The hope is, of course, that the sanctions being put in place will cripple the Russian economy to an extent which will either bring about the removal of Putin or prevent the continuation of the military campaign. It seems that Russian army morale is low as it is, so the news that the soldiers might not be getting paid might well cause them to pack it in there and then! Not that that's likely to happen; peope like Putin will continue to throw what money they have at the military and leave civilians to starve.

UN 'Peacekeeping forces' have proved ineffective time after time, of course, usually becuase their RoE are too restrictive. The memebers of the United Nations were never going to countenance the idea of an International Army -you don't fund a force that might be used against you at some point!

If we are talking 'boots on the gound', then that opens up a whole can of the proverbial wriggly things! Whose boots? What ground? Do we stop at puhing Russian forces out of Ukraine, or go on into Russia and remove Putin? What will be the cost in lives, money and reputation? Iraq , Afghanistan, the Falklands, Viet Nam and Northern Ireland are still all in living memory, nobody wants Ukraine to join that list of torment and failure.

From the other side of the coin, turning the very well-trained and highly professional British Army loose on a bunch of conscripts would be little short of cold-blooded murder. It's not an attractive notion, even for the soldiers.

The whole nuclear thing is a wild card. We simply do not know if Putin would use them, whether people on his own side would prevent him from doing so, and how others might respond if he did!

Apart from asnything else, who wants to have to liberate France again!