Vladimir Putin has been a thorn in the side of the world for many years and he has been bullying anyone who gets in his way ever since the former idiot in chief was his personal lacky. So it's been no surprise that he has stepped up his nonsense since Joe Biden took over as President last year.
He needs to see for himself, and show the world, that he will do as he wishes with nobody able to stop him. Threats don't work. Sanctions don't work. Diplomacy doesn't work. Putin just goes on and on, laughing at the world.
The West has no idea what to do, until today.
Russia has been amassing troops along the border with Ukraine, threatening to invade and retake some, or all of the former Soviet nation. The US is convinced the attack is imminent and has been warning Putin to not cross the border. He is laughing at us.
A few weeks ago they announced that they would be holding naval exercises off the coast of Ireland and would be using live ammunition. Besides this being an area that has multiple trans-Atlantic cables on the sea floor, with Russia having already been accused of cutting cables in other parts of the world, this area is the prime fishing grounds for prawns for Irish fishermen.
The fishermen asked Russia to move their exercises somewhere else since February 1st, today, was the start of prawn season and they were going to fish these waters, no matter what the Russian navy was doing.
Russia told them they would be in danger and that they would not move the exercises. Last week diplomacy broke out. Patrick Murphy, head of the Irish South & West Fish Producers Organization met with the Russian ambassador for the region.
They both explained their positions with Murphy refusing to back down. He told Russia that they would have at least 60 trawlers at any given time right in the middle of what Russia had planned. Russia said they would be in the way and could get seriously hurt. Murphy told them tough, they weren't moving.
Murphy came out of the meeting and told the press they had gotten Russia to agree to move and Russia said, not so fast, we never agreed to that. Russia said they were still going to start firing on Thursday and the fishermen told them great, we'll be there on Tuesday fishing, see you out there.
Last night one of the most powerful nations in the world, and easily the biggest bully, announced they would be moving their naval exercise to another area of the Atlantic. 60 fishermen from Ireland accomplished what no other nation on earth has been able to accomplish. They got Putin to stand down.
Patrick Murphy said, "I didn't think that little old us would have an impact on international diplomacy. Everyone has mortgages, they have to be paid. We need to follow the fish and make a living. That's all we want to do."
Somebody put this guy in charge of the Ukraine talks, now. We've finally found the right leader to take on Putin.