One page from Philip Short's magisterial 'Putin: His Life and Times' (2022) explains the Ukrainian war

I was travelling a lot and wanted to blog about my travels but have failed to do so. Perhaps I shall find time to write about it. 

Meanwhile, I recently reread the parts of Philip Short's long and magisterial Putin: His Life and Times (2022) that touch on Ukraine and want you to read this one page, about the situation in late 2013.

Quotations

'Here's a direct quote: "If I said what I know about both candidates, they'd have to cancel the election." That's what Jeffrey told me in 2016.' Mark Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein's brother, speaking to The New York Post 1 January, 2025

‘The trick is to survive success. Anyone can survive failure’ Tony Bennett

"If there is a God, his plan is very similar to someone not having a plan." Eddie Izzard

“Losers, like autodidacts, always have wider knowledge than winners, if you want to win you must know only one thing and don’t waste time knowing them all, the pleasure of erudition is reserved for losers. The more things one knows, the more things didn’t go the right way. " Umberto Eco

More quotations

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” 

Kurt Vonnegut

"Trump routinely deploys all the subversive transgressiveness that campus Leftists claim to value."

Camille Paglia

"If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe." 

Lord Salisbury

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” 

Quotations

"What matters, in the end, is less whether a country is democratic or not, more whether the country is pro-American or anti-American."  Tom Cotton, Chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

"What matters most is how well you walk through the fire." Charles Bukowski

“We’re the first to pay a price for Trump’s election. [The deal] is being forced upon us … We thought we’d take control of northern Gaza, that they’d let us impede humanitarian aid.” Erel Segal, Israeli journalist

"People who think of conservatism as oppressive and dictatorial have some deviant example in mind, such as fascism, or Tsarist autocracy. I would offer in the place of such examples the ordinary life of European and American communities as described by 19th century novelists." Sir Roger Scruton

"When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction." Mark Twain. He wasn't similarly benign to the Indians. He thought them "a good, fair, desirable subject for extermination if ever there was one".

"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." Lin Yutang

"I used to think I was born in the wrong time... now I understand I'm here to keep the old ways alive." Anonymous internet meme

Political quotations

"France’s ex-Commissioner Thierry Breton thinks the EU should override the German elections if the AfD does too well, citing the recent Supreme Court putsch in Romania as a good precedent." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Daily Telegraph, 17 January 2025

"After each wave of NATO expansion, for example, Russia became more rather than less threatening. If the purpose of NATO expansion was to make Europe more secure, the contrast between the security environment of 1992 and that of 2025 delivers a damning verdict — all the more so when contrasted with the success a more limited NATO enjoyed in checking the Soviet Union until its demise." Daniel McCarthy, "It's over: Biden is last gasp of failed post-Cold War internationalism", Responsible Statecraft, 17 January, 2025

Quotations

Joseph Fasano

"Your gift is not a gift, it's a loan, a loan to do something extraordinary; it's the paying back of that loan, squaring up with yourself and the universe, that's the gift." Dylan O'Sullivan