Chris

None of Ukraine’s difficulties over the past 20 years compare to being invaded by a despot and having their civilian population raped and then shot dead.

‘Putin the Russian nationalist with justifiable concerns that must be taken account of’ is the line the FSB has been dripping in to western media for years, precisely so that we would be minded to let him get on with it. The view you’re expressing is perilously close to Neville Chamberlain’s argument that it was reasonable for Hitler to invade the Sudetenland (which was sovereign Czechoslovakian territory) because its inhabitants were German-speaking.

Hitler took Chamberlain’s appeasement for the weakness that it was, and he therefore didn’t stop with the Sudetenland. Chamberlain ultimately only declared war because the UK was treaty-bound to come to Poland’s aid, and he continued to argue for a negotiated peace with Hitler until after Dunkirk, by which time Churchill was PM and insisting on continuing the fight (and Chamberlain was at death’s door with cancer).

Decades of accommodating Putin’s world view has brought us here. Ukraine is a sovereign, independent country, recognised by the United Nations and not under censure by any resolution. There really are not two sides to this - Russia’s ‘side’ is a chimera, the work of years of propaganda aimed at people who like to think they’re free thinking and even handed.

Don’t do the FSB’s work for it.