LETTER: Deluded thinking on Russia

Mr Jonny Cohen (“Navalny is no hero”, May 17th)  is deluded. Yes, Russia is a proud country with a great traditions, but non-Russian countries such as Georgia and Ukraine don’t want it shoved down their throats.

He is particularly naïve if he thinks all Ukraine has to do is declare neutrality for Russian aggression to stop. This will result is a vassal state steadily stripped of its identity in a process of Russification. All Russia’s former states went through the same process and have taken years to recover.

They don’t want to rewind history. Putin’s “new world order” is perverse and directly opposed to what we regard as democracy. He is an autocratic crook who kills his opponents. His allies are China, Belorussia and North Korea — hardly beacons of liberal democracy.

I don’t buy his high level of support in Russia either. You might as well ask some downtrodden North Korean if he loves Kim Jong Un. There’s only one answer if you want to survive.

Unfortunately, after almost 80 years of peace, the West had lost the stomach for a fight and the drip feeding of munitions to Ukraine is a mistake. Only a large-scale assault against Russia sending it reeling back to its borders will fix the situation in a manner that will guarantee stability in Europe for generations. It would be the end of Putin and allow Russians to take their place in a free and democratic Europe, which I believe every young Russian longs for.

Bernard Benson,
Parklands