Ukraine - what should western countries do next?
Moral Maze
BBC
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2022
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ukraine - what should the west do next?
It's 125 days since Russia's tanks rolled into Ukraine in a full scale invasion of the country. Since then the world has watched, appalled by the bloodshed, the destruction of towns and cities, the 12 million refugees. At first there was relief that the Ukrainians had beaten back the attack on the capital Kyiv. Now there is less optimism as Russia takes more territory in the east.
From the start Britain and its allies have been clear: Russia must be stopped. Billions of pounds worth of weapons have been sent to help Ukraine fight back. With a unity that surprised many, western countries have imposed tough economic sanctions on Russia. But Ukraine says it needs more weapons, and more powerful ones, if it is to drive the Russians back across the border. Some observers do not think that’s a realistic aim in any case. The conflict has become bogged down and our own Prime Minister says 'we need to steel ourselves for a long war.' Global prices of food and energy have risen steeply, causing hardship in the west and the prospect of famine in Africa.
What should the west do now? Is it time to supply Ukraine with NATO's most powerful weapons, short of nuclear missiles? Must Russia fail and be seen to fail? Or should we, as the French President has argued, be offering Putin an ‘off-ramp’? In any case, is it practical - or moral - to behave as though the choice between war and peace can be our decision? With Paul Ingram, Orysia Lutsevych, Richard Sakwa and Edward Lucas.
Producers: Jonathan Hallewell and Peter Everett Presenter: Michael Buerk
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. Good evening, four months on, and the war in Ukraine has become part of the background of our lives. |
| 0:10.5 | Attrition, punctuated by atrocity, but mostly somewhere between Glastonbury and Wimbledon on the summer's news agenda. |
| 0:16.9 | Yet this is a major conflict in Europe. Tens of thousands of dead, millions of refugees, global consequences. |
| 0:24.0 | Soaring prices and power cuts for us, starvation may be for parts of Africa, not to mention an existential nuclear risk for humankind. |
| 0:32.6 | But what can we, should we, do? The question both the G7 and NATO have been wrestling with at their summits this week. |
| 0:40.4 | Essentially, it's the oldest of moral dilemmas. Is the priority peace or justice? Do we arm, support, train, finance the Ukrainians, tell them to keep fighting for as long as it takes? |
| 0:52.3 | Or do we try to make both sides see reason, seek compromise, |
| 0:55.7 | broker a ceasefire? Is the objective to defeat Russia, deter aggression, or stop the killing? |
| 1:02.9 | That's our moral maze tonight. The panel, Melanie Phillips, social commentator at the Times, |
| 1:07.1 | the academic and broadcaster Mona Siddiqui, Anne McElvoy, senior editor at The Economist, |
| 1:12.6 | and Aschaka, the Libertarian Marxist and editor at the Navarra Media Group. |
| 1:17.1 | Anne McElvoy, you are dove or a hawk as far as Ukraine's concerned? |
| 1:21.6 | I'm quite happy to declare myself a hawk here because the dove position, which might sound very reasonable, and you talked about |
| 1:30.7 | prevailing on both sides to be reasonable, if that led to peace, I think it would be a reasonable |
| 1:37.4 | prospect, but it won't because this is an act of aggression and there is no way I think |
| 1:41.8 | that could ever lead to anything other than more war, |
| 1:45.5 | more suffering, more conflict. |
| 1:46.8 | So, yep, I'm a hawk, but of course I'm in the moral maze. |
| 1:50.1 | So I'm very curious about what the doves are thinking and why they're thinking it. |
| 1:53.9 | Mona. |
| 1:54.5 | I think we should be helping negotiate some peaceful coexistence of Russia with her neighbours |
| 1:58.6 | rather than the escalation of this war |
... |
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