‘How many people have died so far in the Ukraine invasion by Russia?’ I asked Camp, prompted by the daily reports of a ‘counter offensive’ by the Ukrainians in a war of aggression and attrition that began in 2014 with the invasion of the Crimea and on 24^th February 2022 with the occupation of parts of the Ukraine by Russian troops. 

‘Estimates go from 10’000 civilian casualties to ten times that many and up to 100’000 soldiers, many of them from the mercenary Wagner group. And counting.

‘Too many and to what end? A crazy dream by a small man who wants to be bigger than Peter or Catherine? Expansions of present-day Russia to its former USSR borders? NATO and the affected small nations will never let that happen, which means this war will go on for a long time.’

‘I’ll give you a little history lesson,’ Camp said and then launched into a lengthy lecture. ‘In 1700, Peter the Great attacked Sweden, Saxe-Poland and Denmark out of the blue. Although he was almost defeated at first, he was victorious in the end and took over large parts of Eastern Europe. A few years later, Catherine the Great got into a fight with the Turks, the Ottoman Empire (1768–1774), knocked them down and would have liked to march as far as Constantinople (Istanbul) if the British had not stopped her. Nevertheless, she won huge territories, including almost the entire northern Black Sea coast, and shortly afterwards the Crimea. Being a native German, she wanted to resurrect the old Eastern Roman Empire. She founded new cities, to which she gave Greek names such as Odessa, Kherson or Mariupol, at the center of Putin’s present war of expansion. 

When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union during operation Barbarossa, causing a bloodbath the likes of which humanity had never seen before, with about 30 million deaths on both sides, it was the Americans, who provided the Soviets with everything they needed to defend themselves against the Nazis. Let me check this,’ Camp said, pawing his smart phone. ‘Oh, here it is: In December 1941, the U.S. decided to send the Russians monthly deliveries, including: 50,000 tons of metals, chemicals, heavy metals, 20,000 tons of petroleum products, 10,000 trucks, 550 tanks, 144 fighter planes and 133 bombers, plus ten shiploads of wheat, flour and sugar. Month after month – until the end of the war, Americans gave the Russians just about everything. Stalin, also a first-class war-criminal, hardly ever paid a dollar but annexed half of Poland, the three Baltic states, Moldova, and northern Bukovina, when he was allied with Hitler. After the war he did not return one square kilometer; rather, he acquired even more territories: from Germany, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Finland and once again from Poland. Meanwhile, America, which had won the war in the first place, did not absorb a single square meter.’

‘Thanks for the update, Camp. History is an endless human drama.’

‘By the way, Russia is still the largest country in this world by far at 17 million ㎢, way larger than Canada at 10 million㎢, or China at 9.7 million㎢ or the USA at a measly 9.3 million㎢.’

While Camp was talking, I was listening and drinking. Now, caught up, he downed his mug in one go, prompting Vicky to swoop in with two cold, fresh brews, on the double.  

‘That’s service,’ Camp said admiringly and we left her a nice big tip.