Russian aggression and the cost of being wrong

In Oliver Moody’s must-read recent book on the Baltic, there is a succinct account of what it has meant for the Estonians to have Russia as an occupier and then a neighbour.

To put what Soviet subjugation meant in a purely economic context, at the end of the 1930s average incomes and life expectancy had been almost the same in Finland and Estonia. By the end of the Cold War, he writes, Finns were eight times richer and lived on average four years longer.

All that on top of a Soviet era drive to extradite and eliminate Estonian professionals and intellectuals, rewrite history along Communist lines, and turn the country into a vassal of Russia.

Russia’s other neighbours have all had pretty similar experiences. Germany was twice the rampager too. It is Russia, though, that is today led by an anti-democratic autocrat who is seeking to wipe out and subsume a European country – Ukraine – and seeking to widen Russia’s European orbit.

This is the context in which the last few days of peace talks should be considered. While the “realists” – and some friends of Ukraine – may well be right in saying that this conflict was always going to end or be paused with a negotiated settlement of this kind, it is still deeply disturbing to watch. Once again, a brave people find that when all the Allied rhetoric and bold speeches fade away, international diplomacy imposes its cold logic and a squalid deal freezes the conflict and stops the killing – for now.

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