Africa’s lessons for Ukraine

During Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 I got a close look at Moscow’s troops and their kit. These contractniki were a ragged bunch with rotting teeth, bad boots and homemade tattoos, using weapons and vehicles that seemed like hand-me-downs from a failed state in Africa. I had expected them to be much smarter. Recently my spooky friends told me that Putin’s military invading Ukraine was now a modernised, well-trained force. Instead it appears that Moscow’s generals have stolen the diesel, supplied the mechanised brigades with ageing knock-off Chinese tyres and sacked all the dentists.

I haven’t visited Luhansk and Donetsk, but I bet they are a version of the Black Sea city of Sokhumi, which Russia seized for the Abkhazians who rebelled against Georgia in the 1990s. The thing that struck me about Sokhumi, apart from the strange resemblance inhabitants bore to members of Boris Johnson’s family, was that there were more donkey carts and cattle than cars.