IT would be impossible this week not to write about Ukraine, but the challenge is to make sure that anything I write is still current by the time you read it – so fast are things moving.

As readers of this column (and indeed, keen observers of the whacky cyber-Unionist online ecosystem) will know, I was recently in Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian politicians and civil society to learn more about their experience of the conflict. Scotland is an outward-looking, internationalist nation yet, under the current constitutional settlement, it is the UK Government alone that decides foreign policy – accountable, so we’re told, to MPs in Westminster.

What I saw was sobering and confirmed my view that what is happening in Ukraine is relevant to all of us, now. There are those in Scotland, in the Yes movement too, who believe all politics is local, and that the SNP should focus solely on devolved competencies. Previous Scottish governments didn’t – why should we? Jack McConnell fought tooth and nail to set up a Scottish International Development Fund in the Scottish Government’s name, but you’d think from the shrieks of outrage following the SNP delegation’s trip to Ukraine that we were the first Scottish politicians to ever get on a plane.

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The whole point to independence is to join the world as a sovereign state, and we need to be clear eyed about the reality of what that means. Ukraine is a real-time challenge to what sort of world we want to live in, and it is right we – even before independence – express our view on what we want to see. The “end of history” seems a long time ago. When the tyrant ruling Iraq sent tens of thousands of conscripts to invade and occupy Kuwait in 1990 – a clear breach of international law – an international coalition formed to liberate the Emirate and restore its sovereignty. The effort then evolved into something entirely different: regime change in Iraq, and any hopes of a harmonious united post-Soviet world evaporated, along with the lives, hopes and dreams of millions of people across Iraq, Syria and wider still living with appalling consequences of western foreign policy.

But the idea that a big, or belligerent, state can occupy or annex their neighbours cannot stand, or else smaller or more pacific states will lose out and we’ll all spiral downward. As US vice-president Kamala Harris said on February 19: “No one country can say to another, you can’t have the system of government you want.” Quite (and let’s bank that for future use in due course at home too). Ukraine is sovereign, and Russia has no place making demands or putting restraints on its choices. We should give no airtime to idiots, useful or otherwise, giving credence to any idea that this is about anything other than Kremlin aggression.

Ukraine has been partly annexed and occupied for eight years and its people have suffered significantly already, as one said to me in Kyiv: “We’re at war, war is hell.” Mr Putin, in his TV theatrics of the last few days, has proven he has no checks, balances or good advisers around him, his coterie of advisors are in no position to stop him or urge caution or restraint, and he is hell bent on actions beyond the ones he has taken. And they’re bad enough. Ukraine has been invaded in the last few hours but has been suffering occupation for years. We are well past the time for deterrence and we need consequences.

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So what to do? The UK Prime Minister has promised much, but we have yet to see it. Despite the bluster, yesterday’s sanctions were so weak it was homeopathic. The Germans yesterday, finally, iced the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which will avoid heavy dependence on Russian gas, but will also cause them significant consequences in their own energy markets which will themselves have knock-ons for us here so interconnected are our energy markets. But we need more.

I quite agree with individuals being targeted with Unexplained Wealth Orders or travel bans, but again we’ve seen few so far. I have called for a proper consideration of what removing the Russian State from the Swift international payments network would mean, for us and them, and met myself with representatives of Swift to discuss it. This happened to Iran in 2012 as part of EU sanctions and had profound consequences for the regime and Iranian citizens – it is not a step to be taken lightly.

However, the Kremlin’s actions justify serious consideration of all available options. Disinformation is also a continuing source of poison in our debate, and it is high past time we acted. Russia Today is a clear key part of the Russian State’s disinformation infrastructure, and earlier this month was banned from operations in Germany. It is high time we did the same here.