Ukraine invasion: What can the west really do to stop the Russian invasion

The song is generally recognised as a response to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and a reflection of the growing tension around that period, although Dylan – always reluctant to be specific about the meaning of his work – has denied it is a direct comment on that threat.

Whether the “hard rain” of the title refers to the radioactive fall-out expected if one of the two global superpowers actually did press the nuclear button, or to a more general disaster on the horizon, the song captures perfectly the era’s deep sense of dread and the desperation of a headlong rush to express itself before time runs out.

I was too young to pick up on the widespread fears and unease at the time of the crisis itself, but I grew up as the Cold War encouraged a deep suspicion that Russia was preparing secret plans which would ultimately bring humanity to the brink of destruction. I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, which seemed to signal the end – or at least the beginning of the end – of those days of a mutual lack of trust and expectations of an imminent disaster.

I remember the collapse of the Soviet Union. I remember Glasnost, the seeds of which were sown in 1965 with a rally now seen as the birth of the civil rights movement in the Soviet Union but which came to full flower in the late 1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev was in power and began a journey towards a form of social democracy which never reached its destination.

I remember the optimism of developments which were supposed to signal a new age of mutual respect and co-operation, an age of peace and stability during which the previously ever-present threat of nuclear conflagration would recede.

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All these dreams are revealed as ludicrous now, as the world is once again on the brink of an unimaginable tragedy brought about by the actions of a mad despot determined to rebuild a faded empire while he still has the power to try.

Like many, I thought Putin was bluffing with his threats against Ukraine. I regarded his threats as negotiating tactics. In the early days of his moves against his neighbour – the days before aggressive noises turned into outright war – I listened as analyst after expert analyst described the Russian president as a cautious man not given to risky gambles. He would never act so recklessly as to stage an invasion which was so clearly destined to end in years of insurgency and street fighting. Quite why such analysis proved so dramatically wrong is not yet clear.

I suspect that analysis was correct at one time but something has changed in Putin himself. Perhaps Covid isolation has distorted his sense of reality. Perhaps all those years of absolute power have left him believing in his “divine” right to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to do it.

Whatever the reason, he has clearly stopped thinking rationally, which would make him a dangerous and unpredictable foe even before you add nuclear weapons into the terrifying and toxic mix.

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Like most people, I don’t know enough about the geopolitical landscape to untangle all the issues at play in the current crisis. In his National column yesterday, my colleague David Pratt warned of the dangers of onlookers acting as armchair generals. Wise words, and I’m sure I’m not alone in catching myself in conversations about the best tactics to employ to disrupt the huge convoy of Russian tanks heading for Kyiv.

I’m happy to admit to having had just one fight in my life and that would be best described as a slapfest in a playground. Why on earth I thought I had anything to contribute to a discussion on military tactics, I cannot begin to guess.

The truth is, I have no clue how to stop Putin, although stop him we must. I don’t know which sanctions will be most effective and which will have little effect. You could write a book on what I don’t know about the perilous situation in which we find ourselves and I suspect most of us are in exactly the same position.

But I do know that over the past week, we have seen acts of heroism which have been awe-inspiring. Ukrainians putting their lives on the line to fight for their country and protect the people they love. Russians taking to the streets to protest at the war, knowing all too well the risks they face. Journalists on the front line working in difficult and dangerous conditions to tell the world what is happening.

We have seen volunteers leave the comfort and safety of their homes in Britain and beyond to go to the Ukraine to help, in some cases by taking up arms in others by helping those caught up in the fighting.

We have seen immense suffering inflicted on innocent people because of the crazed ambitions of one man. And that suffering increases in intensity with every passing day as Putin relentlessly piles on the pressure. We have seen young Russians caught up in a conflict they don’t understand, forced to fight when they thought they were going on a training exercise. They are victims too.

And I’m left wondering about my own personal response to this war and whether I’m doing enough, or even whether it is possible to do enough. I’m from the generation whose parents lived through the Second World War and fought against fascism and the horrors of Hitler’s Nazis. In comparison, we had it easy and I’ve often wondered how I would have reacted to the situation. I would certainly have been in favour of an armed response to the evils of Hitler, but that’s easy to say when you’re not being called upon to actually fight, or to see your loved ones called upon to fight.

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I’m too old to be much use on a battlefield, but my children are not. The thought of them being involved in an armed conflict in a faraway land chills my blood. The possibility of the introduction of a draft may remain remote, but the fact that so many of us are reflecting on such a development is evidence of how serious the current situation is.

But if we are a long way from sending civilians to the battlefield, what would an appropriate response look like? The financial sanctions so far introduced will certainly help but feel somehow inadequate in the context of bombs dropping on the innocent. Putin’s ambitions have so little to do with money and his stranglehold on Russia surely makes a mass uprising against him hard to imagine. His actions are so devoid of rationale that it’s hard to imagine financial pressure forcing him to change course. We’ll be affected by those sanctions too, of course, most obviously by higher fuel bills given how much we have relied on Russian oil.

For those of us not already having to choose between paying rising heating bills and putting food on the table, further fuel price rises seem a price worth paying if that really does damage Putin’s war machine. But can we rely on the Westminster government to adequately protect those who can’t really afford heating bills to soar even higher? There are huge questions over a Westminster response which has so far shown a lack of humanity in its treatment of Ukrainians seeking a safe haven in the UK and Tory reluctance to take proper action against Russian oligarchs to whom they have financial ties.

Boris Johnson and his underlings seem less than qualified to find the moral authority to put together a coherent and justified response to the crisis. The dreadful situation in the Ukraine is every day throwing up new questions about how we have constructed our world and about how we properly react to naked acts of aggression such as those we are seeing from the Russian president.

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These are big questions we struggle to answer in the face of Putin’s inhumanity. There are some actions which seem imperative. We surely need – finally – to rid the world of nuclear weapons. It is surely inconceivable to allow despots to be able to possess the means to end humanity. There is no justification for such stupidity in a world capable of producing Putin.

I write on the same day news broke of the Russian bombing of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial in Kyiv. The news stunned the Ukraine’s heroic President Zelensky when he was told during a television interview. Even in the light of Putin’s barbaric attacks, he seemed beyond words. In truth, there are no words for the events unfolding in front of our eyes and no response which feels adequate.

Besides Dylan’s Hard Rain, I’m not listening to much music these days. It seems somehow inappropriate to seek enjoyment in the face of such tragedy not so very far away. Putin’s war has not gone the way he wanted, but still I fear for the people of the Ukraine as the bombardments continue. I fear for their fate and that of their president.

The Russian president is out of control and capable of anything as reasonable people struggle to formulate a response. But find a response we must.