So, did Britain encourage Putin?

DID Britain encourage President Putin? Of course not. A silly question. Unless you define just what encouragement is. It’s possible to encourage something by simply saying ‘yes’... go ahead... do it.

It can also be seen as encouragement when one does not say ‘no – don’t you do that’.

In 1938, appeasement of Nazi advances might be described as encouragement. A ‘no objection’. There is also what is known as tacit encouragement. We more or less gave in to Nazi Germany’s wishes over Czechoslovakia.

It gets more complicated when we look at the history of Russian/ Ukraine/EU and Nato relationships.

Britain’s Prime Minister did speak on the phone to President Putin, I think to warn him of financial pressures if he did invade. I have no idea if he sought a diplomatic solution with President Putin to the Nato issue. There is little information on just why Russia went to war. Why not?

First of all, Ukraine, like the UK, is made up of more than one nationality. In Britain, we have four: Scottish, Welsh, Irish and English. In the Ukraine, there are two. One is Russian.

Ukraine became independent again when the USSR, the ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’, dissolved in 1991.

This started a period of transition in Ukraine to a market economy. Ukraine suffered an eight-year recession, however the economy then experienced a high increase in GDP, but was caught in the worldwide recession in 2008 and the economy plunged to spring 2009, then levelled out.

In 2004, a pro-Russian candidate narrowly won in the election for president. He was accused of vote rigging. There then followed a period of political unrest; on one occasion the supreme court dismissed the president on account of parliament not knowing where he was! It turned out he was in Russia, having left Ukraine while trade negotiations took place with the EU and with Russia.

In November 2013, President Yanukovych did not sign the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement and instead pursued closer ties with Russia. This move sparked opposition protest in favour of ties with Europe and pro-Russian ties in predominately Russian areas. One estimate is that some 20,000 people died in internal violent conflicts between the pro-Russian Ukrainians and Ukrainians; and one million became displaced while corruption was widespread.

The question of Ukraine becoming a member of the EU and Nato was up for serious consideration at the Bucharest conference of 2008.

It was supported by USA and Poland, but voted against by Germany, France and Britain. President Putin was present by invitation, and he clearly indicated strong Russian opposition to Ukraine’s membership of Nato; it would not be acceptable and it would upset the balance of power. He did not indicate opposition to membership of the EU.

In 2019, Ukraine adjusted its constitution in readiness for its application to join the EU and Nato.

The historic evidence of the Russian Federation’s opposition to Ukraine membership of Nato was that there were two provinces in Eastern Ukraine where the majority of people were pro-Russian and, with Russian support, independent.

In 2014, Russia annexed the essential pro-Russian Crimea, having already held a lease on the port of Odesa, an action to counter a possible future Nato presence adjacent to Russian ports.

Add to that President Putin’s strongly expressed opposition to a Ukraine Nato membership in Bucharest in 2008.

In 2019, Ukraine altered its constitution in preparation for its formal application to join the EU and Nato... something that received virtually zero press coverage or comment in the EU when Britain was still a member.

With that complicated background, we might try and answer the posed question from the position of .... Did not the EU see that Russia might take steps to protect itself militarily, as America did over Russian Cuban missiles in 1961?

That the 2008 Bucharest vote against the Ukraine membership should still have held?

That Ukraine is a divided country along pro and anti-Russian lines. Wouldn’t membership of Nato exacerbate that?

That the EU and Nato appears to ignore Russian opposition to Ukraine’s Nato membership but not EU membership might well have been interpreted wrongly by Russia as tacit indifference, or acquiescence, but not encouragement, and that Britain is no longer a member of the EU but is a member of Nato, so only has one eye on Europe?

Don Frampton Newton Abbot, Devon