Wise people have told us over and over again:

“The first casualty of war is the truth.”

Another wisdom to which General Eisenhower contributed by asserting planning is essential while proposing that plans are useless is:

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

As it happens, the truth was gravely wounded long before the tanks rolled into the separatist backed regions of eastern Ukraine for “peace keeping” operations, and word from Ukraine suggests more resistance to the Russians than Moscow is thought to have expected. So it seems the two theories are holding.

Sadly, a truth that will not be a casualty is the tragic loss of lives and limbs the Russian invasion of Ukraine will cause; and no amount of planning will take away the pain that will come with that.

© Othame Kabia