Everyone waking up on the morning on of 24 February found themselves in a new era overnight. A time that we had thought we had successfully suppressed. War in Europe has taken place several times since World War II, for example Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, but these conflicts were never instigated by a nuclear power. And for what? There is no excusable explanation for what is happening right now in the Ukraine.

War is not a suitable means of enforcing political wishes

Anyone who starts a war and doesn't win it, or can't win it, has to reckon with and live with all the resulting consequences. History should have taught us that liberal democracies must never yield to a dictator. A dictator always sees giving in as a weakness of the democratic system and sees his opinion confirmed. I don't need to enumerate examples from history here.

The free, democratic people of this world must see what is happening in the Ukraine as an unmistakable wake-up call to:

1. Make us as independent as possible of autocratic or dictatorial systems.

2. Learn that we are never seen by them as equal partners in our sense.

3. For all the disadvantages that democracy has, it still offers people a life of security and relatively high levels of prosperity.

Or to put it the other way around, which democratic country has attacked its neighbours in the last 80 years?

People like Vladimir Putin and his supporting kleptocracy no longer belongs at any summit meeting, but belongs in The Hague. They have themselves destroyed the desire to be seen as an equal power.

My only wish is that this war will end soon and that people in Ukraine and all around the world will be able to live in peace.

Thank you!