I agree 100% with A. N. Wilson – a respected journalist and writer.
I am interested in how the Times journalist tries to shut him down. Of course – anyone who argues that the sensible course of action here would have been for Russia to have Crimea and the LDNR and for Ukraine to join the EU but not NATO (which Putin would have accepted) has to be marginalised.
The mainstream view is presented by this journalist. A “sovereign country was invaded and we cannot let that stand”. The amount of distancing from reality that has to be undertaken to say this and appear that you mean it is amazing. They have to forget all the times the US or UK has attacked sovereign countries (on much flimsier pretexts in many cases than Russia has for its attack on Ukraine). They have to simply wipe out the incontrovertible facts that before the war support for joining NATO was a minority interest in Ukraine – only in the West of Ukraine did support even get above 50%. The facts of the Russian-speaking and significant ethnic Russian populations in the East. The extreme Ukrainian nationalist position of the post-Maidan government, and so on.
A. N. Wilson: “all these young people will die for nothing, it will go on and on and on and it will end up in the position it was in the beginning”.
The Times titles their piece “Wilson claims that Ukraine joining NATO would spark another World War.” Notice the “claims”. These people are dangerously delusional if they think there is anything “claims” about it.