Naive defence of Putin’s behaviour

RODNEY Atkinson’s letter (The Chronicle, May 13) begins: “I have never been more ashamed of my country.” That is the only sentence in his letter that I agree with. We should all be deeply ashamed of the British Government’s cruelty towards asylum seekers. Their cruel and unworkable Rwanda plan will be seen as a filthy stain on our country’s history.

But Rodney’s complaint is not about this evil, nor about the Government’s reckless and untrustworthy dealings with the European Union and Ireland, or their disgraceful hypocrisy over poverty, Covid, renewable energy, and many other matters. No, he writes to accuse the Ukrainian leadership of being “openly militant and ideological Nazis” and to defend Russia’s reputation.

There’s no denying that the Russian people played a heroic role in the Second World War – once Stalin had to ditch his alliance with Germany after Hitler’s invasion of the USSR in 1941. But that was long ago and does not reflect upon the present-day behaviour of Vladimir Putin. The Russian government of today is no more trustworthy than the UK’S, and Rodney is being naïve if he believes what Putin and Lavrov say to justify their aggression.

Benny Ross