Sergey Lavrov will get his comeuppance, along with Vladimir Putin

Sergey Lavrov is looking more and more like his sombre-faced Cold War predecessor as Russian foreign minister, the Nyet man Andrei Gromyko. Sour-mouthed, heavy cheeks, and lying whenever he opened his lips to speak, Lavrov had the cheek today to announce to the world in a press conference after his abortive meeting with the Ukrainian foreign minister in Turkey that Russia would withstand all the West's sanctions and would come out even better because there would be no reliance on anything to do with the West. He probably had McDonald's in mind. What a dreadful man he has become, Russia's top non-diplomat. All he did during the meeting in Turkey was repeat endlessly the demands of his boss, Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine should disarm, become neutral and give up any idea of joining Nato. In fact President Zelensky of Ukraine has already indicated that he will probably not pursue alliance membership for his country, partly through being disillusioned by Nato's refusal to fight by his troops'side. But Lavrov is either behind the times or is not satisfied with Zelenksy's musings. Lavrov is the ultimate Putin poodle official, once a man with a sense of humour but no longer. He has become rock-solid Putinised. When asked about the Russian bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol in which three people including a child were killed and 17 injured, Lavrov merely replied that the hospital was full of Ukrainian troops. That old excuse for barbarity. Well, when this is all over, one way or the other, Lavrov will get his comeuppance. So, too, Putin. They cannot be allowed to win any sort of victory in Ukraine or to enjoy the fruits of their murderous invasion. Just the thought of seeing Putin's blotched face at The Hague war crimes tribunal with smudge-faced Lavrov standing next to him gives me hope for the future. As we have learned so many times in history, evil cannot be allowed to go unpunished.