Thanks Viv Forbes for the article- interesting point about the bisection of The Ukraine.

«Australia has no vital interests in Ukraine and should not get embroiled in a messy foreign family quarrel.»

But we do!

We must show China that the relatively-free world is not going to crumble divided and conquered, that we stand together, that when a large country tries to conquer a smaller country of relatively-free people, either they will fail or the price of conquest will be so high that they will regret it for generations to come.

It is in Ukraine that we defend our own borders rather than waiting passively for the war to arrive at our own shores.

Viv,
>What is happening in Ukraine today is absolutely awful, but it will not be helped by sending more weapons.
We don't know that!
Sending more weapons will almost certainly help turn Russian public opinion against the war. It may help Ukraine win the war. And it will also help deter China from invading Taiwan.

The more weapons we send to Ukraine now, the less we will have to spend on weapons in the future.

>partition may be the only humane way of bringing peace to Ukraine
Considering how dismally that policy's failed almost everywhere else, I think it is safe to say that statement is false. Whenever a country is partitioned, there will always be people on one side (and often on both sides) who want to reclaim the other half.

>As Ted Dwyer says "Australia now has a target on its back".
That makes no sense. Australia's jus tone member of a large alliance of countries trying to deter warmongering. If Australia were developing nuclear weapons, that would put a target on Australia's back - but we aren't and never will.

>We cannot help the military mess in Ukraine,
We can and are, despite your opposition to doing so.

>and have destroyed our possible value there as an impartial mediator.
There were people who wanted America to be an impartial mediator n the Falklands War. Were you among their number?

>And unless we dump Net Zero Nonsense, we will soon be defenceless in a hostile world.
It's time for you to drop your net zero nonsense! Net zero is a sensible policy and there's nothing worth doing that it's incompatible with.

It may help Ukraine win the war. And it will also help deter China from invading Taiwan.
Aidan,
It's way too late to think along those lines. Ukraine will never again be on Russia's side even if they get annexed again. And China ? Forget about swaying their policies !
Westerners have had long enough now to show how greed, fostered by nil responsibility can make people stupid & useless !

Indy,
>It's way too late to think along those lines.
Says who? It was predicted at the beginning of the war that Ukraine would quickly capitulate. It didn't and Russia gave up trying to take over the whole country. Now we see Russia very slowly advancing and Ukraine counterattacking, so a Ukrainian victory is just as likely as a Russian one.

>And China ? Forget about swaying their policies !
Despite appearances, China's leader isn't actually a bear of very little brain. He's certainly smart enough to avoid battles he doesn't think he can win.

>Westerners have had long enough now to show how greed, fostered by nil
>responsibility can make people stupid & useless !
So why are you advocating going with greed instead of taking responsibility?

Viv’s article is full of red herrings and half-truths. Yes, Ukraine has been invaded, assimilated, reformed and restructured many times over the centuries. So has most of Europe. That provides zero justification for Russia’s invasion now.

And yes, there has been a virtual civil was in Ukraine for many years. That’s predominantly because Russia has supplied the money, equipment and sometimes personnel to prosecute the fight.

If Viv is correct that “there are only two possible solutions – total defeat of one side, or separation of the warring parties” then surely the least-bad outcome is total defeat of Russia. While this may be harder than some western optimists believe, the “resistance is futile” line parroted by Putin’s apologists may still prove wrong. Russia’s military have been a lot less effective than many had feared, and with Western support may be drive back. It’s interesting that today’s news reports that Russia has withdrawn from Snake Island because it is in range of weapons supplied by Ukraine’s western supporters.

It seems that Europe is waking up to the fact that its comparative peace of the past 70+ years cannot be taken for granted. If we are moving into an era of a new cold war type conflict between western-style democracies and a Chinese-Russian led alliance of lawless autocracies, Australia cannot and will not sit on the sidelines. What happens in Ukraine and Europe will be watched very closely by China as a pointer to how the USA and the west might respond to its plans for Taiwan and the South China Sea, and its broader ambitions for more global influence and control. So Ukraine may be a long way from Australia, but the outcome of the conflict could matter very much to us.