Jules Evans, pretty decent account and your own experiences in Russia are interesting.

Yes, we don't want to make WWIII of this but at the same time back Ukraine as much as we possibly can. Even Russia -- as weird as that sounds.

To me, this exposes our poor relationship with China. Xi Jinping could be enormously helpful now should he choose to be -- and, that may not be completely impossible. We have everything to gain by real effort in that seemly unlikely direction. Unfortunately we have been building a wall mentality with China (which is popular). This is something we can not afford in security or economic terms.

As uncomfortable as it may be, a retirement package could be arranged for Putin and presented to him in a soft moment (everyone has one).

The world can not have a failed Ukraine, let alone a failed Russia, and so we need to think of the sanctions as being temporary and that there are ways forward.

Many thanks.