LETTER: Russia is already defeated

Russian press attaché to SA Alexander Arefiev may think he’s clever referring to something that happened almost 200 years ago (“A history quiz”, September 4).

Russia and Ukraine lived at peace for almost 20 years until a democratically elected government came to power that did not want to play to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s tune.

In 1932 Joseph Stalin and his Communist Party enforced a man-made famine, one of the goals being to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement, it is estimated between 5-million and 7-million people died. This was called Holodomor — a genocide against the Ukrainian people

Arefiev and his totalitarian, warmongering boss have now caused the material destruction of a peaceful neighbouring country, plus about 30,000 deaths. For what?

Russia is already defeated — morally, on the battlefield and in the eyes of the civilised world and its own long-suffering citizens, who have had to endure totalitarian rule for the best part of modern history, from the Tsars to the Communist Party to Putin.

Rob Tiffin, Cape Town

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