Mikhail Gorbachev was right to warn the West against instigating a new Cold War with Russia. The whole business of the Ukraine has been mishandled from the very beginning by the West. It does not take a super brain to work out that when the government in Kiev was overthrown and replaced with a Western leaning revolutionary coalition with some very unsavoury far right elements, there would be fear and anxiety among the Russian speaking majority in the Eastern provinces. A little common sense and a spirit of give an take would have readily diffused the tensions and produced a solution. It would have been very easy to work with Russia and allay her fears of an eastward march of NATO, which are every bit as real in Moscow as fear of a westward march of the Russians in the capitals of Europe.
Instead a path of demonisation of Putin and all things Russian became the prevailing mood which informed seriously misguided policy decisions. Sanctions are damaging western economic interests every bit as much as they are damaging Russia, witness the slowdown in Europe. Add the shambles in the middle east and you have a record of incompetence in statecraft rarely before equalled. It is time to get real.