War in Ukraine (Previously - Will there be War?)

KEY ev

With regard to the first bolded part, the fundamental failure of logic in that is so obvious it doesn't need me to point it out. 

I agree he is a shrewd operator. He is also an authoritarian (and sociopath) who sits atop a powerful military machine and a country where access to information, internal debate and political discourse is very heavily stifled and increasingly so. It is therefore  relatively easy for him to test the limits and fault lines in the coherence of a collection of democratic countries. [BTW, a very interesting piece of writing by William Hague in The Times a few days ago. here How the Ukraine crisis plays out in Putin’s head for anyone who has access to the times and not read it]

On the final part. We can all agree that western democracies have done things which we would prefer they had not, particularly but not always necessarily with the benefit of hindsight.

However, IMHO to draw a moral equivalence between the likes of the regimes and systems in Russia and/or China - or others with massive internal repressive and outward aggressive/expansionist behaviours and objectives - and open 'western style' liberal democracies is fundamentally wrong. When done in earnest it sheds far more light on the ethics/belief systems of those making such an equivalence than it does anything else.  

I hope you managed to get your family out of Kiev, and I hope that Putin chooses to not invade (whether he ever intended to or not). 

...and a substantial swathe of the electorate will not only overlook it, but actively reward it.

I agree with all of that, except there is already a war, by the Russians failing to admit it hangs another tale of just being a neighbour