mr president soviet communism was the most murderous ideology devised by our species
in empirical terms it murdered more people than any other political system and disproportionately those casualties were suffered by ukraine
and this tragedy continues
the name of ukraine as i understand it means frontier or edge and here it is as an edge between two large blocs the division between slavophiles and westernisers within that country being mirrored by the rival ambitions of its neighbouring powers
what could we most usefully do to help that country
we could offer to open our markets
ukrainians are an educated and industrious people but they enjoy relatively cheap costs and relatively competitive exports
if we simply admitted them fully into a european customs union we would substantially improve their quality of life
instead what we are doing is urging more bureaucracy on them building capacity trying to draw them into the cooperative structures of the european union
they are not asking for that they do not want our hand-outs
all they want is the opportunity to sell
