Strawberries ripen in June…

Everything has a season.

If the intention is to take advantage of its opportunity the need is to be ready and equipped to go when that season arrives so that its fruit can be harvested.

Unfortunately what is true of fruit is equally true of war.

It is a lesson learned hard by Ukraine last summer and one that is now imposing huge cost up on its forces, people and infrastructure.

It is also a lesson and truism to be understood by Ukraine’s supporters who must stand willing to accept the blame for Ukraine's current situation as it was their failure to deliver the weight and nature of arms and the associated support necessary to deliver a Ukrainian success, at the time when success was offered, that resulted in the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 offensive and the consequential resurgence of Putin's aggression.

History has for millennia shown that the fighting season on the central European plain - the geography that encompasses modern day eastern Ukraine - is summer. June to September. Be it Mongol horsemen, the tanks of the Third Riche or, current day armies the season is the season. Like strawberries leave it too late and the result is spoil and loss. This begs a question – is the intention of western leaders that Ukraine fails? That it is fed just enough to hang on? That it is to hold what it has rather than recover what it had?

Is there an unspoken intention too worrisome to articulate - to "use" the blood and treasure of Ukraine to wear down the Russian bear and ultimately force a sue for a peace of kinds that satisfies no one but removes Putin's ambitions from the global chess board, or are we seeing once more how the western nations simply lack the understanding, appetite and endurance needed to deliver decisive action capable of delivering long term stability and security from a decisive victory?

Who actually thought giving Russia six months grace to do the only thing they are good at - to build a defensive line in depth, zero all ground for its artillery to dominate and build its stocks of ammunition, equipment and men, was a good idea?

Which NATO member would commit its own forces in this way and then advance without air superiority into the cauldron of hot steel that they had ceded time to bring to heat?

Which leader will take responsibility for this, and which members of the US Congress and Senate actually understand the human cost of their election year domestic game playing? Indeed how many of these leaders and political actors actually can put a pin in the line of conflict in the Donbas at say Avdiivka or Bakhmut?, or actually visualise and absorb what the human toll of their actions and inactions has been and continues to be?

If the answer is none – then they are simply culpable. If any can then they are to be doubly cursed for their contempt for the lives expensed in furtherance of their calculations.

There is a difference between strawberries and war going out of season – strawberries simply wilt and decompose to return their nutrient value to the earth but the plant lives on to reappear and produce strawberries again the following year. People just die and the dead do not return.

Our political leaders should understand this - History and Ukraine do