Simple things are usually the hardest to accept and follow. Here I’ll list the things considering the current situation and we’ll see how those will be understood by the world:
- There’s currently a world war going on. The definition of world war concerns mostly not the number of countries involved but rather that the goals of war (or its consequences) affect the world order in general. In this case if russia wins it means that the old system built on respecting country sovereignty and resolving international conflicts in peaceful manner via Useless Nations (formerly United Nations) does not work and any country with the nukes can do whatever it likes. And when the temporarily existing despicable mistake known as russia will lose the war, this may lead to its dissolution as well as making entities like UN and NATO reform or perish. And it’ll impact the future of China too;
- russia has demonstrated that it is a terrorist state countless times (trying to disrupt the world order by force is the very definition of international terrorism), but in addition to that it demonstrates that it’s not above the economic blackmailing as well. Just look at the recent development of the grain deal—it did not merely stop participating in it until its simple demand of fulfilling its countless demands is met but also started missile strikes at Ukrainian ports (again) and threatening to start a war with the countries that will keep participating in the grain deal without russia. And of course spewing obvious lies instead of saying directly that it’s racketeering;
- People who commit such crimes are either arrested and isolated in prisons or executed, so they can bring no harm to the society. Armed people (especially if they’re shooting during the arrest) are often shot on spot to eliminate the immediate danger (that’s not the best outcome but it’s an acceptable one). Countries should have the same treatment, out of self-preservation if not anything else (and stop point at nukes, russia demonstrated that it poses more nuclear threat when nothing is done about it);
- Speaking of isolation, it should be maintained airtight instead of trying to earn money while hoping that whatever russia does with your resources won’t be used against you later. I’m not so sure about the business risks of (usually French) companies that still have their russian subsidiaries operating as usual but if they suffer from the reputational losses in Europe and their businesses would be confiscated in russia, that would be a completely foreseen outcome. Also considering the current isolation and slow implosion of russian economy, it’s hard to tell what good the income earned there can bring (as you can’t transfer those money from russia and there’s risk of losing them entirely);
- When NATO talks about eliminating corruption as one of the demands for the candidates, it should serve an example and do something about the glaring example of Hungary. EU should take note as well.
Again, those are very simple things to understand but apparently not for the countries or large businesses. For now though, I find it ironic that I could travel with less restrictions and was significantly less ashamed of my country (and even its government) when I had Ukrainian citizenship than now when I’m a German citizen.