[iostream25]

A quote from Kier Giles, whose article in today's Guardian addresses some of the silliness and contradictions in Putin's speech this morning.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/21/vladim...

"few of Putin’s contradictory storylines stand up to even a moment’s critical thought: we are winning in Ukraine – but the forces of the west aligned against us are so powerful that now we need to dig deeper to stay in the fight; our proxy regimes in Ukraine need to hold referendums to join us – but we already know they all want to join; we’re protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia itself – but to do this requires incorporating part of another country; our war aim has always simply been to “liberate” Donbas – but to do that we’ve also taken so much of Ukraine that we have a 1,000km frontline."