Lamenting an old England disappearing under modernity, Philip Larkin wrote in his poem Going, Going: 

Most things are never meant.

The irony of unintended consequences has manifested sharply over the past week, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has seemingly brought about the obverse of what was feared and predicted by most. 

When Putin unleashed his troops into Ukraine for a mélange of increasingly mendacious justifications awash with the stamp of the low hypocrite (such as that he was trying to de-Nazify Ukraine – a country whose President is Jewish and whose first Prime Minister was Jewish), most thought that Ukraine would collapse quicker than...