Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to Germany and the US, says in The Times that the rules of the road in international relations have become hopelessly confused. Too much foreign policy is now influenced by vivid and sometimes moving video. In the FT, Nicholas Burns, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School and former undersecretary of state, says the struggle for Ukraine is shaping up to be the kind of contest for power with the Russians that cold war US presidents managed so effectively. In the same paper, Edward Luce thinks Mr Obama needs to convince Mr Putin that he will not be outfoxed. This means summoning a determination he has too often lacked. Jonathan Steele in the Guardian says Vladimir Putin’s troop movements in Crimea are of questionable legality under the terms of the peace and friendship treaty Russia signed with Ukraine in 1997. But their illegality
is considerably less clear-cut than that of the US-led invasion of Iraq, or of Afghanistan. David Blair says in The Daily Telegraph that brave people gave their lives to achieve democracy in a united country. But the immediate, unintended consequence of their sacrifice has been the partition of the very nation they hoped to save. Mary Dejevsky in the Independent thinks Putin’s stance reflects a domestic consensus that, while Ukraine may be independent, its natural place is within Russia’s orbit and Moscow cannot just stand by while the West conspires to snatch it away. Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express thinks it is very difficult to listen to any lectures from Europe’s politicians about Ukrainian democracy. In the Daily Mail, Dominic Lawson thinks this has been a desperate defeat for the Russian President. It is no gain for him to retain the use of Sevastopol – that
had always been a given. Putin’s hopes of tying all Ukraine into a greater Russia have been dealt a fearful blow. In the International New York Times, Charles King, professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University, believes the future of Ukraine is now no longer about Kiev’s Independence Square, democracy in Ukraine or European integration. It is about how to preserve a vision of Europe – and, indeed, the world – where countries give up the idea that people who speak a language we understand are the only ones worth protecting. Matthew Kaminksi says in the Wall Street Journal that the Kremlin’s claims about the importance of ethnic Russian identity and language are just a sideshow. What’s going on is pure power play.

Chris Huhne in the Guardian says there has been a rash of people arguing that there should be no further coalitions. These enthusiasts for the smack of firm single-party government misunderstand the new lie of the political land. In The Times, Tim Montgomerie says Cameronism has not begun to build the kind of support among lower-income Britons, ethnic minorities and urban northerners that would underpin a natural majority. Kevin Maguire in the Mirror says Europe is a huge obsession of a relatively small minority. But the anti-EU mob is well funded, organised, obsessive and absolutely dedicated.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says in the Independent that the good Harman, Dromey, Hewitt and the NCCL have done must not be washed away with this storm. However, they must now understand how back then, when they were young and fiery, brave intentions and utopian ideals sometimes led to abominable decisions and terrible consequences. The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh says those who encouraged paedophiles in the Seventies are still with us in senior posts in a party which could be back in power next year.

The Independent says ultimately, a three-way conversation on Ukraine’s internal organisation and external relationships, involving the West, Moscow and Kiev, is the only hope. Meanwhile, a century on from the outset of a war that began with a single shot fired in Bosnia, it is incumbent on all world leaders – European, American and Russian – to recognise that one false movement or even statement over Ukraine could have disastrous consequences.

The Daily Mail says exactly one year ago, in the wake of the Francis report into lethal NHS coverups at Mid Staffs and elsewhere, Jeremy Hunt declared that “the era of gagging staff from raising their real worries about patient care must come to an end.” Depressingly, however, it appears some NHS bureaucrats have continued down the same dangerous path of trying to silence the whistleblowers. If more patients are not to suffer appalling and needless deaths, he must give whistleblowers the protection their courage deserves.

The Sun says successive British governments have ripped off motorists, pushing the price of fuel ever higher with duty. It is time for some fairness towards drivers. That means cutting duty by 3p to the EU average. It would still make up a whopping 50% of the cost of petrol and diesel. But it would add 0.2% to economic growth and generate 70,000 new jobs. That’s not just fair. It’s a no-brainer.

Alicia Castro, Argentinian ambassador to the UK, says in the Guardian that the right of self-determination of peoples is not applicable to any or every human community, but only to “peoples”. In the case of the inhabitants of the Malvinas, we do not have a separate “people”, still less one subjected to colonialism. The British residents of the islands do not have the right to resolve the sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the UK: nobody doubts they are British, and can continue to be so, but the territory in which they live is not. It belongs to Argentina.

Melanie Phillips says in The Times that we now know that the defeat of Nazism, the fall of Communism, and the rise of the EU have not been enough to expunge the nightmare of Europe’s blood-soaked past. Democracy is now enabling the rise of many more parties committed to eroding it. All this is conspiring to return Europe to a state of danger not seen for a century.

In the International New York Times, Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group and former UN high commissioner for human rights, says Sri Lanka’s government is playing a waiting game, hoping the international community will lose interest, while also proffering the crude argument that reconciliation is attainable without justice. But the costs of doing something now would be very small compared with the years of strife that would be the likely result of letting impunity win in Sri Lanka.

@Simon_Nixon