The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the War

Cliff Eidelman, "The Battle for Peace" from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country—Music from the Motion Picture (Mike Papa Whiskey)

Operation AXIOM: The 4th Anniversary of the Russian Re-invasion of Ukraine
Four years ago to the day, 24 February 2022, ground, air, & naval forces of the Russian Federation crossed the frontiers of both Russia & Belarus into Ukraine, a thrust aimed at capturing Kyiv & decapitating the Ukrainian government. The Kremlin's aim has been clearly stated, to erase the Ukrainian national identity & re-absorb the country into their sphere of influence, the Russkiy mir ("Russian world" & "Russian peace," mir being a multivalent word).

The war is not our fault, the war is the fault of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin & his personalist authoritarian regime. The "special military operation" has now lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War, the phase of the Second World War from the invasion of the Soviet Union by its eartwhile ally Nazi Germany to the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany to the United Nations (the formal name of the Allies).

The war is not our fault, but we failed to deter Putin & we are to blame for our fecklessness. Putin, as prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, cemented his legitimacy by re-invading Chechnya in 1999, returing the breakaway region to Moscow's control; we did nothing, despite the brutality of the Russian invasion. In 2008, Putin's Russia (at the time, he was prime minister under President Dmitri Medvedev) invaded Georgia, establishing a permanent military presence inside Georgia within the breakaway republics of Abkhazia & South Ossetia; we did nothing. In 2014 (when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States), Putin's Russia invaded Ukraine, illegally annexing the Crimean Peninsula & beginning an insurrgency in the Donbas; we did nothing. In the run-up to 2022's re-invasion of Ukraine, President Biden spent more time ruling out potential American responses than threatening an effective American response; that this utterly failed to deter the invasion became lamentably undeniable on 24 February four years hence.

Russia invaded the Ukraine, again, four years ago today, 24 February 2022.