Sir, – Fintan O'Toole (Opinion & Analysis, February 19th) says that Vladimir Putin "has a point about Nato". He quotes the Shilfrison study that concluded that "Russian leaders are essentially correct in claiming that US efforts to expand Nato since the 1990s violate the 'spirit' of the 1990s negotiations: Nato expansion nullified the assurances given to the Soviet Union in 1990".
This analysis overlooks a number of important facts. The Soviet Union no longer exists. It collapsed not because the West “won” the cold war but because of its own internal strains and contradictions.
With the exceptions of Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, all the newly independent states that emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union applied to join Nato. None of them had an independent voice in negotiations in 1990 and so were not part of any understandings. None applied to join Nato in order to attack the Russian Federation: they applied because they were concerned to ensure that they would not be treated in the manner in which Russia treats Ukraine today. They and Nato are surely vindicated.
Russia under the authoritarian rule of Vladimir Putin is a very different entity from the Soviet Union under Gorbachev or Yeltsin. Fintan O’Toole states that Russia’s modern sense of nationality was shaped by Napoleon’s invasion in 1812 and Hitler’s invasion (in breach of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact). There is clearly a point in that.
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But we must also take account of Mr Putin’s claim that Ukraine is really part of the broader Russian entity.
It is hard to know how much all this counts for among the Russian people.
What we do know for a fact is that there is a movement in civil society in Russia that wants to be quit of Kremlin authoritarianism, a movement that is being savagely repressed by the Kremlin. We do not know what Russian civil society thinks of Putin’s expressed longing for Kievan Rus or something very like it. We do know for a fact that Ukrainians have repeatedly expressed their democratic right to freedom and independence and that the Maidan revolution was, at least in part, directed at removing the power of Russian-supported autocrats from their polity. Ukraine and Ukrainians should not be treated as pawns in an attempt by Vladimir Putin to resurrect the old imperialist game of “spheres of influence”.
I will not go into Fintan O’Toole’s remarks about neutrality, except to say that there is a certain irony in his choice of concluding sentence: “It might as well be us.” – Yours, etc,
ALAN DUKES,
Tully West,
Kildare.
Sir, – Europe sits on the edge of a potential humanitarian catastrophe. Any Russian military action against Ukraine, or any deployment of Russian troops into the seized eastern districts, will trigger political, economic and social ramifications – the extent of which cannot yet be foretold.
Vladimir Putin, through acts of what could be labelled paranoia, threatens the security of the people of not only the immediate eastern European nations, but of Russia’s population as well.
No one is to blame for any resulting catastrophe but Mr Putin. – Yours, etc,
DAN DONOVAN,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.