Sir, – I cannot agree with Geoffrey Roberts’s contention that “the West is [also] working to turn Russia into a pariah state internationally”. Nor do I agree with his assertion that “Putin’s restraint in the face of massive western military aid to Ukraine has been remarkable but his forbearance may not be boundless” (“West risks war with Russia over escalating military aid”, Opinion & Analysis, January 25th).
Russia under Vladimir Putin is succeeding very well itself in achieving pariah status as a result of its ongoing aggression in Ukraine, which according to documented reports from the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine includes massacres of civilians, the torture and rape of women and children, indiscriminate attacks on densely populated civilian areas, including on hospitals, schools and homes, and the forcible deportation of civilians to Russia.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has opened a full investigation into allegations of Russian war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and the UN has suspended Russia from its Human Rights Council.
Prof Roberts has published a considerable body of academic work on Russia. I find it difficult, however, to accept his framing of western policy in Wednesday’s article or indeed of Russia’s Euro-Atlantic policy as expressed, for example, in his letter to the Financial Times in July 2021, seven months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that “Russia remains committed to a united international order based on legal norms and respectful trust-based relations between states . . . Politics, diplomacy and peacekeeping are its preferred instruments”.
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Last month, Prof Roberts wrote that “During the first weeks of the war, Putin did attempt a rapid defeat of Ukraine to force a change of government and the negotiation of a peace treaty that would ensure Russia’s future security”. He noted that “when that Blitzkrieg failed, the Russians turned to a strategy of attrition . . . From the Russian point of view, their attrition strategy is working, and Putin may just reinforce his front-line defences and await Ukraine’s civil and military collapse.”
In my view this is an unduly benign framing of Russia’s intentions in Ukraine and unduly boosterish analysis of Russian capabilities given the news this week that as many as 200 battle tanks will be sent by western countries to Ukraine, including German Leopard 2 and American Abrams 1 tanks.
Time, and the tragic continuing loss of life of civilians and soldiers in Ukraine, will tell us whether Prof Roberts is correct or not that these weapons “will do little or nothing to change the strategic situation”.
To its people’s great credit, Ukraine shows no sign of civil and military collapse. European countries must continue to support our independent, democratic neighbour and friend in its courageous struggle for freedom. – Yours, etc,
JANE MAHONY,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Geoffrey Roberts writes: “Putin’s restraint in the face of massive western military aid to Ukraine has been remarkable”.
This looks a lot like what Putin says himself. One might wonder why, without any provocation by the Ukraine, Putin failed so manifestly to exercise the same “restraint” before he invaded a sovereign democratic European state.
This “restraint” is “remarkable” only by its total absence! – Yours, etc,
IAN THOMPSON,
Lélex,
France.
Sir, – Let us look at how Prof Roberts’s previous predictions in The Irish Times from July of last year have fared (“Ukraine must grasp peace from jaws of unwinnable war”, Opinion & Analysis, July 13th).
Prof Roberts confidently told us that “because of its overwhelming superior firepower, Russia is winning a war that Ukraine cannot but lose, irrespective of the amount of western military aid or ‘wonder weapons’ it receives” and that as “there is no sign the Kremlin’s war machine is running out of steam . . . Ukraine has little or no hope of recovering lost territories”.
While dismissing the notion that Putin would be forced into mobilisation, he lamented that Ukraine could only lose more territory if it didn’t seek peace. The defeat of Russian forces in the attempt to take Kyiv went unmentioned, both as it undermined Prof Roberts’s overall narrative and gave the lie to his assertion that Russian war aims were limited to “the Greater Donbass”.
So what actually happened? Weeks later the Russian army was comprehensively routed in Kharkiv, prior to its forced withdrawal from Kherson. Both victories were enabled by high-precision artillery systems such as the US Himars, French Caesar and German PZh2000. Despite mobilising 300,000 largely unwilling troops – something Prof Roberts told us wasn’t on the agenda – Russian offensive activities since the summer have been limited to a largely symbolic effort in Bakhmut reliant on primitive human wave attacks using former prisoners as cannon fodder. Russia’s rate of artillery fire has decreased dramatically as its own industrial base has struggled to provide shells and tubes, while Moscow has been reduced to asking North Korea for spares. A succession of commanders have failed to regain the initiative and have resorted to terror bombing of civilian populations instead, precisely because Russia’s armed forces have, to borrow a phrase, “run out of steam”. Meanwhile Putin declared territories he did not fully control – well outside of the “Greater Donbass” – to be new Russian provinces, while issuing dire threats of nuclear retaliation, thinking this would deter the Ukrainian advance. His bluff was called, successfully.
Despite having been shown to be comprehensively and categorically wrong in his initial assessments, Prof Roberts has changed neither his opinions nor his conclusions. As a student of Russian and Soviet history, I have great respect for Prof Roberts’s academic work. I can only beseech him to cease his interventions into the debate on the current war, lest he destroy what is left of his reputation. – Yours, etc,
DARAGH McDOWELL,
London.
Sir, – Prof Geoffrey Roberts chides Nigel Gould-Davies for giving no hard evidence for his insights into Russian president Vladimir Putin’s thinking, then praises Putin’s remarkable restraint when, he asserts, the West’s overarching aim is “to cripple Russia as a great power”.
And who says this is the West’s aim?
President Putin, of course. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN DOHERTY,
Gaoth Dobhair,
Co Dhún na nGall.