HOW can we simply stand by and watch as a country is murdered? The West says it’s helping, but the rage of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky tells a very different story.

The refusal by Nato to institute a no-fly zone over Ukraine is, says Zelensky, a “green light” for Vladimir Putin’s regime to continue to bomb civilians. Zelensky is unquestionably right. Putin, who orders his troops to attack fleeing refugee columns, is now where Hitler was in 1939.

How can we sit back and let this happen? The West cannot, we’re told, create a no-fly zone because the risk of shooting down Russian aircraft means World War Three could be triggered. This is true. But again: how can we sit back and watch a nation murdered before our eyes?

We tell ourselves we’re doing all we can, but that’s self-convincing lies. Why is there no embargo on Russian oil? Why is Britain taking so long to cut off Putin’s oligarchs at the knees? Why are Russian diplomats and anyone connected to Putin’s dictatorship not kicked out of every democratic nation?

So we’re not doing everything we can. And by failing to do everything we can, we’re colluding in the murder of a nation. There’s been talk that Boris Johnson has now gained his "Falklands moment". That’s as pathetic as it’s insulting, a desperate attempt to exploit political capital around the crisis and throw a fire blanket over his Government’s corruption.

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Real leadership in the West demands that we cannot take the threat of a no-fly zone off the table – to do so shows Putin that the West has its limit. You cannot tell a dictator you’ve limits otherwise they’ll march up to your limit and then go beyond. Western diplomats need to use the consequences of a no-fly zone to force Putin to negotiate in such a way that the murder stops and Ukraine is at least left half-alive.

There’s every risk that we end up in war with Russia whether we’re meek and mild, or face down Putin’s regime. If he takes Ukraine, will he stop there? Putin may be insane – there’s even talk that he’s dying. Perhaps there’s no limit to what he wants. After Ukraine, would the Baltic states be next? Moldova? Finland or Sweden?

What happens if Zelensky falls – God forbid – and Ukrainian resistance begins organising outside the country, in a neighbouring nation? Would Putin not take that as declaration of war by whichever country he deemed to be working with Ukraine’s government-in-exile or the resistance movement? And if that nation should be a Nato power? Would we then not be at war?

If we allow Putin one more inch, we put our heads in the noose and wait for Russia to pull the lever and drop the trap. This is a man prepared to fire on nuclear facilities, for pity’s sake; to round up Russian children for challenging his rule and calling for peace.

So we must go further in our help for Ukraine. Poland and America are working to get Russian-made MiG warplanes to the Ukrainian military so it can hold off the Russian air force. This is without question the morally right move – to do otherwise leaves Ukraine naked under Russian bombardment. But, of course, Putin may well see any such attempt as an act of war. If Putin should target Poland for supplying planes, then what? Poland is a Nato power.

So the threat of a wider war is everywhere, whether we do nothing and just sit back and watch the murder of a nation, or whether our governments stand up to a creature little better than Hitler and hope he backs down.

Of course, the comfy, dumb propagandists of Britain’s far right and far left will spin their lies and continue to amplify Putin’s fantasies, falsely blaming Nato for the war in Ukraine. These are Stalin’s "useful idiots". It’s Putin who has blood on his hands, not the West, and these morally-dead apologists seem keen to smear the gore all over themselves. They make the fatal error of imagining that because the West shamed itself with crimes like Iraq, that the West is always in the wrong. Ukraine gives the lie to that. If this crisis ever comes to an end, we must atone for the sins of the past. Meanwhile, we must do the right thing now.

And what of Scotland? Where do we stand in this? If the world has changed, what changes are asked of us? I’ve been examining my own conscience, and there’s one matter of great importance which has altered for me. Readers will know that I support independence. I still do, but I can now, though, see no acceptable way of campaigning for another referendum while Ukraine is being butchered and Putin threatens the entire democratic world.

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There’s a right time for democratic nations to engage in the rambunctious to-and-fro of constitutional change, and that’s peacetime. Looking inwards seems unconscionably self-interested; creating instability in a time of potential war, tantamount to suicide. The SNP’s Ian Blackford says of a second referendum that “we have got to be respectful of the situation we are in”, and adds: “The only thing I am focusing on today is Ukraine.”

He’s softening up the hardcore base of the independence movement for the inevitable, indefinite delay of another referendum. And he’s right. To campaign now for independence would be to lose. Few, if any, undecideds would vote Yes during this period of threat. To lose a second time would end the notion of independence for good. It’s wise to pause.

This isn’t a war which simply involves Ukraine – though it’s the Ukrainians bearing the agony and showing their courage. This war threatens not just Europe, but the very idea of freedom and democracy across the western world. Scotland is part of that – every single one of us in this country. So we need to play our part. If that means half of us must put our constitutional goals on hold for the greater good then it’s an easy price to pay when so many are paying in much deadlier currency.

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