We need to support Ukraine. We could be creative about that support.
Peace may involve giving up territory to Russia. It’s wrong, Putin is evil. Trump’s lack of support is appalling. However, the reality may be the ‘possession is nine (or ten) points of the law’.
In an ideal world, long term, Crimea and Donbas would rebel against Russia. But, short term, that land is lost – the lesson is that the West should have made a stand the moment Russia went near Crimea.
However, can we think laterally? Maybe a successful nation does not need to maximise it’s land area. In the modern world, people, capita and technology count for more.
If you think of Singapore, the ‘pre China’ Hong Kong, you can be hugely successful as a small nation.
I think the Ukraine people have been heroic, our support verges on the shameful. We should now give them a fantstic springboard for their future.
A starting point would be to give them all the agricultural support possible. We should help invest in their primary industries – minerals and what have you, and, unlike Trump, let them keep all the surplus, the profit.
We should fund university and college courses and places – free for Ukrainian people – to help them be the best educated in the West, and proficient in modern technologies.
We should offer them access to our technologies and licences free of charge.
Where it is helpful, we could ‘pump prime’ new business activities in Ukraine. We could provide capital to build facilities, and them give them contracts to supply the rest of Europe for example:
Defence equipment, including drones, missiles, armoured vehicles.
Pharmaceutical and other bio-medical supplies.
Green sector – maybe heat pumps – factories with robots to compete with China.
Maybe electric vehicles manufacturing and battery manufacturing.
Artificial Intelligence and Quantum research contracts. AI Warehouses.
Cuttig edge other IT facilities, software contracts
The aim with each of these ‘clusters’ of activity is also to create Ukraine based supply chains to support them
We would hope that the new Ukraine would be prosperous, with well paid jobs. And of course Russia cannot compete with such success or stop it.
We should make Zelensky President of this transition, fostering democracy, free elections for the Prime Minister role, but with a President and constitution that makes Ukraine part of the West and guaranteed freedom from Russia.
We should offer all residents of Donbas and Crimea the right to move to European countries, with immediate full citizenship
I ‘stand with Ukraine’ – what about you?
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