We have the president of the Ukraine apparently asking for a meeting face-to-face with the president of Russia as the only way of stopping this crazy war between the two countries.

I know I will be criticised for what I’m about to say but really this war can only be stopped when the President of the United States decides it can be stopped .America sowed the seeds of this war and only they can stop it.

When America decided on regime change in 2014, war was inevitable between Russia and Ukraine; when America decided on no diplomacy the West decided not to solve the problem of the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine and America decided not to try. I am sure they wanted this war. Left to France, Germany and Hungary it was doomed to failure and America knew that it was only a matter of time.

America went out of its way to stop Europe from buying gas from Russia and stopped the second pipeline to Germany, another threat to Russia. In any war, honesty is the first casualty and of course, most people will say that I am lying but you only have to look at the facts.

America has succeeded in stopping Russia from selling gas to the West making it poorer. At the moment, America does not want an end to the war but this is a very dangerous game.

Ask any mother, be they Russian or Ukrainian because the loss of the children is too high a price to pay; nobody in those two countries wants this war.

The world cannot afford this war because it will cause mass starvation and higher prices for everyone. The only ‘winners’ if you can call them that will be the Americans who will continue to dominate this planet. If you think it’s been a war worth fighting ask the mothers of the dead and the maimed.

Ian Greenhalgh