Let us raise a tremulous glass of duty-free Gordon’s to the pin-striped psychopaths at the Kremlin. Their latest masterpiece of state-sponsored barbarism arrived via a buzzing, shrapnel-laden drone that found a bus full of civilians in occupied Ukraine. Eight people, presumably with hopes, fears, and overdue library books, now fertilise a crater.
The Kremlin’s press office, no doubt, will describe it as a ‘precision humanitarian intervention’ or a ‘de-nazification of public transport.’ Meanwhile, our own dear Ministry of Defence will deploy the word ‘unacceptable’ with the same vigour as a hungover spin doctor deploying aspirin. What a farce.
What a bloody, predictable, horror. The dead are numbers on a ticker tape, their lives reduced to a lead paragraph, their screams muffled by the clinking of champagne flutes at the Security Council. But let us not forget the essential absurdity: a drone, a glorified radio-controlled toy designed by men who believe in the mystical power of the male chin, decides who lives and who dies.
We call this ‘war.’ We call it ‘tragedy.’ I call it a Tuesday.
