"Vladimir will never give up Crimea - everybody knows that, so it's worth considering letting him keep it if it saves lives - too many have been lost already."So how would you feel if he invaded Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Poland, Moldova ? He is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire at its greatest extent, and if he is allowed to keep some or all of Ukraine then he will simply rebuild his forces before having a crack at his next target. After WW2 Russia added Konigsberg (and re-named it Kaliningrad), Karelia and the Kurile Islands to its territory, without any justification other than "might is right", and has been responsible for the loss of many lives when it tried to take over Afghanistan, and in its imperial possessions like Chechnya and Dagestan, and in its client state Syria. Muscovy would be better off accepting that the era of multi-cultural empires has passed, and trying to work peaceably with its former territories. It was only the threat from Moscow that made Ukraine even consider joining NATO and the EU, (and that after they had voluntarily given up their nuclear weapons in response to a guarantee of their territorial integrity that Russia was a party to) and it was Russia's aggression in invading Ukraine that caused both Finland and Sweden to join NATO. The sooner Putin dies or is overthrown and replaced by someone more in tune with the 21st Century, the better. Under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the West welcomed Russia to the family of nations. Under Putin they have returned to being outcasts desperate for friendship with the likes of North Korea.
Richard Greenhough ● 236d