Thank you for sharing this. I still hope it can be like Charles Dickens’ « A Christmas Carol » of tale of what does not come to pass but I realise your warning is that this is the situation in the east of Europe now. I particularly have contempt for those businessmen who risk all of our savings dealing with a country where there is not the rule of law. And you show brilliantly the truism that extremists of the right and left pursue the same policies.
Two points don’t seem to follow your analysis – but are consistent with your other writing and campaigning.
A link is really missing between your evaluation of the threats, and your conclusions about the EU. Energy policy seems obvious, but will a common defence policy really mean the EU (countries) can respond to a real threat from a resurgent national-Bolshevism Russian state? What is a common not a single army?
We must keep repeating that a small – if significant – minority of European citizens voted for far right or other anti-EU parties. But how can Ukraine join the EU with so much hostility to the EU among many European citizens? I was horrified that young Ukrainians were worried about coming to England because of the rise of UKIP and thought people would be hostile to them in the street. I explained that that is not what the vast majority of people in Britain are really like.

The Ukraine I recently visited was more a progressive modern European country than many others, but I don’t see how dangling a dream of EU membership is either realistic or offers a solution to the crisis in the East at present?

Kiron Reid, Liverpool, UK.