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A report by a group including Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to Nato, and Strobe Talbott, the veteran Russia expert, identifies the equipment needed: “counter-battery radars to locate long-range rockets, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), electronic countermeasures for use against opposing UAVs, secure communications capabilities, armoured Humvees and medical support equipment”.Only when Ukrainian military defence can plausibly hold Russian offence to a stalemate will a negotiated settlement become possible. Sometimes it takes guns to stop the guns.Won’t such arms supplies further nourish a Russian paranoia of encirclement? Yes, but Putin is feeding the paranoia already, untroubled by the facts. He recently told students in St Petersburg that the Ukrainian army “is not an army, it is a foreign legion, in this case a Nato foreign legion”.The EU could never secure unanimity on such military supplies. If at all, it would have to be done by individual countries. Although this may bring back the old jibe that “America does the cooking and [url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news]Europe the washing up”, there is a case for the US doing most of the heavy military supply.The US has the best kit, it is probably in the best position to control its use, and is less vulnerable to bilateral economic or energy-supply pressures.The overall burden-sharing would be fair. European economies take most of the pain of sanctions, since they have more invested with Russia; they will provide a lot of the economic support Ukraine needs if it is to survive; and they are doing most of the diplomacy. In fact, McCain and Merkel make a perfect hard cop, soft cop combination.We need to counter this propaganda. No one is better placed to do this than the BBCThere is one other area in which Europe in general, and Britain in particular, can do more. Broadcast media are usually classed as soft power, but they are as important to Putin as his T-80 tanks. He has invested in them heavily. Among Russian speakers – including in eastern Ukraine and the Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic states – he has used television to impose his own narrative of a socially conservative, proud Russia threatened by fascists in Kiev, an expansionist Nato and a decadent EU.Last year a Russianist of my acquaintance was sitting naked and at ease in the hot tub with a friend of his in Moscow after several vodkas, as is the Russian custom, when this highly educated Russian asked: “So tell me, honestly, why do you support the fascists in Kiev?”We need to counter this propaganda not with lies of our own but with reliable information and a scrupulously presented array of different views. No one is better placed to do this than the BBC. The US may have the best drones in the world, and Germany the best machine tools, but Britain has the best international broadcaster.And there is an appetite for it: the BBC’s sadly diminished online Russian-language service still has an audience of nearly seven million, and during the crisis its Ukrainian-language audience has tripled to more than 600,000.Dangerous plan to arm UkraineLetters: This is as ill-conceived as it is dangerous and represents a fundamental misreading of the situation Read more[/url]In his excellent report on the [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-bbb9e158-4a1b-43c7-8b3b-9651938d4d6a]future of news, James Harding, the head of BBC News, makes a strong commitment to growing the World Service. Immediately stepping up its Russian and Ukrainian offerings would be a good way for the BBC to show that it will put its money where its mouth is. Without compromising the BBC’s independence, the British government could also chip in some extra funding.If ever there were people in need of accurate, fair, balanced information, it is Russians and Ukrainians today. None of these things will stop Putin tomorrow, but in combination they will work in the end. Dictators win in the short run, democracies in the long. A report by a group including Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to Nato, and Strobe Talbott, the veteran Russia expert, identifies the equipment needed: “counter-battery radars to locate long-range rockets, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), electronic countermeasures for use against opposing UAVs, secure communications capabilities, armoured Humvees and medical support equipment”.Only when Ukrainian military defence can plausibly hold Russian offence to a stalemate will a negotiated settlement become possible. Sometimes it takes guns to stop the guns.Won’t such arms supplies further nourish a Russian paranoia of encirclement? Yes, but Putin is feeding the paranoia already, untroubled by the facts. He recently told students in St Petersburg that the Ukrainian army “is not an army, it is a foreign legion, in this case a Nato foreign legion”.The EU could never secure unanimity on such military supplies. If at all, it would have to be done by individual countries. Although this may bring back the old jibe that “America does the cooking and [url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news]Europe the washing up”, there is a case for the US doing most of the heavy military supply.The US has the best kit, it is probably in the best position to control its use, and is less vulnerable to bilateral economic or energy-supply pressures.The overall burden-sharing would be fair. European economies take most of the pain of sanctions, since they have more invested with Russia; they will provide a lot of the economic support Ukraine needs if it is to survive; and they are doing most of the diplomacy. In fact, McCain and Merkel make a perfect hard cop, soft cop combination.We need to counter this propaganda. No one is better placed to do this than the BBCThere is one other area in which Europe in general, and Britain in particular, can do more. Broadcast media are usually classed as soft power, but they are as important to Putin as his T-80 tanks. He has invested in them heavily. Among Russian speakers – including in eastern Ukraine and the Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic states – he has used television to impose his own narrative of a socially conservative, proud Russia threatened by fascists in Kiev, an expansionist Nato and a decadent EU.Last year a Russianist of my acquaintance was sitting naked and at ease in the hot tub with a friend of his in Moscow after several vodkas, as is the Russian custom, when this highly educated Russian asked: “So tell me, honestly, why do you support the fascists in Kiev?”We need to counter this propaganda not with lies of our own but with reliable information and a scrupulously presented array of different views. No one is better placed to do this than the BBC. The US may have the best drones in the world, and Germany the best machine tools, but Britain has the best international broadcaster.And there is an appetite for it: the BBC’s sadly diminished online Russian-language service still has an audience of nearly seven million, and during the crisis its Ukrainian-language audience has tripled to more than 600,000.Dangerous plan to arm UkraineLetters: This is as ill-conceived as it is dangerous and represents a fundamental misreading of the situation Read more[/url]In his excellent report on the [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-bbb9e158-4a1b-43c7-8b3b-9651938d4d6a]future of news, James Harding, the head of BBC News, makes a strong commitment to growing the World Service. Immediately stepping up its Russian and Ukrainian offerings would be a good way for the BBC to show that it will put its money where its mouth is. Without compromising the BBC’s independence, the British government could also chip in some extra funding.If ever there were people in need of accurate, fair, balanced information, it is Russians and Ukrainians today. None of these things will stop Putin tomorrow, but in combination they will work in the end. Dictators win in the short run, democracies in the long.