STOP RUSSIA

Russia is reported to be stealing enormous quantities of grain from Ukraine, leaving the local populations at the very high risk of famine.

At the same time, it is obvious Putin intends to take Odesa, the sprawling and modernized port through which Ukraine exported its abundant agricultural products, incluiding wheat, sunflower oil, potatoes and many other plant derived basic foods to China and a number of Third World’s countries.

Those brutal and criminal acts of piracy the Russians claim to be their historical right, are destabilizing the World’s economy and causing hunger and disease to effect primarily countries that can least afford the growing crisis.

The United Nations need to intervene, immediately, even to the unlikely extent of sending blue helmeted troops from third countries not involved in the fight to support Ukraine for protecting its territorial integrity.

In the absence of a UN intervention, NATO countries, and other concerned Nation-States, need to reassert the predominance of international law and open the Black Sea, providing unimpeded international access to Odesa.

Putin must not be allowed to act with an omnipotent attitude of impunity, threatening everyone in the planet with an empty bluff no more credible than the supposedly mighty military forces that poorly armed Ukraine has defeated in the north and successfully hold at bay in the East, preventing the takeover of the richly industrial south.

The risks of extending the war are real, but also the dangers of not keeping the peace and the freedom of international waters are perhaps even greater. Hunger promotes aggression and authoritarian regimes, a corollary of the people’s suffering and exhausted hope for change.

Russia’s tyrannical imposition of its will on other countries need — one might firmly say must — to be checked, with prior solemn, and unambiguous diplomatic communication without bravado, and a public warning if necessary. As the UN’s Secretary General, António Gutierres , eloquently said, there are Russian soldiers in Ukraine, but no Ukrainian military forces in Russia.

The fall of Odesa to Putin’s invading armies will choke Ukraine’s economy and independence, land-locking it as a major food producer for the World. It may be the prelude to an assault on Moldova and a direct threat to Romania and Poland.

Putin is probably betting the people of the United States will not approve of a direct, costly American intervention. He may believe Americans will not willingly exchange our comfort and greedy capitalist profits for a war to save a country that will never be able to repay for the help which is already diminishing our standard of living.

The United States has vowed to stand by the commitment to NATO to go to war in defense of any of its members against any aggressor. We must also be ready to guarantee the freedom of navigation in international waters. Despite Russia’s false claims to Ukrainian territory, the USA needs to reaffirm, with our allies and democratic friends the willingness to peacefully oppose Russian expansion and confront Putin’s threats.