Sir, – Paul Gillespie’s call for Europe to end its supposedly “juvenile” boycott of talking directly to Russia about bringing the Ukraine war to an end is a curious one (“Europe must end its juvenile taboo against talking to Russia”, June 13th).
It comes two days after senior British, French and German diplomats held talks in the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow on prospects for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Channels of communications between Moscow and European capitals have remained open. Russia is member of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
But Russian president Vladimir Putin believed that he could gain more from military means and has been unwilling to agree to successive ceasefire proposals that would freeze the front lines and allow for meaningful peace negotiations. – Yours, etc,
RM Block
Dr EDWARD BURKE
Assistant professor in the History of War since 1945,
University College Dublin.
Sir, – The main assumption of Paul Gillespie’s article is unstated, presumably because he thinks it is so obvious. That assumption is that Russia will defeat Ukraine sooner or later.
The first irony of this war was that although people opposed Russian president Vladimir Putin, they agreed with him that the Russian military was invincible, due mainly to its overwhelming numbers.
And many people still share that belief with him.
At this stage anybody who still believes in Russian invincibility should at least try to work out when Russia is actually going to apply all that overwhelming manpower (Ukraine now kills more Russians per month than Russia can recruit replacements).
Take Crimea: the widespread assumption is that Crimea is the part of Ukraine Russia controls most completely and that Russia will remain there whatever else happens.
Actually, the question now is how longer Russia can stay in Crimea because Ukraine has slowly but surely put Crimea under siege and has mostly cut off Russian resupply logistics.
Let me state my own assumption in this letter: Ukraine will defeat Russia.
The only question is how long that will actually take. – Yours, etc,
FRANK DESMOND
Cork.
