The one thing Ukraine must do before Trump is sworn in

Every military expert and commentator now seems to open their report by asking what Donald Trump will do to stop the war in Ukraine. (“Putin and Trump are deluded about one another – and Ukraine will pay the price”, Friday 15th November). Why wait for Trump?

That man-child probably couldn’t find Ukraine on a map. We already know what the deal will have to be.

It is clear that Russia can’t subjugate the Ukrainians in a manner that will ever make it governable as a stable vassal state. The Ukrainians have shown far too much courage and resilience for that, and are to be massively admired.

But equally, Ukraine can never hope to push Russia off all its territory, and keep them off, especially since Trump will most likely limit American support for Ukraine.

So the deal will have to involve Ukraine ceding Crimea and its eastern, largely ethnic Russian, territories, with some fine detail of the borders to be worked out.

It’s hard for Ukrainians to accept this, but I think most, including Volodymyr Zelensky, know this will be the deal. In many ways, territorially, that has been the case since 2014.

It’s sad that many more lives have to be lost waiting for some dangerous populist from the US to get involved. Again I ask, why? It could be started today.

John Maxwell

Bournemouth, Dorset

The disquiet over the inheritance tax to be paid by farmers highlights the real problem with the whole tax system these days (“‘Tractor tax’ will not hit most farmers, Starmer insists ahead of protest”, Monday 18 November).

Farmers aren’t trying to cheat the system – they just want to pass on their land to their families so that farming can continue.

Unfortunately, ultra-wealthy landowners exploit loopholes – and pay lawyers more than a farmer’s annual income – in order to reduce their tax liabilities.

The more you have, the easier it is to avoid paying tax. We discovered as much when Rishi Sunak disclosed his tax affairs as PM. A billionaire paying a lower marginal tax rate than nurses and teachers is the real problem – not those on PAYE.

Chris Winton

Allestree, Derby

Like John Rentoul, I expect that the assisted dying bill, presently meandering through parliament, will be defeated (“Why have MPs suddenly got cold feet about assisted dying?”, Wednesday 13th November).

For me, that will be a sad affair – because whose life is it anyway?

Who should, or does have, autonomy over this life of mine? Surely, it can only ever be owned by myself, not the state, not those in the medical profession nor, indeed, any of my loved ones.

We are too preoccupied with preserving life at any cost. Death is inevitable for all of us. Given the choice, we should be allowed to die a dignified, pain-free death of our own choosing when we are ready to go; rather than die in undignified agony, suffering needlessly and endlessly, fighting for every breath.

This is exactly what happened to my own mother. She was “living” in deep distress, suffering in undignified agony from unstoppable cancer. All she wanted was to be allowed to die peacefully – there is no ethical dilemma in that.

I hope that our parliamentarians, elected by us to fight for us, have the courage to make the right decision to allow us autonomy and dignity when the time comes.

Gunter Straub

Hampstead, London

After so many years of Britain being a laughing stock on the world stage, thanks to a botched Brexit and years of economic incompetence under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sunak, it is so nice to see Keir Starmer restoring the UK’s battered credibility (“Step up Brexit reset or European allies will lose patience, Starmer warned”, Friday 15th November).

Nowhere is this more evident than at the G20 Summit in Brazil this week.

After years of Tory infighting sidelining fresh opportunities, what we are seeing is a prime minister and his team working to create more business, more jobs, more prosperity and more opportunities for UK citizens.

This is the sort of leadership UK citizens deserve.

Geoffrey Brooking

Havant, Hampshire

Your recent report into Generation Z’s influence on the US election used an AI image of Trump that had previously circulated on social media (“Gen Z caused the US election shock – and could do the same here”, Saturday 16th November).

I often don’t read the picture captions, but in this case I’m glad I did – otherwise, I would not have known it was computer-generated!

There has been plenty of talk about fake news and the use of AI images in the media. But I was shocked by how realistic they can be.

It has made me question many of the things I now see on social media. If trust in traditional news media is an issue, then the handling of AI images needs to be taken more seriously, particularly if people are not getting their information from trusted sources.

Iain Boyd

Hotwells, Bristol