Johnn Scrivener would do well to purge the produce of the Wagner troll farm from his diet. Defending Ukraine from unprovoked Russian aggression is exactly what the allies are doing, they are not acting under an ‘implausible pretext’. Putin is trying to repeat what he did to Chechnya, after the people rejected his attempt to rule Ukraine through a puppet (like Belarus). Almost all US military excursions since WW2 have been illegal and/or unjustified. This one isn’t.
Razing whole cities and slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people just minding their own business is not ‘collective self-defence’. Not to mention starving people by cutting off Ukraine’s wheat exports and peppering farmland with land mines. Europeans (who, by the way, initiated support for Ukraine, not the US) know that Putin would not stop at Ukraine, especially those in Moldova and Georgia.
There are 23 oligarchs who could have told you how good Putin is in the last 12 months, but won’t because they’re dead. Last week one general died of a sudden attack of ‘long-term illness’ and another apparently died of shock after being released on parole. Prigozhin’s team just received their final gift from the great leader. This is an admirable regime?
Want to see pointless military spending, have a look at AUKUS. Ukrainians deserve everything we can help them with.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
