Stop Poking the Bear: The West Needs to Engage with Putin Not Castigate Him
b'You don\\u2019t have to like Vladimir Putin, or doubt that he\\u2019s a nasty piece of work, to recognise that the Russian president\\u2019s reaction to the crisis in Ukraine is largely justified. The promise that Russia managed to extract from the West, as it watched its old empire crumble, was that NATO would not expand eastward and that the Baltic states and Poland would not be absorbed into the EU. Not only have Nato and the EU broken that promise, they have even sought to bring Ukraine \\u2013 for centuries seen as umbilically tied to Russia \\u2013 into the western fold. The West has tried to influence elections in Ukraine. It has backed the overthrow of a democratically elected president. Putin isn\\u2019t being expansionist: he just wants Ukraine to remain a non-aligned buffer zone between Russia and the West. He couldn\\u2019t survive the national humiliation of it becoming yet another western outpost. So cut him some slack: we need more diplomacy and fewer threats of reprisals.\\n\\nThat\\u2019s the voice of the non-interventionists but haven\\u2019t... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.\\n \\n\\xa0See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices'