HERE is the sad and dishonourable truth.

At the Budapest Convention, Europe promised Ukraine that they would protect their borders if they agreed to give up their nuclear weapons, which they did. In 2014 the insurgency from Russia started on Ukraine’s eastern borders.

In those eight years Ukraine has fought this insurgency and repeatedly requested Europe to place sanctions on Russia to avoid further incursion, which over the years has been ignored. Had Europe intervened then, we may not have been put in this worldwide intolerable position now. This gross neglect, dishonour and shameful ignorance has now put the whole world in peril. We now have the most ‘hated inhumane terrorist’ on the planet holding us all to ransom under threat of a nuclear war if anyone intervenes in any way.

As the horror unfolds in Ukraine we also come to realise that the main reason for Europe’s hesitancy is not just based on the threat of a nuclear war, but on decades of Russian investments and laundered money now embedded in our financial markets, particularly in the UK.

This is the ‘kleptocratic cycle’ (in other words Tax Shelters) described by Kuper in the ‘i’ ( March 5) who himself quotes Bullough which basically means to “steal, hide and spend”. The Conservative Party sanctions on Russia fall way behind those of the EU, simply because they have relied upon this dirty money for decades. You could even argue that Europe has been ‘lured by greed and the want of governance and power’ into these dirty financial markets, as part of Putin’s plan to wage his indiscriminate war on the peaceful Nation of Ukraine. Europe then is deeply ‘complicit’ in this war and continues to be, until it has the decency not just to cut the gas and oil pipeline into Europe from Russia, but to apologise for its utterly contemptable ignorance for not intervening in 2014.

Yet again, we are witnessing ‘genocide’ of a nation that has been at peace for 30 years and we are not doing anywhere near enough to stop this - always on the back foot, always too little, always too embarrassingly late. We watch on in horror as Ukraine pays the human price in our ‘delusional’ belief that their military can hold the fort alone and keep the Russian force away from our borders. Personally, I will forever be ashamed of that and remain deeply saddened that we didn’t come ‘together in unity’ to protect our neighbours when we were initially called to do so.

The response of every day folk, charities and support agencies has been heart-warming and has brought about a sense of ‘unity of community’, but it can never be enough. We are merely ‘picking up the pieces’ of a terrible catastrophe. My heart goes out to every single person suffering over what is happening in Ukraine. Such a heroic, strong, peaceful, friendly nation being put to ruin.

‘War is a crime against humanity’ and those that incite this are ‘terrorists’. End of!

 

Linda J. Fox

Skipton