Ukraine Rapprochement

The German Chancellor and the President of Russia are due to meet shortly in Minsk. Let us hope that they can find a settlement to the Ukrainian civil war.

What is wrong with we Europeans? This is the 100th anniversary of the the beginning of World War 1: millions of Germans, French, British and Russians died. The first world War lead directly to the second World War when untold millions died again. Millions of Russian, Ukrainian and Germans perished and most of them were civilians.

Europe has been the most barbaric continent when it comes to war. We have nothing to be proud of in this respect.

Two thousand civilians have been killed in the Ukrainian civil war so far and hundreds of thousands of have been displaced. We should be ashamed ourselves to allow this to happen. The loss of life on both sides is too costly for the war to be allowed to continue.

Eventually there has to be a settlement so why not achieve it immediately?

The Ukrainian government is committing $3 billion to finance the war. This is money it does not have. This is money that should be better spent on repairing the infra-structure of the whole nation. Soon the people of the Ukraine will live in a country, divided or otherwise, which is saddled with intolerable debts.

The Crimea is lost to the Ukraine and Western influence, so why not accept the situation? There is a solution which can be found  for the rest of the Ukraine and that is in a confederation.

When peace finally arrives the European Union, Russia and the US will have to show some generosity to help rebuild the whole state. There is no reason why there cannot be free trade and movement of people between the peoples of the Ukraine, the EU and Russia; this is better than war and will ultimately benefit everyone.

The Ukraine and Russia used to be close friends; why not start the process of rapprochement?

Sometimes I despair for the human species, for if we carry on like this there is probably no hope for us and we shall end our brief appearance on the planet in another horrible World War. Remember, we now have nuclear weapons too.

There is no need to plan for a famine, climate change or an asteroid to end our existence; we are perfectly capable of destroying ourselves because we cannot use reason to control our actions.