The nature of Russian aggression... and how to respond to it

To the Financial Times

Is there not a danger that we in the West may be fooling ourselves if we believe, like US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, that Russia will come out of its “special military operation” in Ukraine weakened? History may help with the answer.

It’s said that the supposed poor performance of Soviet troops in the winter war of 1939-40 against Finland led Hitler to risk his invasion of Russia in 1941. Yet it is clear that the Red Army learnt much from that war, especially fighting in severe winter conditions, which they used to good effect when defeating the Nazis. At the height of the Second World War, some British politicians, Churchill’s minister of aircraft production Lord Brabazon of Tara being one, voiced the hope that Russia would come out of that war weakened.

We must not make the same mistake. Before 24 February, there was a possibility that the Minsk Accords could be used to maintain Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but since then it has looked unlikely that Russia will leave the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, or those in the old Novorossiya area. Now true friends of Ukraine should be urging an immediate negotiated peace, even if this means Kyiv making some concessions over the disputed lands.

Bryn Rowlands, Malmesbury, Wiltshire

To The Guardian

The problem with Russia suffering “colossal losses” is that this really does not matter to its leaders. You only have to look back at historic campaigns involving Russia and its satellites to see that one of its major tactics is to keep throwing men (and women) into battle until the other side runs out of steam.

A comparison of the Allied (British, American and French) cemeteries from the Second World War in what was West Berlin and the Soviet war memorial in Treptower Park in the erstwhile East Berlin shows the difference in attitude to the value of human life: on the one hand individual graves lovingly cared for; on the other a vast arena where a statue of a Russian soldier holds aloft a child and stamps on the symbol of Nazism, while looking to the statue of Mother Russia.

Western rhetoric will not deter Vladimir Putin, who is a past master of the art; our politicians must find an effective brake to his ambitions in order to prevent further aggression.

Anne Maclennan, France

To The Times

At the end of the Second World War, the US treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wanted to turn Germany into a poor, deindustrialised farming country. Wiser counsels prevailed in the Marshall Plan. Now Lloyd Austin, the present US defence secretary, proclaims the objective of making Russia weak, while a junior UK defence minister promotes the idea that Ukraine should use British weapons to strike targets inside Russia.

Words matter. These are gifts to Vladimir Putin and his propagandists. He seeks to convince his people that the West is attacking and trying to dismember Russia. This is Putin’s war, not one that most Russians wanted. We should actively support the many brave Russians who oppose the war. When Ukraine’s future has been secured and Putin is gone, we are going to need to co-exist with Russia and not leave Europe’s largest country as a perpetual and embittered enemy. Germany stands as the exemplar. Sir Roderic Lyne, British ambassador to Russia, 2000-2004

To The Daily Telegraph

All my life I have believed in the theory of conflict prevention by the fear of mutually assured destruction with nuclear weapons. I am now questioning this theory, as I feel that the war in Ukraine is the first time that such a war has been enabled and continued by threatening to use nuclear weapons, as Vladimir Putin has done.

Philip Roberts, Caernarfon, Wales