Letter the Editor / UKRAINE NEEDS TO SURVIVE

By Roger C. Kostmayer

World War III in Europe is here.  Ukraine has been attacked, and is occupied by Putin’s military.  President Zelenskyy is urgently pleading for three things:  Stop buying Russian energy (oil and gas) which helps fund the invasion;  Give Ukraine planes that would enable them to defend themselves;  Help save Ukraine, democracies and other European countries by having NATO and the US impose a nationwide No Fly Zone (NFZ).  

There’s a good chance that Ukraine will get a modified version of all three.  President Biden just announced that the US will ban all energy imports from Russia.  Our European allies are much more dependent on Russian energy but, with US support, they will reduce Russian energy imports significantly.  No civilized nation wants to help fund Putin’s disastrous folly.

Secondly, Poland is in the process of contributing fighter planes on which Ukraine pilots trained.  But, to avoid committing what Putin could claim is an act of war against Russia, the Polish planes will go via Germany, and the US will send modern fighter plane replacements to Poland.

The third request, NFZ, is complicated and should focus only on the purely humanitarian issue of deliberately killing civilians.  When civilians are told that Ukraine and Russia agree on a safe exit route and then women, children and the elderly are deliberately massacred, by bombs from the air, as they try to escape – it is intolerable for civilized peoples.  The response should be a limited, detailed and controlled NFZ tactic.

Putin has no regard for the lives of civilians or for avoiding crimes against humanity that are committed deliberately, and civilization must act accordingly.

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