The border can only change if the Ukrainian people agree. There might be a majority to accept some interim group of nations controlling a thin slice to the East and Crimea. Otherwise, without support from some other countries on the ground and in the air, Russia will gradually take a little more here, be pushed back a little more there and this will go on for years.
At some point there have to be elections and there is much worry that they will be falsified to bring in some innocent-looking MPs who turn out to be Russian plants and Russia effectively takes control, with the population then fighting its own 'elected' government and curbed by umpteen new orders. Very messy with major riots and revolution (again) which we'll all just watch.
If only that 'coalition of the 'willing' countries' were actually willing and took action - but I just see a lot of remote leaders knocking at the border door, scrawling a rude message maybe, and then scampering away.
The 'big' boys seem very weak to me and the 'little' folk like Estonia and Lithuania who are genuinely prepared to go in are too small and also have their hands tied by NATO in a strange twist of things.
Much of Russia's threat is bluff, with weapons that often misfire and much nuclear stuff already sold by those who were supposed to be looking after it and there's a good reason why they have struggled against the supposedly far less-well equipped Ukraine - they haven't got as much as we think they have. We should call their bluff but no-one's got the balls. In a strange way, the best hope is actually for NATO to be forced to get involved by a big mistake and a major missile strike on a Polish or Czech city.
A month has gone by since we watched a bunch of leaders bend the knee to Trump in the White House. Perhaps behind closed doors one or two were a little firmer, such as Macron, who has little to lose at home, and one or two others wishing to make a more aggressive move than wagging at finger at easier targets like companies still trading with Russia.
This week we shall see Trump being wafted around England, probably missing Wales, Scotland and definitely missing Northern Ireland and looking interested as King Charles tells him about plants and architecture. This would be a great week to announce that we're joining a group of nations who are planting troops and weapons of all sorts on the Ukraine border with air support, all ready to counter any further incursion into NATO territory and with an unwritten agreement to knock out a few particularly annoying Russian missile operations depots and missile sites, probably by "some errant drone that just happened to go in the wrong direction."
Now where have I heard that before?
All hell really needs to be let loose very soon. It may feel uncomfortable but nothing like as bad as a Russian penis up our collective arse.
