Crime and punishment

Lately I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about when consequences break down.

This Guardian piece sums up modern Russia:

Russia [is] a culture where you have “crime without punishment, and punishment without crime”

Every society has some level of this, but when it reaches a certain point, civilization breaks down.

And hence:

Beneath the veneer of Russian military “tactics”, you see the stupid leer of destruction for the sake of it. The Kremlin can’t create, so all that is left is to destroy. Not in some pseudo-glorious self-immolation, the people behind atrocities are petty cowards, but more like a loser smearing their faeces over life. In Russia’s wars the very senselessness seems to be the sense.

And for anyone familiar with Eastern Europe, this isn’t the first time. This is part of a long pattern. Ichkeria, which Russians call Chechnya, was pointlessly destroyed. Abkhazia is a shell of its former self.

And what’s been the strangest of all for me:

The reaction in the west to the explosion of the dam has been weirdly muted. Ukrainians are mounting remarkable rescue operations, while Russia continues to shell semi-submerged cities, but they are doing it more or less alone. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has been mystified by the “zero support” from international organisations such as the UN and Red Cross.