OH comes from a Polish background. He doesnāt find that funny!
I think it is meant to be a comment on what is going on in Ukraine.
I realise Mark, but it could equally well be Poland. The Poles are paranoid that they will be walked over either by the Russians or the Germans. Thereās not much to stop them.
Article 5 should keep Putin out else whatās the point of collective defence. My wife is Polish. Sheās not concerned at all about Germany.
Something to do with the British, Americans and the French having a few tanks parked in Der Vaterland to stop the Hermans getting any funny ideas?
I think it could be may countries historically.
My view is that a sovereign state should be able to choose their own friends & although your neighbouring country might not like it, it does not give them the right to invade them.
The one cartoon makes that point well.
There was an interesting statement from Putin the other day, whose essence was he was not going to let the āUS push him into a warā.
Perhaps heās realised what he planned isnāt going to end well, or alternatively heās successfully deflected local attention from his governmentās Covid failures and the fact that Russia is a basket case. I think Western diplomats will play along with this and give him space to back down without any apparent loss of face to his domestic audience.
On a rather more trivial level, Iāve always been sympathetic to the Ukraine if only because half the kids in my primary school class were from Ukrainian or Polish families with amazingly complicated names that must have been a teacherās nightmare (and wouldnāt have been allowed in France at that time). The rest of my class was Irish with just one Italian and a Franco-American Hungarian (moi!)
But itās also important to understand that this is complicated by history. Much of the instability and conflict in former colonies (eg. the ātroublesā in Northern Ireland) is around foreign imposition of artificial borders.
Many Russians donāt really believe that Ukraine is a āsovereign stateā to begin with, just as many irish people donāt think the āsix countiesā are really a separate entity. They just donāt acknowledge the borders.
Ukraine didnāt really exist as any kind of separate entity until very recently - the territory was part of other countries/empires. What is now Eastern Ukraine, especially, was clearly a part of Russia from the 17th century, then of the Soviet Union (and it was only in this context that itās present borders were formed - leaving aside the Crimea question!). Then itās important to recognise that the Soviet Union collapsed via an illegal process. There was, within the Soviet constitution, a legal mechanism for ārepublicsā to withdraw from the union, but this was not followed. It was a situation rather like the recent Catalan conflict. Or imagine Scotland not following the consitutional procedures and simply declaring independence. I wonder how English people would view that? Many, I bet, would argue that such an independence was not legitimate.
(This was, by the way, why Gorbachev was embarrassingly sidelined by Yeltsin et al - he found himself head of what had been the country, from which most of its constituent parts suddenly declared independence.)
As always, itās compromise rather than posturing that will resolve the issue - the west has to acknowledge that the Ukraine that emerged in the 1990s, via a process outside its own law at the time, is questionable; Russia has to acknowledge that most Ukrainians (at least in its western half) want independence, see themselves very much as Europeans - and indeed ultimately, probably, would join the EU.
It is a light hearted take on a very serious problem.
I appreciate that Jane. And no doubt OH would in fact have a wry smile, but probably no more than that.
His background means that he is steeped in Polish history. His grandmother was there to greet Paderewski when he came back to take up the role of Prime Minister to the newly formed Second Polish Republic in 1919. There was a time when Poland was one of the most powerful countries in Europe but from 1795 to 1918 Poland effectively ceased to exist due to invasion from Russia, the then Kingdom of Prussia and the Hapsburgs. So Poland knows all too well how easy it is for its neighbours to move fences.
That was all my comment was intended to say.
There was a well established Polish community in Lancaster and several girls of Polish background at my school.
I saw the cartoon and it struck a chord with local happenings, last yearā¦ so I chuckled.
Two neighbours chatting in their respective ābackyardsā (and theyāre both my friends)
Well, if you donāt want to do anything with that bit of land over thereā¦ why donāt I just move our fence line a bit furtherā¦???
To one it seemed to be a good thingā¦ to the other it was totally unacceptable.
and neither could make the other understand their own point of viewā¦
(I have no wish to offend anyone, this is simply my own reactionā¦ a chuckle.
Obviously, political stuff is not funnyā¦)
My OHās uncle as a teenager was shot by the Germans. My OHās parents came out of Poland as the Russians moved in. His mother was hidden in a truck covered by canvas, so full of people that all they could do was stand as for hours the truck weaved its way across country trying to evade detection.
When they finally reached the UK his parents slept in a tent as refugees during the severe winter of 1946/7.
This was the history he grew up with. In many ways he is more British than I am, but his psyche and his emotional context is deeply, profoundly Polish. When I first met him and visited his flat I couldnāt believe the amount of tinned food he had. These days we joke about his tendency to hoard āin case the Germans invadeā or āin case the Russians invadeā. I think it is difficult for an island race (or indeed the people of somewhere like Switzerland protected by their mountains) to understand what it is like to have such fluid boundaries that are no more than a river that can be forded or a field that can be walked across.
My fathers family fled the Russians entering eastern Germany at the end of the WWII, travelling back to Vienna, and spent 2 weeks on a train returning. When ever we were getting ready to leave home, my father ALWAYS had to go to the toilet - I think it was the memory of never knowing when the next opportunity might be.
As you say, thereās generally a security that comes from living on an island, especially if one is from the dominant (English) race.
Really? REALLY? And the Beano is literature I suppose 
Damn right it is and the Dandy and dont forget the Hotspur. 
This pic would be more applicable to the UK: Folkland Islands, Gibraltar, Bahamas, Caymans, Bermudas, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and hundreds of other lands/islands taken from its native inhabitants. Russia never attacks first. Napoleon and Hitler used the Ukrainian corridor to invade Russia and that is why Ukraine is so important for NATO (read UK/US) because they want Russiaās natural resources and its vast territory. Itās not about Ukraine. Itās all about Russia. So, your pic does not stand here. Sorry.
Are you Russian or Ukrainian yourself Olga? - or perhaps your forebears?
The former surely.