Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1455666
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 FEBRUARY 2022 OPINION 11 pening, is it? For some obscure reason, it seems that Vladimir Putin is entirely unfazed, by the collective opinions of literal- ly millions of self-styled Face- book 'military tacticians'. (Gee, I wonder why…) All the same, however: it still leaves us with the question of how this war can actually be fought at all. For reasons that are pretty self-evident, any form of conventional ground-war to liberate Ukraine – even with full UN Security Council backing (not that this has ever deterred anyone in the past; but hey, let's not bring all that up again…) – is clearly not on the cards. We all heard the Kremlin warning that any military interference would unleash 'consequences never before seen'; we've all watched movies like 'The Day After'; so we all know painfully well what those words really mean. Effectively, then, we are in a situation where both sides are threatening each other – one with 'sanctions', the other with 'all-out military annihilation' – and… um… that's a little like playing 'rock, paper, scissors': only with the 'rock' in Putin's hand, the 'scissors' in yours; and no 'paper' anywhere to be seen. Much as it pains me to have to add: this also means that Ukraine has been left to fend off a full-scale, three-pronged Russian invasion… all on its own. And without even need- ing C-3PO to 'tell me the odds': I have little doubt that, by the time you read this, Ukraine will already have fallen (valiantly, no doubt: but fallen all the same). On the basis of that prediction, the only 'response' left availa- ble, for any country opposed to this invasion, is… well, the one Roberta Metsola has been so pointlessly tweeting about, all this time. Which brings me to that 'pea-shooter' analogy in the headline. It is, as I said, already regrettable that Russia's actions have excluded both military, and even diplomatic solutions at this stage. And it is even more re- grettable that the only weapons left in Europe/NATO's arsenal are 'economic sanctions' (not least, because Putin has made it abundantly clear that he has already factored them into his military calculations anyway). But still: if the best weapon we can possibly come up with, is a measly little pea-shooter… the least we could do is make sure those peas actually do some damage, when fired. And yet, we have all just seen the sort of 'peas' that Europe (and its allies) will actually be shooting back at Russia with; we all know that the EU-US bro- kered sanctions have stopped conspicuously short of certain measures, that would be harm- ful to certain European inter- ests… But before you all point accu- satory fingers at Germany and Italy, for having so selfishly put their own energy interests ahead of the international war effort – well, it's not as though Malta has behaved any differently, has it? Consider, for instance, some of the comments Robert Abe- la gave to the press this week: "Malta's energy prices will not be impacted by the internation- al fall-out from the Russian in- vasion of Ukraine"; and "a pre- liminary analysis of the situation showed that the Maltese econo- my would not be significantly impacted by the situation." Now: leaving aside any doubts I myself may have, about Abe- la's 'preliminary analysis' there – seriously though: is our Prime Minister NUTS?! Has he for- gotten that our own gas supply comes directly by tanker from Azerbaijan… and therefore has to sail all the way through the Black Sea (which, in case no one's noticed, Putin can now blockade at any time he choos- es) just to even get here at all?! But let us park such cynical misgivings to one side, for now. The real problem, as I see it, is: what is Abela actually saying there, anyway? What do those comments really tell us, about his (i.e., Malta's) own contribu- tion to an emergency EU sum- mit, that was supposed to come up with the 'hardest-hitting, non-military measures possi- ble', to counter Russia's aggres- sive expansionism? In a nutshell: how much of a fight did Prime Minister Rob- ert Abela really put up, on our country's behalf, to ensure that the rest of Europe – even with the limited options at its dispos- al – really did respond to this crisis in the toughest, most ef- fective way possible? Come on, let's not delude our- selves. We, too, chickened out of helping the Ukrainians, in the name of 'economic self-inter- est' – but where Germany and Italy do at least have the (rath- er lousy) excuse of 'energy-de- pendence on Russia'… what's our justification, exactly? That we 'want to keep selling pass- ports to Russian oligarchs'? Sorry, folks, but that's just not good enough. (And it just won't look good enough in the his- tory books, either.) So tell you what: off you all go back to the drawing-board (yes, Robert, you too), and this time, try and come up with something just slightly more incisive, to use as am- munition for that dratted little pea-shooter of yours. And if nothing else: that way, at least, Roberta Metsola might actually have something mean- ingful to tweet about, for a change… This week's events clearly indicate that Vladimir Putin has already altered more than just the geo- political map of Eastern Europe; in one fell swoop, he has also radically re-dimensioned our entire concept of the balance of international power European Parliament president Roberta Metsola