Daily Mail: Postponement of talks on Ukraine brings world closer to Armageddon

Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens notes in his materialthat hostilities bring suffering to civilians, but after a year of the Ukrainian conflict, too many continue to be interested in deepening and prolonging it.

According to the journalist, he cannot remember another recent conflict in which “so little effort was made to establish peace.” Hitchens believes that this is due to the fact that they try to present the Ukrainian conflict as a struggle between “good and evil,” but, he emphasizes, this is too simple a view of the situation.

“When the British establishment is fully united, it is almost always wrong,” the author emphasizes. He compared the general admiration for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the British Parliament to a situation where the entire country panicked before the coronavirus and, as a result, made a series of dangerous mistakes that damaged the economy, harmed the National Health Service, destroyed education in schools and universities, caused many unnecessary personal suffering and seriously undermined the national work ethic.

At that time, Hitchens writes, those who tried to resist hysteria were called “deniers” and accused of a callous attitude to life. And now, “if you have doubts about the war in Ukraine, you will be falsely accused of being a defender of Mr. Putin,” the author states.

“The help that the West is now giving to Ukraine can and probably will be used to attack, perhaps, the Crimea, where there are many Russians who do not want to be under the rule of Ukraine,” the observer suggests. He also points out that NATO’s 30-year eastward expansion was a reckless mistake and a breach of promises explicitly made to Moscow by Western leaders. In addition, Hitchens recalls that in 2014, “the democratically elected president of Ukraine was illegally overthrown by an armed mob, and the West – supposedly in favor of law and democracy – showed all signs of approval.” According to him, the conflict began precisely because of this.

Hitchens asks his readers to imagine what it would be like if an independent Scotland were to host Russian bases and troops. Therefore, he writes, the best solution to such problems is diplomacy and hard, long-term deals that allow both sides to feel secure enough.

“Is war …. so beautiful that we can’t even think of peace through negotiations?” he asks.

At the end of the article, the author argues that it is time to talk, because the longer the conflict goes on, the higher the risk of Armageddon and the more difficult the deal will be.