There has been strong reaction from many distinguished public figures to the outrageous “12-Step Plan on Ukraine” published on the eve of the 2020 Munich Security Conference. Perhaps the most compelling and poignant, however, was given by Stanislav Aseyev, a Donetsk writer and journalist freed in the last exchange of prisoners after the 31 months he was held in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk people’s republic.” Almost all of that time, he was held in Izolyatsia, the former art center turned into a secret prison where Russian and Russian-controlled militants torture with impunity.

He writes:

“In 2012 my native city Donetsk greeted the European Football Championship with a new airport, a new railway station and stadium. Now, in 2020, there is none of that in Donetsk.”