They tortured,

burnt,

maimed,

killed,

stole,

and desecrated holy places.

They destroyed,

butchered and brutalised,

looted,

drank and got drunk in such

unparalleled greed and gluttony.

They violated innocent daughters of Abraham,

and sent many, unborn infants included,

to their untimely death.

They booby-trapped the dead

and buried human beings alive

celebrating this barbarity and toasting up

their glasses of Vodka to celebrate

their evil Liberation mission in Ukraine.

Having failed to accomplish their mission,

They went mad and wild like wounded lions,

shelling, shooting, bombing, and smashing

everything and every human to smithereens,

leaving mass graves of Ukrainians, they had

hurriedly buried in such despicable indignity

as they hasted to exit Kyiv with their tails between their legs

leaving behind them even their ‘yam tubers’

and eternal tears and sorrow

with dead bodies littering and scattering

everywhere and all over the place for dogs,

vultures, flies, and worms to feast upon.

Naked dead bodies of helpless children, women,

both civilians and soldiers, abandoned they in the open,

On the streets, pavements, balconies, underground,

bunkers, inside streams, rivers, and seas,

on the mountains top, hills, and valleys and on the rocks

for the excited hovering vultures anxious to fly down

from the trees to feast on the dead bodies thrown

here and there in utter disdain for humanity

and lack of self-respect and human dignity,

first, for themselves, and then their hapless victims.

Human beings like them, handcuffed they and shot

and driven over them with their tanks, grounding them to pieces,

Soulless, mindless, and heartless monsters, demons, and devils

These are what they are:

beasts revelling in wanton killings and destruction.

Here, there, mass graves!

Here, there, cars, 

towns, villages, and hamlets,

factories, supermarkets, and retail parks

reduced to rubble by their missiles and bombs.

Here, there, destroyed,

libraries, learning centres,

schools, colleges, and the universities.

Here, there, destroyed museums and cultural centres,

Here, there, mass graves -

some uncovered and others bagged in body bags,

still others just left open, utterly abandoned

and human beings to them, just as flies

in the hands of “wanton boys”,

as these heartless butchers emptied and ravaged

every bank, ransacking every sacred place

and violating even the dead for their scopophilic pleasure.

Even ISIS would have been circumspect and showed humanity,

O Russians, is this civility?

Is this “Liberation” indeed?

Is this “Special Operation?”

Is this humanity?

Is this civilization?

Is this sophistication?

Is this loving your neighbour as yourself?

Is this denazification?

And is this de-westernization?

Judge you Putin, you despicable cannibal,

And Kirill too, crassly insensate priest on old Jericho Road!

But wouldn’t a great nation have said: NOT IN OUR NAME,

This is your war, Vlad?

 - JOHN ODEY ADUMA

*British Chevening Scholar and Author of the Bestseller, “Be a Beacon of Hope in the World: A Message to Young Britain”.

Written on April 4, 2022: started on the train at Theobalds Grove Station Platform and completed at White Hart Lane Station.