West urged not to give in to ‘Ukraine fatigue’

Thirteen people were killed when a bus in Ukraine was hit by a rocket earlier this month, but it barely registered as news outside a country still fighting on all sides, writes Lucian Kim

Recently I took part in a panel discussion on relations between Russia and the EU. As the rest of Berlin was still getting out of bed, more than 100 people turned up for the event, mostly elderly Germans who will never forget the trauma and shame of the Second World War. One after another, members of the audience stood up, calling for a return to “the politics of peace”, to compromise, and to dialogue. Nobody in Europe wants war, I replied, surprised that such words even needed pronouncing.

The real question is whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to compromise, I said. As for dialogue, no leaders have talked as often with their Russian counterparts in the past year as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.