Thank you Simon Tisdall (The long, bloody history of proxy wars should be a warning to Johnson in Ukraine, 20 February). Boris Johnson’s perennial boosterism is never truthful and I hope this particular mad idea never sees the light of day.
Yes, bring Ukraine into Nato and answer Putin’s accusation head-on, or stay entirely out of the argument and protect those states who are already in Nato against the certain interference that will follow. The much criticised offer of helmets by the German government is of the same substance as Johnson’s rhetoric. A proxy war would destroy Ukrainians’ westward, anti-Putin-kleptocracy ambitions.
Anthony O’Neill
Glasgow
• Congratulations to Simon Tisdall for his straight-talking article, largely backing up the wise piece by Simon Jenkins last month (Britain should stay well out of Russia’s border dispute with Ukraine, 20 January).
The way out of this crisis isn’t by Johnsonian grandstanding, but by patient diplomacy, as Emmanuel Macron evidently realises, and from the starting point of the Minsk II accords – agreed at the time by Ukraine, but in seven years never implemented. It will happen neither by surrendering to, nor utterly rejecting, the Kremlin’s maximalist demands, but step by step, starting with the running sore of Donbas. It’s clear from Vasyl Filipchuk’s and others’ comments (Ukraine’s leader stood on platform of peace, but finds himself on brink of war, 20 February) that far-sighted Ukrainians realise this too.
Robin Milner-Gulland
Washington, West Sussex
• In characterising a hypothetical Ukrainian war of resistance against Russian occupation as a “proxy war” on the part of Britain and other western countries, Simon Tisdall is falling into the colonialist mindset of denying Ukrainians’ own agency and imagining that they would not fight such a war without western support.
This is delusional. The idea that postcolonial Ukraine would not fight a war of resistance against an occupation by their former imperial rulers is as ridiculous as the idea that Ireland, Kenya or Vietnam – among many others – would not fight an occupation by theirs.
If Russia occupies, there will be a war of resistance until Russia leaves, irrespective of the opinions and actions of foreign governments. Britain can choose to stand up against Russia by arming Ukraine, supporting its entry into Nato and increasing sanctions against Russia, or it can choose to stay neutral in the face of oppression. Either way, Ukrainians will keep fighting for their independence as colonised people always have done and always will do. There can be no peace without justice, in Ukraine or anywhere else.
Adam Lawson
Hackney, London
• Short of full-scale invasion at this point, Vladimir Putin may be content to take back Ukraine one bite at a time. He is likely to pause now and see whether the full weight of western sanctions is applied. He can reasonably expect that differences between the US and EU countries will hamper this. If this is the case, he may be willing to delay.
A lot can happen in the next few years to his advantage, not least the coming upheaval in the US elections, which could bring a new administration more inclined to let western Europe defend itself. As we are all aware, Putin has wider ambitions than Ukraine and we are entering into an uncertain, if not perilous decade for democracy.
David Copsey
Brighton
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