The terrible year of 2022
The terrible year of 2022
A year defined by the little person in the kremlin's genocidal war against Ukraine
Spoiler: 2022 was the year when the psychopath in kremlin, aka putin, decided to launch a full-scale genocidal war against the Ukrainian people. He launched a Tsunami of war crimes against Ukrainians. On his direct order, mass murder, gang rapes, torture and mass deportations are systematically carried out in his attempt to get Ukraine without Ukrainians.
Together with other dictators and autocrats, the little psychopath is part of the alliance against democracy and freedom. Only eight per cent of the world population live in full democracies according to the Economist.
The psychopath’s genocidal war against Ukraine contributed to increasing inflation around the world. In Sweden, inflations increased to levels unfelt for 30 years. Sweden also experienced an increasing number of shootings.
2022 was an exceptionally bad year. It was dominated by the little psychopath’s genocidal war against Ukraine. The war also contributed to higher inflation, poverty, mal-nutrition, and famine. We don’t yet know the scale of these problems since official statistics are not yet updated.
A blog post can’t give a full account of all the bad things that happened in 2022. The world kept getting warmer, and as a result, natural disaster were more common hurting more people on average. The impacts of the Corona crisis on poverty, inequality, and health are not yet fully recorded in official statistics for 2022. A not too wild guess is that these indicators show a deterioration of overall living conditions. If I remember, I will come back to those topics when more data is available for 2022.
But we have loads and loads on evidence of the kremlin’s genocidal war against Ukraine.
Genocide in Ukraine
On 24 February, the little psychopath in the kremlin, launched the full-scale invasion and unleashed his genocidal war against the Ukrainian people. They were under direct orders from him to search, find, and murder anyone who could resist his invasion. The United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other humanitarian rights organisations have together with criminal investigators from many countries documented the atrocities by the orcs. The massacres in Bucha, Borodianka, Irpin, Izium, Mariupol, and more places
Numbers cannot give in any way give a correct description of the horrors that Ukrainians have been subject to. To make sure that Ukrainian voices are heard, the Conflict observatory, Svidok.org and other organisations document the war crimes. Svidok’s web site is a place for Ukrainian voices. On its web site, Ukrainians share their experiences and evidences of the invaders’ crimes.
But numbers can give you an idea of the scale of the war crimes. Below is a list of confirmed war crimes between 24 February and 31 December. The list does not include the war crimes committed by the little dictator’s orcs in Mariupol where large parts of the city was levelled by the russian invaders. We won’t know how many Ukrainians that were murdered in Mariupol until it’s liberated by Ukraine, the satellite pictures and witness reports indicate that the number of murdered civilians in Mariupol will increase the number below by between 20,000 and 50,000.
Confirmed cases of muscovite war crimes in 2022:
16, 502 murdered civilian Ukrainians
21 discovered mass graves
54 discovered torture chambers
5,079 reported cases of torture
855 reported cases of war crimes against children
14,870 air raid sirens across Ukraine
3,126/337 shelled/destroyed education institutions.
> 1,000,000 (11,000) Ukrainians (Ukrainian children) forced to filtration.
5,000,000/7,900,000 number of internally displaced Ukrainians/Ukrainian refugees.
This is as you understand not an exhaustive list. It underestimates the war crimes. A particularly horrifying type of war crime is rape. We will never know how many Ukrainian children, women and men that were gang raped by russian troops. The true number of rapes will never be known and will be underreported for years to come because rape is a very traumatic experience and cruel as many women feel shame even though they are victims.
Pramila Patten, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, called that only the “tip of the iceberg” of “the most constantly and massively underreported allegation.
putin’s war increases poverty
As I wrote in this post, putin’s war against Ukraine led to decreased supplies of several goods which Ukraine and Russia exports. Price hikes of oil and gas were followed by decreased supply and higher prices of wheat, sunflower oil, fertilizers, and steel to mention some of the most important goods. The world became poorer, and the poorest people were hit hardest by putin.
The effects were stronger in continents and countries with a relatively large share of poor households. More families have become poor. But the effects will reach further. Increased poverty is associated with less nutrition, shorter life expectance and higher natal mortality numbers. putin kills people today and in the future. In addition to that, his war will lead to fewer births.
Thankfully, and not thanks to putin but to globalisation, well-functioning markets and policies implemented by civilised countries, food and energy prices have decreased and inflation is easing. Nevertheless, global energy price inflation has not been so high since the 70’s, c.f. Figure 1.
Figure 1. Global inflation of consumer, energy, and food prices.
putin’s efforts to use energy as a weapon has failed. European gas prices have decreased below the levels of 24 February, due to decreased consumption and a shift of supply sources from muscovy to non-fascist countries. Also, European gas storages are higher than expected when the psychopath in the kremlin launched his full-scale war.
Democracy stalled and corruption grew.
Democracy continues to face hard resistance in many parts of the world. According to the Economist Democracy Index, it has been declining since 2006. In 2022, only 8% of the World’s population live in full democracies. The number of full democracies increased by three countries, flawed democracies decreased by five countries, hybrid regimes increased by two, and authoritarian regimes remained constant at 59 countries, c.f. Table 1
Table 1. The Economist Democracy Index 2022
The only region showing some improvements since 2021, is Western Europe. The Economist uses five categories to assess the state of democracy in countries. Conditions for Functioning of the Government, and Civil Liberties made up for the largest improvements in Western Europe.
Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy also publish annual reports on the state of democracy in the world. They have not yet published their reports for 2022. Their previous reports were more pessimistic than the Economist’s report and I fear that, when they publish their reports for 2022, their assessments will be even more pessimistic.
Conditions for freedom of the press and rule of law are better in democracies. In countries where these are absent or under pressure, corruption is stronger. Corruption is therefore stronger in countries with autocratic regimes than in democracies which I showed in this post from which I copied the figure below, c.f. Figure 2.
Figure 2 Democracy vs corruption over two decades.
Source: V-Dem, http://www.v-dem.net/en & Transparency International, https://www.transparency.org/en/publications/corruption-perceptions-index-2020
The 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows that most countries are failing to stop corruption. Even though Western Europe/EU is still the least corrupt region, corruption grows in Austria, Luxembourg, and the UK. And overall, corruption grows stronger, c.f. Figure 3.
Figure 3. Corruption in the World 2021-2022.
Transparency International’s report confirms that countries with strong institutions and well-functioning democracies are less corrupt than countries where political freedoms are oppressed.
Increasing inflation and shootings in Sweden
It’s been a bad year back home too. The little psychopath’s genocidal war against Ukraine contributed to the increasing inflation which was mostly fuelled the increasing demand and strained supply chains after the Covid crises. The inflation rate in Sweden, adjusted for energy prices, accounts for most of the inflation, c.f. Figure 4.
Figure 4. Inflation in Sweden. 12-months percentage changes.
Things got heated in other more deadly ways too. Last year witnessed a record high number of shootings in Sweden. Gangsters not only shot each other but in some cases, children got in the way of the gangsters’ bullets, c.f. Figure 5.
Figure 5. Total number of shootings, deceased, and injured caused by shootings in Sweden 2020-2022.
Will 2023 be better?
It will only be better if the little psychopath and his orcs are decidedly defeated. The future of peace in Europe will depend on if muscovy is de-imperialised and de-colonised or not.
But first, the orcs need to be pushed out of Ukraine. And that is easier eachieved when we