Tag Archives: ukraine

NewsHound

Dodds: Wales must stand in solidarity with Ukraine

By NewsHound | Thu 17th February 2022 - 1:05 pm

Jane Dodds, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Member of the Senedd has called on Wales to stand in solidarity with Ukraine amid continued threats to its independence by the Russian Government. This morning Dodds submitted a Statement of Opinion to the Senedd in support of Ukraine which can now be signed by other members.

Commenting, Dodds said:

Now more than ever, the rules-based international order is under threat. After years of hybrid warfare, threats and provocations, which tragically have seen over 13,000 casualties in the last few years, a further Russian incursion into Ukraine now looks like a serious possibility. Russia’s amassing of over 130,000 troops on the Ukrainian border may seem like a far-flung conflict for many in Wales, but we must be unwavering in our support for the freedom of Ukraine or come to face the consequences in the future.

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NewsHound

Davey: We need leaders who can act over energy supplies

By NewsHound | Mon 7th February 2022 - 10:42 am

Writing in today’s Times, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey says that Boris Johnson has spent much of the past two weeks shacked up in his parliamentary office pleading for his own skin. Meanwhile, one hundred thousand Russian troops have massed on Ukraine’s border threaten the largest military action in Europe since the Second World War. Telling the Tories they need to get a grip fast, he warns that the gas Russia supplies to Europe could fall by up to 30 per cent and that already high gas prices will treble or worse.

Liberal Democrats have called for a “Robin Hood tax” on the super-profits of oil and gas producers and traders, including Russian energy giant, Gazprom.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Revive Détente

By Tom Arms | Fri 4th February 2022 - 6:25 pm

Remember Détente? If you do you are definitely getting on in years. It was one of the diplomatic buzzwords of the 1970s and played a major role in reducing East-West tensions and, many say, helped bring about the end of the Cold War.

Well, if the world manages to avoid a war in Ukraine, it might be time to think about a revived Détente because the Russian problem did not end with the Cold War.

Détente was a Cold War process which found its diplomatic expression in the Helsinki Accords. This semi-legal agreement was signed in the Finnish capital in July 1975 by 33 European heads of government and the American president and Canadian prime minister.

I say semi-legal because it was not a formal treaty. That would have required parliamentary approval of all the signatory countries and there were many in America – and other NATO countries – who were unhappy with the accords. But despite the absence of a formal binding law, Helsinki carried significant moral diplomatic weight.

The main cause of American unhappiness was a clause which bound the participating countries to respect the existing borders and territorial integrity of all the countries in Europe. This was seen as a massive diplomatic coup for the Soviet Union because the West was saying that it would not attempt to push the Soviets out of the Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Ukraine.

In short, the Helsinki Accords, appeared to accept de facto Soviet control of Eastern Europe. In return, the Soviets would stop threatening Western Europe and start talking with the US about limiting nuclear weapons.

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Posted in Op-eds | 8 Comments
Tom Arms

Observations of an ex-pat: Ukrainian Light

By Tom Arms | Sat 29th January 2022 - 8:30 am

There is a glimmer of light the end of the Ukrainian tunnel. The messages emanating from Moscow have shifted from unrestrained militant threats to militant threats with the occasional conciliatory murmur.

 

For a start, Moscow has agreed to continue negotiations. Most encouraging was an interview Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave to Russian radio stations on Friday. “If it depends on Russia,” he said, “then there will be no war. But we also won’t allow our interests to be rudely ignored, to be trampled.”

 

Of course, the only person whose opinion really matters is President Vladimir Putin, and he is the personification of Churchill’s definition of Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

 

Attempts to fathom the inner workings of the Russian leader’s mind seem destined to failure as one of his clear aims is to keep the US-led Western Alliance guessing and off-balance in order to constantly retain the initiative.

 

One possible guide to Putin’s thinking is the Russian media. The state broadcaster Russian TV (RTV) is sticking to a bellicose line. The Ukrainians are “Nazis” threatening to attack “peace-loving” Russian speakers in the Eastern part of Ukraine. Little is reported about the 125,000 troops on the Ukrainian border but when they are referred to, the commentators stress the Kremlin position that Moscow has the right to move its forces whenever and wherever it wants within Mother Russia.

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John Marriott

When it comes to Ukraine let’s not forget the geopolitics before we rush in

By John Marriott | Fri 28th January 2022 - 11:03 am

A while ago I read a book by British journalist, Tim Marshall, entitled ‘Prisoners of Geography’, where he argues that where you live colours to a great extent your perception of the world around you. That Mr Marshall is an believer, if that’s the right word, in ‘geopolitics’ is very clear. He’s now followed this up with ‘The Power of Geography’, which I have yet to read; but I assume this takes the idea further.

Geopolitics states that politics, especially international relations, is influenced by geography. That certainly makes sense to me and I would argue, for example, that, living on an island as they do, it is perhaps not surprising that so many English voters, many with an atavistic fear of ‘Johnny Foreigner’ and being prepared to believe some of the myths pedalled by Messrs Farage and Johnson etc, voted to leave the EU.

Interestingly, in the furthest extremities of our islands, namely Scotland and Northern Ireland, support for continued EU membership was higher. With the luxury of firm frontiers and never having been occupied by a foreign ‘power’ for a millennium it is clearly very hard for many to empathise with many European citizens whose parents and grandparents have witnessed occupation at first hand. Who can blame them if many still see in closer economic and political cooperation with their neighbours a way of avoiding such disruption in the future?

There are many places where geography, or possibly our interpretation of it, have, since WW2 alone, come back to bite us, for example in Korea, the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Whether it is the arbitrary drawing and redrawing of boundaries, linguistic, cultural or religious boundaries, trying to impose ‘solutions’ based on our own, largely western  perception of what is best is often a recipe for strife and unnecessary bloodshed. I would urge our leaders in the West to be careful not to overreact to what is going on today on the border between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Ukraine and Geopolitics

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th December 2021 - 9:22 am

Ukraine is now firmly on the East-West, US-Russian agenda. This is a victory for Vladimir Putin. He has proven that even though Russia’s GDP is $400 billion less than chaotic Italy it is still a Great Power who can flex its muscles and demand concessions from Super Power America.

But what are those concessions? Well the big one is, the US will not come to Ukraine’s aid with troops, missiles or drones if Russia attacks Ukraine.

That does not mean, however that President Joe Biden is giving Putin the green light to attack. No, he is threatening sanctions. And this time they appear to be more than the usual slap on the wrist.

The main threat is banning Russia from the Belgian-based SWIFT banking system which manages payments across international borders. This same sanction against Iran has resulted in a drop of 50 percent in their oil exports and 30 percent in their foreign trade.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: A Black Russian Sea

By Tom Arms | Sat 26th June 2021 - 8:22 am

The landlocked 420,000 square mile Black Sea straddling the Europe Asia divide is fast becoming a maritime hotspot to rival the manmade islands of the South China Sea.

That is why this week the Russians buzzed the British warship HMS Defender, shot missiles into its path and then summoned the British Ambassador to the foreign ministry.

The British Type 45 frigate, said the Russians, had invaded Russian territorial waters. Wrong, said the British. Their ship could not possibly have been in Russian waters because it was off the coast of Crimea which was unilaterally annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. This annexation was not recognised by Britain or the rest of the world. Therefore, HMS Defender was in Ukrainian waters not Russian and was establishing its legitimate rights under international freedom of navigation law.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Is Ukraine another Cuba?

By Tom Arms | Fri 16th April 2021 - 6:46 pm

Embed from Getty Images

The conventional wisdom is that nuclear Armageddon was avoided in October 1962 by a plucky iron-willed young American President. Not quite. A new book by award-wining Russian author Serhii Plokhy reveals that the Cuban Missile Crisis was created by poor communication at every level in both countries and that it was more a matter of luck rather than pluck that saved the world.

Miscommunication and misunderstanding remains a Russian-American problem and is now coming to the fore again over Ukraine.

But back to October 27, 1962. The US naval blockade of Cuba had been in force for five days. To persuade the Soviet submarines to return home President Kennedy ordered US ships to launch a continuous barrage of depth charges on any members of the Soviet underwater fleet that they found. The purpose was to harass rather than destroy.

But Valentin Savitsky, captain of nuclear-armed B-59 was not privy to American thinking. By the 27th of October his crew had endured two days of tension, diminishing air supplies and increasing heat. Savitsky gave the order to surface. He was immediately subjected to a barrage of tracer bullets fired by trigger happy US fighter pilots circling the area.

Convinced that war had started and he was under full-scale attack, the Soviet captain gave the order to dive and fire a nuclear torpedo.

Fortunately lady luck intervened. The captain of the US destroyer Cony realised the danger and flashed an apology from his signal light. It was spotted by the sub’s signals officer just as the B-59 slipped beneath the waves, and was only seen because his searchlight became stuck. The apology was immediately relayed to Savitsky who, at the last minute, countermanded his attack order.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms World Review – 11 April 2021

By Tom Arms | Sun 11th April 2021 - 9:34 am

Northern Ireland was a key part of Britain’s Brexit referendum. Remainers claimed that withdrawal from the EU risked undermining the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and a return to The Troubles which raged through the province for 30 years. “Fear Factor” retorted the Brexiteers. “It won’t happen.” But after a week of sectarian violence it looks as if there was something to fear. The Troubles began in 1968 because the Protestant-controlled Stormont government insisted on anti-Catholic legislation. The Catholics saw their only hope in unification with the Republic of Ireland in the South. The Good Friday Agreement kept the dream alive for the Catholics and kicked it into the long grass for the Protestants. The north/south border was to stay open. Why not? Both countries were members of the EU. The aspiration of Irish unification was allowed to remain on the table, but no date or form was agreed. Perhaps the two EU members would gradually move towards some sort of federation under the auspices of an overarching European Union. After all, the EU was a guarantor of the peace along with the US, Britain and Ireland. Then came Boris Johnson’s easy-peasy-oven-ready-you-can-have-your-cake-and-eat-too deal. In a major concession to Brussels, Washington and Dublin, Johnson stabbed the Protestant Union Democratic Party in the back and agreed to keep open the north/south border and draw a new customs border down the Irish Sea, separating mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. This is the Northern Ireland Protocol. It immediately complicated trade between the Ulster provinces and Britain and it moved the aspiration of Irish unification from the long to the short grass. The result is that this time the Protestants are taking the lead in violence and they can be even more stubborn than and just as nasty as the IRA.

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Graham Colley

Mr Jones – a film about a Liberal fighting for liberal values in 1930s Soviet Union

By Graham Colley | Tue 4th February 2020 - 2:05 pm


If you were told about a researcher for Lloyd George, who had links with George Orwell, who became a journalist and flew with Hitler and then discovered a famine in Ukraine, which Stalin wish to keep secret, you would have believed it was the plot for a film. It is, but it is also based on fact.

The film “Mr Jones” is on General Release from 7th February. It shows how a young Welshman (and a Liberal), Gareth Jones, who had worked for Lloyd George, in 1933 gained a visa to visit Moscow to seek to obtain an interview with Stalin for an explanation of his five-year plan. Whilst, as a journalist, he was officially confined to Moscow, he evaded Soviet security to travel to Hughesovka (Donetsk) and discovered the Holodomor; the deliberate starvation of between five and 10 million Ukrainians by the Soviet regime. On leaving the Soviet Union, he seeks to expose the truth in a story taken up by many newspapers, including the Guardian and the New York Evening Post.

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Henk van Klaveren

What the UK can learn from the Dutch referendum

By Henk van Klaveren | Fri 8th April 2016 - 8:55 am

With just under three months to go the EU referendum, the low turnout and overwhelming majority against the Ukraine-EU Association Treaty in a Dutch referendum is not a good omen. It is a good moment to take stock. The campaign is about to start, with the official designation of the Remain and Leave campaigns due soon. What lessons can the UK learn from the Dutch referendum experience?

The good news first: the UK referendum really matters, whereas the Dutch one did not. The Ukraine-EU Association Treaty is important geopolitically but for the average Dutch voter, ratification will not change their daily lives. It allowed them a protest vote seemingly without consequence. Those that could bother to vote – less than a third of voters, with many supporters staying at home in the hope that the required 30% threshold would be missed – predictably took that opportunity with both hands.

Here, the EU referendum will have a very real impact on people’s daily lives. That should focus minds but there is a risk: a referendum is rarely about the subject on the ballot paper. Only when the question is crystal clear and on a topic of relevance to the voters will the campaign focus on that. The Scottish referendum campaign was a good example of where that worked well. Everybody could relate to the question at hand and because it was such a momentous decision, people were extremely engaged in the debate.

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Rupinder Singh

Is Ukraine lost?

By Rupinder Singh | Thu 18th February 2016 - 7:00 pm

 

Is Ukraine lost? Again? Is the social contract between state and citizens fundamentally flawed?

We are now well past the “honeymoon period” of the post-Maidan street protests that ultimately led to the rather fast departure of the then president Yanikovich, who fled to Russia in 2014.

A spate of ministerial resignations at the start of 2016, an economy in dire straits and with a huge external debt overhang, having lost up to a third of its economic base from the loss of territories and ongoing conflict with Russia and being supported by western-supported international financial institution packages including dollops of soft EU macro-financial assistance, a false dawn with the so-called Orange revolution in 2004 and the Maidan of 2014…so which way reform?

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Posted in Op-eds | 24 Comments

Hawks and doves: equidistant foreign policy?

By Michael Cooke | Mon 5th October 2015 - 11:00 am

Five years ago, the Liberal Democrats held the centre ground in the coalition formation negotiations between left and right. Equidistance is a loaded word, one that cynics will laugh at as vacuous. However, five years later, neither of the two main parties seem sufficiently interested in foreign affairs.

This party could be equidistant between doves and hawks in foreign policy. To illustrate the dove-hawk twin hybrid, below are three examples. I am not necessarily endorsing the following as solutions and they are not exhaustive in terms of detail. They are merely prompts for a debate.

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Nick T

Russia, ISIS, globalisation and the EU – Norman and Tim answer foreign affairs questions

By Nick T | Mon 29th June 2015 - 12:24 pm

LDV recently put some questions on foreign affairs to the two leadership contenders. Here are their responses.

1. Can you summarise in around 100 words what a liberal foreign policy looks like in your view?

Tim Farron:

Liberals are proud and passionate internationalists because we believe in the rights of all people – no matter what they look like, what they believe or where they are – to live in peace, free from poverty, ignorance and conformity. We understand that only by working with other countries through strong international institutions can we make that a reality and build a fairer, greener, freer world.

It is in neither Britain’s interests nor the world’s to close ourselves off, but also that intervention abroad must be rooted in international law, decided through international institutions and clearly justified on humanitarian grounds.

Norman Lamb:

Our Party is proudly internationalist. Our leaders have often been lone voices, Paddy demanding rights for British citizens from Hong Kong, Charles opposing the Iraq War, Nick in taking on Nigel Farage‎

I share these courageous liberal values‎. Liberal values are universal – they do not respect borders.

For me Britain should play a global role and prompt Europe to do more for peace, in tackling poverty and climate change, and in standing up to oppression.

We must also be able to defend those who need our protection, our allies, and ourselves. Enduring adequate funding for our armed forces means debating Trident’s future when our world is far more threatened by terrorists and cyber attacks than by nuclear war, and pursuing reform to make sure our forces are effective and efficient.

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Tim Oliver

Opinion: Liberals must stand up to Russia over Ukraine

By Tim Oliver | Wed 25th March 2015 - 4:15 pm

The weekend after the party gathered in Liverpool, Liberal Youth gathered in Leeds for our spring conference. There was plenty of campaigning, socialising and of course stimulating debates on policy. Stuart Wheatcroft has already written an excellent summary of the motion we debated and voted for on Ambitious Liberalism; for my part, I submitted a motion on Russia’s actions against Ukraine.

In writing this motion, I aimed to cover the two principal reasons I believe any self-respecting Liberal must stand against what Russia is doing in the region. Firstly, they are attempting to forcibly thwart the will of the Ukrainian people. When the Ukrainian people expressed a desire to look to the EU, they did not at the same time express a desire to go to war with Russia. They are seeking a better life; one bounded by democratic accountable institutions – the same promise extended by the EU to the former Warsaw Pact countries. In attempting to smear the Kiev government as a group of “fascists” as well as sending troops to occupy portions of Ukraine, Russia has attempted to corral the Ukrainian people into giving up these hopes for a brighter future.

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Stephen Tall

A longer read for the weekend… Edward Lucas on the threat posed to peace by Russia and what the West should do about it

By Stephen Tall | Sun 13th July 2014 - 8:45 am

edward lucasEdward Lucas worked for Paddy Ashdown, has helped at by-elections, and was active in the National League of Young Liberals (NLYL) and the Union of Liberal Students (ULS). He’s better known, though, for being a senior editor at The Economist and an expert on energy, cyber-security, espionage, Russian foreign and security policy and the politics and economics of Eastern Europe. In 2008 he wrote The New Cold War, a prescient account of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In 2011 he wrote Deception, an investigative account of east-west espionage. And earlier …

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Posted in Europe / International, News and Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 64 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown: Alex Salmond should apologise for his poor call over Vladimir Putin

By NewsHound | Sun 4th May 2014 - 10:55 am

paddy ashdown - paul walter“Lib Dem Statesman Paddy Ashdown”. That’s how the headline in Paddy’s Sunday Mail article describes him.

Paddy is writing in response to Alex Salmond’s comments on Vladimir Putin . As a reminder, this is what Salmond said:

Obviously, I don’t approve of a range of Russian actions, but I think Putin’s more effective than the press he gets, I would have thought, and you can see why he carries support in Russia.

“He’s restored a substantial part of Russian pride and that must be a good thing. There are aspects of Russian constitutionality and the intermesh with business and politics that are obviously difficult to admire. Russians are fantastic people, incidentally; they are lovely people.

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Russia and the Great Illusion

By Joe Bourke | Thu 24th April 2014 - 10:42 am

imageIn 1910, British journalist Norman Angell published “The Great Illusion”, arguing that the integration of the global economy was so all-embracing and irreversible that future wars were all but impossible. Released shortly before the outbreak of the Great War, the idea that humans had outgrown their propensity to mass slaughter did not stand the test of time for long.

We face today a similar dichotomy in Putin’s Russia. Europe and Russia are intertwined in mutual trade dependency and the major oil companies – BP and Shell among them – are increasing …

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes…Tales from the Spin Room

By Tim Farron MP | Thu 27th March 2014 - 7:19 pm

Clegg Speech 40Last night I was in the spin room doing my job as President, walking around and saying Nick had won.  It wasn’t hard to appear convincing, because he was brilliant. It was certainly easier than when I have to speak to the media after some by-elections!

I thought Nick won last night on both style and substance. Though of course as a Lib Dem, I would say that.  As a party we like facts and evidence. Watching last night, those things were very light on the UKIP side of the …

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David Gray

Opinion: In every conflict, there is always more than one side to the story

By David Gray | Tue 25th March 2014 - 9:24 am

Protests in UkraineIt is always tempting to view the world in black and white. When Good is pitted against Evil, who in their right minds would want Evil to succeed? We can all happily unite behind Good and therefore feel Good about that ourselves.

Sadly, the world isn’t like this. This may seem like an outrageously obvious statement, but it is not intended to be patronising. Reactions from various politicians to recent events have given the impression that many political conflicts are indeed black and white.

When the Arab Spring began over 3 …

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George Potter

Opinion: Some facts about Ukraine and Crimea

By George Potter | Thu 20th March 2014 - 3:00 pm

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians in pro-Europe rallyGiven some of the comments being widely made about the crisis in Ukraine, particularly those defending or minimising the actions of Russia, I thought it would be worthwhile to point out some facts about the situation and counter some of the popular myths. They doesn’t necessarily establish that one side is completely right or wrong but they are worth bearing in mind.

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George Cunningham

Opinion: Ukraine is a crisis which we cannot back off from

By George Cunningham | Tue 18th March 2014 - 10:50 am

ukraineThe insertion of Russian troops into the Crimea has profound implications for the security of Europe. It is like Europe has been awoken from a deep, snug slumber.

At I said in the emergency debate on Ukraine at the Spring Conference in York last weekend, events in Crimea have shown Russia breaking every principle in the international law rule book. The fact that it has intervened covertly, supposedly to protect Ukrainians of Russian origin, has profound security implications for the European Union’s Eastern borders – and in particular in the Baltic States …

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Posted in Op-eds | 54 Comments
Paul Reynolds

Opinion: York conference debates tough UK approach to Ukraine crisis

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 12th March 2014 - 3:45 pm

shekhovtsov_ends_468wAt our spring conference in York, there was an emergency ‘Topical Debate’ on the Ukraine crisis.

The debate reflected United Kingdom attitudes to the Ukraine crisis, but there were some far-reaching implications for some of the views expressed. Importantly, the UK was a signatory to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, whereby Ukraine gave up its massive nuclear weapons stockpile in return for full guarantees of its territorial integrity – an agreement now clearly breached by one of its other signatories, the Russian Federation.

Today, the UK has military surveillance aircraft flying along the Polish and Romanian borders with Ukraine, monitoring Russian military activity, and military assets also monitoring Southern Ukraine including Crimea, and its Russian borders. If diplomacy fails, the UK would almost certainly be involved in any military measures that follow.

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Toby Fenwick

Opinion: Ukraine – Next Steps

By Toby Fenwick | Tue 4th March 2014 - 12:27 pm

ukraineAn international affairs policy wonk could be forgiven for thinking that April Fools’ Day had come early. After all, the last 72 hours have seen the Russian Federation occupy Ukraine’s Crimea, and apparently threaten to attack Ukrainian forces in Crimea if they don’t surrender. Such an action is in direct violation of the 1994 Bucharest Memorandum, the OSCE’s Helsinki Final Act, and Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.

The use of force without the explicit authorisation of the UN Security Council has a very specific name: aggression. The Nuremburg Tribunal described aggression as the “supreme international crime”: aggression starts wars, destroys lives and is a visceral attack on the international rule of law.

Simply, aggression is international gangsterism of the highest order.

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Caron Lindsay

Paddy: We’re one mistake away from war in Ukraine

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd March 2014 - 10:49 am

Paddy AshdownWhenever there’s a horrible international situation, I always want to hear what Paddy Ashdown has to say. He’s very wise on all the intricate web of international relations, agendas and history. I don’t always agree with him, but he’s worth listening to because he’ll tell it exactly like he sees it. He makes it all so much more real.

He’s just been on Murnaghan talking about the situation in Ukraine. Unfortunately, he confirmed my feeling that the world is a very much more scary place this weekend.

He was very clear that one foolish mistake could tip a volatile situation into war. That, he said, could be one “trigger-happy” Russian soldier opening fire, a Ukrainian misjudgement of a situation. Something that could very easily happen in the heat of a tense moment.

He said that it wasn’t clear what the Russians were up to. He said it was possible, but unlikely, that their ambitions were limited to securing their international treaty defined rights of access to the port of Sevastopol rather than wider territorial gain. He likened Putin’s stance to Hitler’s over Sudetenland as opposed to the modern Western view that the fate of nations is subject to the view of its people.

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Graham Watson

Graham Watson MEP writes: The time has come for the EU to take decisive action over Ukraine

By Graham Watson | Wed 19th February 2014 - 6:24 pm

The past twenty four hours has seen the situation in Ukraine escalate from serious to critical. We are only now seeing the true extent of the clashes between police and anti-government protestors, with the number of fatalities standing at 26 but set to rise as the violence continues. What is clear is that last night’s attack on protestors by the police was at the direct order of the Ukrainian government. While the government claimed it was simply aiming to restore law and order, the underlying motive was for President Yanukovych to reassert his legitimacy. As far as I am concerned, …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 24 Comments
Issan Ghazni

Opinion: Britain should offer more support to pro-democracy protesters in Ukraine

By Issan Ghazni | Mon 17th February 2014 - 3:49 pm

Liberals have common cause with pro-democracy protestors in Ukraine

While UKIP and the Tory Right want to take Britain out of Europe other nations are clamouring to join the EU, not least in the Ukraine where pro-EU protests have been taking place for several months now. They want to be ‘in’ for the same reason as the Liberal Democrats, to boost jobs and investment. Europe is not a threat to national sovereignty but a guarantor of democratic and economic stability across the continent.

 As Ukraine protesters are seeking to free their country from Kremlin interference so too the collective influence of European nations

…

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NewsHound

LibLink: Tim Farron: Ukraine – why they want to be in

By NewsHound | Sat 21st December 2013 - 11:07 am

Tim Farron, who’s chair of the European election campaign as well as party president, has been writing all over the place on all sorts of EU issues at the moment. The other day it was fish, and now he’s taking a look at why many in the Ukraine are protesting in the streets for closer ties with the EU.

It is easy to get lost in the hysterical UK debate and lose perspective on the EU but we must remember that Europe remains a beacon for hope for millions of people in countries like the Ukraine and in autocratic Belarus.

…

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Paul Stocker

Opinion: Demonstrations in Ukraine demonstrates the importance of European unity

By Paul Stocker | Mon 2nd December 2013 - 10:33 am

Within the confines of our islands, during the protracted debates over Britain’s relationship with the EU, it is perfectly easy to forget what is patently obvious to the majority of continental Europe – European unity matters. As Ian Traynor at the Guardian has pointed out, the mass demonstrations in Ukraine show that the EU still offers hope to many on the peripheries of the continent. Indeed, it is probably extremely difficult for Nigel Farage or indeed any British Eurosceptic to understand the waving of the EU flag as an act promoting national self-determination …

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Stephen Tall

LDVideo: Jeremy Browne “reserves his position” on the Government’s Euro 2012 boycott

By Stephen Tall | Fri 22nd June 2012 - 8:55 am

When is a boycott not a boycott? When England confounds expectations by playing well.

That appears to be the more-than-a-little confusing Government message during the Euro 2012 football championships being held in Ukraine, where there are continuing concerns about its ‘selective justice’ system. No government minister has attended a match yet, and that boycott will extend to this Sunday’s quarter-final against Italy.

But the Government has refused to be drawn on whether its boycott would continue if England reach the semi-finals. You can watch Lib Dem foreign office minister Jeremy Browne attempt to justify this inconsistency to Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Daily Politics here:

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