British ministers compete in tough statements after poisoning the former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter in central London. In London, they promise to retaliate and bring the perpetrators to justice. But in Moscow these words of the British politicians can cause unless a mockery.

After the assassination of another former Russian intelligence officer, Alexander Litvinenko, no harsh retaliatory actions that could frighten the Kremlin did not follow. The direct killer Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi, made a brilliant political career, became a deputy of the State Duma of Russia, was awarded with new orders.

Why did not the one who committed the new attack in London be inspired by this example? Why should Russian President Vladimir Putin not consider that a new crime will get away with it?.

Whenever Russia passes another "red line" in its relations with the West - in Ukraine, Syria or right in the center of the British capital - there are always those who remind us that relations with Moscow should not be aggravated, Putin must not be angry, decisions can not be made , which hit the interests of Western economies or the pocket of ordinary Russians, we must not forget that Russia is a nuclear power, one can not, it is impossible, this.

And that's why - even when a crime is committed in London and its victims are dozens of random witnesses, residents of the UK, we do not see any political will to act. And we see the will to the statements and the obvious hope that the investigation will be long and all will be forgotten by the end, when and why it began. Well, about as in the story with Litvinenko.

Something similar is happening in the situation with Ukraine. When another Western politician begins to say that our country should carry out effective reforms, otherwise it will lose support, he seems to me schizophrenic.

In democracy, in reforms, in the fight against corruption, Ukrainians themselves should be interested. And the West should be interested in supporting a country whose borders have been violated by the aggressor.

Because if this country is not supported and its territorial integrity is not restored, then tomorrow the immediate danger will threaten already the West itself. And the attack in London is a good confirmation of that.

Therefore, there is no need to justify the reluctance to effectively support Ukraine and the possibility to turn off such support by the slow pace of Ukrainian reforms. It's just cowardice, greed and stupidity - no matter how noble words those who tie the confrontation between Russia and "fatigue" from Ukraine are hiding behind.

I want to recall a few simple facts. Poland, for which democratic Britain and France intervened in 1939, was not a democratic country at that time. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, whose independence many Western countries recognized even after the occupation by the Soviet Union in 1940, were not democratic countries.

Ethiopia, whose occupation led to the exclusion of Italy from the League of Nations, was not a democratic state either before or after the occupation. Kuwait, which was occupied by Iraq, was far from democracy.

But the civilized world defended first of all the law and its own security. By 1939, he had been ill with the "Munich Syndrome," a shameful and naive belief that it was possible to prevent a war by compromises with the aggressor.

And now, it seems, I got sick again.

Source: ESPreCoT.