LETTER: Lies are not friendship

The letter of the spokesperson for the Russian embassy in SA, Alexander Arefiev, refers (“Russian targets are all military”, March 2). He writes that commentators and letter writers to this newspaper have, regarding war in Ukraine, seen the wood for the trees. But it is he who would have the woods deceive.

He tells us his country is doing everything it can to stop Nazism in Europe once again. But the president of Ukraine, against which Russia prosecutes its war, is Jewish.

He tells us that Russian strikes are aimed exclusively at military infrastructure. And yet a maternity hospital in the city of Zhytomyr has been struck by Russian shelling, and Russian use of cluster bombs in its attack on the town of Okhtyrka included a hit on a preschool.

He tells us the monitors of the Organisation for Security & Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have evidence of Ukraine’s crimes. Yet even those monitors are not safe from Russia’s aggression. Shortly before Arefiev presumably wrote his letter, Maryna Fenina, an Osce monitor in Ukraine, died from Russian shelling of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. She was trying to get supplies for her family.

Arefiev says his country is guided by moral and humanitarian principles. But the OSCE, the very organisation he cites, calls Russia’s aggression of Ukraine “unprovoked” and says Russian “missiles, shells and rockets are hitting residential buildings and town centres, killing and injuring innocent civilians — women, men and children alike”.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations requires that diplomatic missions promote friendly relations between the sending state, in this case Russia, and the receiving state, SA. Telling lies to the SA public is no act of friendship.

Nicole Fritz
Parktown

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