A tradegy for the world

The Russian-Ukrainian war is indeed a tragedy for the whole world.

However, let’s ask ourselves whether Russia’s President Putin really is the Bond style villain here (albeit with a long table instead of a cat).

Russia’s incursion into Ukraine can be viewed as essentially a defensive response to decades of expansion towards Russia’s borders on the part of NATO and the EU.

Since 1997, 14 central/east European & Baltic States have joined NATO, four of them bordering Russia.

Why? The Cold War was over by then and the old Soviet Union dissolved.

Even Pope Francis has suggested that “NATO barking at Russia’s door” provoked the Kremlin.

It was the 2014, pro-western coup in Ukraine that triggered an eight-year civil war, the backdrop to Russia’s “special military operation”.

Ukraine’s 2019 constitution contained explicit pledges to NATO and EU membership.

Does anyone seriously suppose that the United States would do nothing if hostile forces penetrated Canada or Mexico, conducting exercises right up to the US border? Rather a case of double standards here?

Talking of double standards, our own politicians’ and media’s anti-Russian moralising has a hollow ring to it given the knighthood bestowed on former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Given his five wars, Mr Blair’s foreign policy could fairly be described as politics’ answer to Will Smith, in terms of slapping people about with abandon.

What is clear is the moral bankruptcy of the US/UK Governments and their allies. Pursuing their proxy war with Russia, they are indeed willing to “fight to the last Ukrainian”.

Even worse, a confrontation has come about between two nuclear-armed blocs. So the very survival of humanity is being risked so that US backed interests can dominate the world.

David Akroyd, Reading