Column | I’m for peace, and that’s why I’m passionate about tanks

Thoroughly after nabbing the chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz it was finally decided to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine. Germany will start training Ukrainians to operate wagons soon. Germany also gives permission to other countries to send their own Leopards to Ukraine, which is fighting against Russia.

The US is sending Abrams tanks and Britannia Challengers to Ukraine. France is considering sending its Leclercs. Finland also sends Leopard aid to Ukraine. So everything is fine? Is not.

Chancellor Scholz has promised that the matter will be acted upon quickly. He has no control over this course of action. During the nearly year-long Russian war of aggression, Scholz has become known for his quadruple braking.

German intelligence gave the government wrong information at the beginning of the war. Ukraine had to collapse quickly. The whole process went awry in Germany’s head. Until now, it has seemed to the Europeans that Scholz’s goal in the Russian war of aggression has been to appease the president Vladimir Putin. As long as we can get this unpleasant thing out of the agenda, we can shake hands and smile in newspaper pictures again.

Ukraine asked Germany for battle tanks for the first time on March 3rd 2022. Almost a year ago, a week after the war started. The federal chancellor, who now appears as the winner of the diplomatic game, has not spared the nerves of his allies. And no Ukrainian blood. It has had time to flow in sad numbers while waiting for the Leopards.

Thirty a year ago, I supported peace so strongly that I did my civil service. I edited the Uusi Kriminaalihuolto magazine at the Prison Service training center. The center trained prison guards in our country.

I interviewed an old castle gelding for the magazine I contributed to, which had had its moulting cycle interrupted. According to the old belief, faith, AA or battery help to cut it off. Not much else. I asked a former prisoner named Keitsi if faith had led him down the wrong path. Keitsi replied: “If God exists, I’m screwed.”

It was so perfectly answered that I stole the sentence in my poetry collection. Civil service was an instructive time, but I didn’t realize that I had strengthened peace in Europe, let alone further afield. It took time to realize that there are values ​​worth defending even with a gun in hand. They are democracy, human rights and freedom of speech. They sound like obvious things only when you get to enjoy them. When they are missing, everything is missing.

Finland is a country worth defending. As well as Ukraine.

Russia scolded his German ambassador right after the Leopard decision that Germany is forgetting its history. What he meant was that since Germany committed grave crimes against humanity in the Second World War, Russia is allowed to commit them now.

The German extreme left and extreme right have also joined in the lame reasoning. They have warned tirelessly: again, German tanks will rumble eastward, just as they did in 1941 when Hitler invaded Russia.

Equating the armor of 1941 and 2023 is both stupidity and propaganda. The Leopards go east to defend Ukraine from Russia’s unjustified attack. In 1941, they set out to conquer Russia. How can you not notice this difference? No one is sending German troops there, and no one is asking.

Did Putin’s Russia stop in Eastern Ukraine? Did it stop in Crimea? Would it stop after conquering Ukraine? No, no and no.

When now I’m passionate about battle tanks, does that mean I’m no longer in favor of peace? Yes, I support it. When Russia withdraws from the territories it has conquered, including the Crimean peninsula and eastern Ukraine, and when Russia begins to compensate for the unsightly destruction it has caused, peace will emerge. I support that peace.

It differs from the peace that would follow a Russian victory. It wouldn’t even be peace. It would just be the silence after the genocide.

Correction 29.1. at 7:25 AM: Corrected a section where Hungary was incorrectly written when referring to Ukraine.

Editing 29.1. at 10:51 am: The article previously read that peace will be created when Russia withdraws to the borders that were a year ago. It was a careless error by the author. In Jari Tervo’s opinion, peace will only come when Russia has also withdrawn from Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, so the column has been changed in this regard.