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Letter to the Foreign Secretary: Peaceful negotiation not maximum aggression in Ukraine

Following discussions around the UK supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine, we wrote to the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to reiterate our calls for negotiations and peace, rather than more war and aggression which the UK helps to facilitate. There are no winners in war, just continued destruction and loss of life. We encourage you to utilise this as a template a letter to your own local MP or news outlet in order to spread our voice for peace and freedom.

“Dear Foreign Secretary,

Ukraine: UK government is facilitating a strategy of maximum aggression

We write to you from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) to share 100 years of collective experience seeking negotiated resolutions to conflicts.

The bloody war in Ukraine must be brought to a negotiated conclusion as soon as possible. Russia, with a massive reservoir of manpower and arms, can continue to inflict destruction and casualties on both Ukrainians and Russians. The UK government is complicit in this evil by providing arms to Ukraine, and facilitating a strategy of maximum aggression.

There can be no winners in this war, everyone will be the losers. The only winners are the arms traders, whose basic desire is for long and ever-increasing wars, ideally a violent stalemate, so they can continue to send weapons forever and keep wars going forever. They are aided and abetted by aggressive governments, like the UK, who enable this brutal travesty against people, places and our planet.

The urgent danger now is that NATO countries, including the UK, facilitate Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s escalation of this war deep into Russia’s territory by agreeing to Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles. We urge you not to let this happen. Instead, please gather experienced conciliators and peace-builders, and approach countries to which Russia and Ukraine will listen, to begin talks, whether in public or behind the scenes, that could bring about a peaceful settlement.

You know that this is a sensible and safe approach with the added benefit that government funding saved on buying yet more arms could instead be used to repair our failing UK infrastructure. This is a view widely held by the British public.

We hope that you will pay attention to this plea, and look forward to your response. Yours in peace

Fiona McOwan, National Secretary, for WILPF UK Executive Committee”

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