That one country is fighting to defend its independence and right to self determination and the other led by an imperialist minded racist anti-democratic demagogue – is Trump any worse? – is attempting to deny that right by military means remains unsaid in too much of the left converage of the Ukraine-Russia war.

That ommision ranks on my irritation barometer at the same level as the insistence by these same writers that the two sides should negotiate a settlement, but never add that a just peace must include the restoration of Ukraine’s full soveignty over all of its territory.