticky when the body bags start coming home,” he observes. “But if it is only Ukrainian cities being bombed, Ukrainian citizens being killed and maimed and the body bags are being sent back to Kyiv or Moscow, then he can just sit on the sidelines shouting encouragement and flying the flag for ‘democracy’ and ‘liberty’.”
Nevertheless, Rimwold believes that agitating for a Russian invasion of Ukraine represents a bold move on Johnson’s part, as it is a strategy which brings potential risks for the government. “Obviously, if he wants to keep up the Churchillian statesman act, he’ll be forced to place economic sanctions on the Russians,” he points out. “Before doing that, he’ll have to make out sure that he’s got all that Russian money the Tory Party has accepted in donations safely squirrelled away in Swiss bank accounts with no paper trails, otherwise there’ll surely be demands that it is sequestered.” But others attribute more sinister motives than just cosplay fantasies or distraction tactics to the UK’s apparent keenness to see an escalation of the situation in Ukraine. “It’s clearly to provide the government’s pals in the energy industry to crank up their prices even more on the pretext of gas supplies from Russia being disrupted,” says top conspiracist Tom Frood. “Them and the oil companies – they are always looking for some excuse to rip us off and increase their obscene profit levels.” He also believes that arms manufacturers will also be involved in the push to war. “They are big contributors to the Tories and are always looking for new opportunities to market their latest weapons,” he claims, shaking his head sadly. “It’s always the same players behind every war: the military-industrial complex and the oil giants. Still, at least it gives us a chance to organise some more anti-war protests and demos outside arms factories. You have to look at the positives in these situations.”
Some commentators have called into question the intelligence driving western reactions to the crisis, claiming that it overestimates Russia’s military capabilities. “I know that the US has all that satellite imagery showing thousands of Russian troops at the border, but what they don’t show is the absolute state of them,” declares freelance journalist and intelligence expert John Titwaller. “The reality is that the majority of them are a complete rabble: undisciplined, ill-equipped and off their faces on cheap vodka. The only fighting they are doing is amongst themselves.” According to the writer the reason that Russian troops have so far not left Belarus after carrying out joint exercises there is because they are too drunk. “Right now, they are making an absolute bloody nuisance of themselves with the locals,” he claims. “Starting fights in bars, stealing anything tat isn’t nailed down, harassing women and pissing and shitting in people’s gardens. The only reason that Belarus is backing a Russian invasion of Ukraine is to get these pissed up bastards out of Belarus!” Beyond the satellite imagery, Titwaller believes that the US and UK have no real intelligence assets in Russia, hence the vagueness of their predictions about Putin’s plans. “Since the end of the Cold War, it has been next to impossible to recruit good assets there with access to good information – they just can’t be bought for a crate of vodka and a pair of Levis any more,” he says. “Right now, I’ve been told, all their information is coming from some guy who allegedly oils Putin down every week before his massage.”
