The media is currently talking about a Manifesto for Peace Petition discussed by Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer.
Statements of this kind as well as criticism of it have already been made several times and this discussion must also be conducted. A Wilhelmine truce is just as wrong today as it was at the beginning of the war, just as it is wrong to demand that Ukraine, in view of the many deaths, should finally submit to the Russian aggressor.
Instead, what is right in the current situation is not clear, so discussions about it are important, even if most of us can only do so on the basis of published information and opinions. Recently, for example, there was news Brazil wants a mediation initiative with China start as well as reports about Negotiations allegedly broken off due to pressure from the US and Great Britain between Ukraine and Russia.
Unless there are very good reasons for doing so, one should not deny the “opposite side”, who hold different opinions, the goodwill to seek a way out of the impasse, and certainly not the right to express one’s own opinion.
Perhaps it is inevitable that, given the existing uncertainty about what is right and the limited access to important information for us “normal” citizens, the discussion will be polarizing: People like to be on the “right” side. And on the part of politicians, agreement with the position of one’s own faction while defending against opposing arguments is the usual mode of discussion anyway, and the Ukraine war is no exception.
None of this saves us from thinking and discussing, because otherwise we would just be speechless when faced with the horror. That would certainly not be in the spirit of democratic opinion-forming. Political maturity can only be achieved through deliberation.