Monday, April 10, 2023

'High time Britain supported peace talks'

Letters to the Editor
Bournemouth Echo UK
Sun, 9 April 2023 


A Ukrainian soldier looks at the heavily damaged building after Russian attacks
 (Image: Muhammed Enes Yildirim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

MIKE Fry makes points of the highest importance in his Ukraine letter April 5 citing the 1990 Paris Charter and the 1995 Budapest Memorandum.

The end of the Cold War with Europe wide agreements to lock in security for European nations east and west.

But what Mr Fry is not factoring in is all that has happened since the early 1990s that has led to this dreadful war.

Like it or not the fact stands Ukraine post Soviet era is a deeply divided country.

The West and central areas are ethnic Ukrainian.

The east and south including Crimea seven million ethnic Russians.

That is the problem coming to the surface in wide scale protests in Kiev 2014. And that followed by civil war in the Donbass region with pro-Russian regions refusing to accept new pro western government in Kyiv.

If we do not look at this whole terrible war in the round, both sides, we will be locked into war for years if not far worse.

Russia will not accept US NATO nuclear weapons on their borders in a clearly hostile country. They have on record made this clear time and again. That is why in the end they invaded Ukraine.

No different in any way to the Cuba nuclear crisis 1962. The US would not have USSR nuclear missiles 90 miles from their country. The principle at the heart of the UN Charter “No country to advance its security at the expense of the security of another nation.” All blatantly ignored by US lead NATO ever moving east.

As for Donald Trump he said four weeks ago in the clearest terms “The world has never been closer to World War III and nuclear Armageddon”. He is absolutely right. The exact words of the United Nations.

As matters stand now China to their great credit is negotiating peace talks east and west.

Absolutely and high time Britain supported peace talks. Not more weapons, more war, more destruction.

JEFF WILLIAMS

Jubilee Road, Poole

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