The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. absolutely free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Each week we choose three pieces from the magazine

and ask their writers to read them aloud. I'm Oscar Edmondson, and on the podcast

this week, Svetlana Mornets explains why Ukraine will not accept compromise in any form. Rana Mitter

details Japan's plans for an anti-China alliance, and Mia Levitin reads her review of Muppets

by Natasha Lance Rogoff.

Up first, Svetlana Monyets.

Among Ukrainians, there is a little debate about how the war will end.

The overwhelming consensus is that it cannot conclude until Russia has been fully repelled, and Ukraine's borders are returned to the 1991 frontier when independence was declared

after the Soviet Union collapsed.

This means removing Russian troops from Crimea and the self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and

Donetsk in the Donbass region.

Of course it is not an easy mission, but for Ukrainians, the alternative is unthinkable.

The mass graves uncovered in Bucja have shown us what Russian occupation means.

We also have seen, in the broken promises of the Minsk agreements, what any truth with Vladimir Putin is worth.

Why should we agree to a fake peace deal when we know

Putin will ignore it and unleash war on us again? As a Ukrainian, it's odd to read some of

the theories about what's going on. We are both fighting because we have been put up to it by the West?

No, we held off Putin with very little help in the first few weeks

of war. Even if the West stops arming us, we will continue to fight. We know the alternative

is worse, subjugation and cultural annihilation. Discussions in the West over Ukraine's future

often stole when it comes to the question of Crimea and the Dunebas.

...