I’VE got this daft idea. I was trying to see how we can help with what is happening in Ukraine from our homes, and apart from donating to help with aid there wasn’t a lot!
But what we could do to show our support for Ukraine and a free world is instead of wearing our team’s colours this weekend, find anything in yellow and blue and wear that to whatever sporting ground you are going to around the world. Send a message of support, send a message of defiance against war!
We can show a visible loud message doing this: to the Ukrainians showing them we support them, but also very visibly to every Russian person showing them that the world won’t stand for this and they need to remove their leader, it’s his war not theirs!! Get them to remove him from inside. We need everyone in world to join in and show Russia. This is bigger than politics and guns!
READ MORE: Alex Salmond suspends RT show following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Lets get every football and rugby and sports ground full of yellow and blue this weekend. Shout it out to everyone in media world. Promote, make it happen. Taking the knee showed how a visible response can be very effective against racism. This can do the same!!
Mass visible support and people protest can help more than politics and guns! All around the world this can make a difference. Send a message to Russian people so they can change and remove Putin from the inside. Visible action in social media can do this and get the message out to all supporters.
This needs to happen. You can make this happen. Send a message!!
Robbie Wilson
Wormit, Fife
SO the BBC say correctly state the fact that “Russia has invaded Ukraine” and in the second half of the sentence opine “ending hopes of a diplomatic solution”. We must hope that the BBC’s assessment is wrong, but for once I will take them at their word.
Firstly, Professor John Mearsheimer, of the Univesity of Chicago, a leading proponent of the realist school of international relations, said on Wednesday in an online seminar with the student politics society of Kings College Cambridge that absorption of the Ukraine into Nato is a red line for Russia, end of.
READ MORE: Scottish Unionist Party boss mocked for comparing Ireland to Russia
Secondly Russia, with a GDP of that of Italy or Spain, has a nuclear doctrine that incorporates their nuclear arsenal into their tactical thinking. Their threshold of use is lower than that of, say, the UK, though we do have warheads that can dial down yields to levels similar to that of what passes for Russian battlefield use levels.
Thirdly, as Mearsheimer goes on to say, there is a potential end point to this, other than Armageddon – Ukraine becoming a neutral country. If its good enough for Finland, which used to be part of the imperial Russian empire, it’s good enough for the Ukraine. I agree with him.
Fourthly, only 25% of the American public are prepared to condone military action by the United States and thankfully we have the US Congressional elections in nine months’ time.
Bill Ramsay
via email
IN response to JC of Fife (Letters, Feb 23), what I pointed out in my letter was that many people do not really understand where Nato came from and how it operates. As a collection of independent states it does not have the luxury of the autocratic dictatorship of Russia, which is acting on its own. Russian posturing is very much part of a bigger game.
Nato is not aggressively expanding and has significantly reduced its military expenditure since the end of the Cold War, unlike Russia. Nato as a defensive treaty responds or not to requests to join from independent states. Those independent states fear the proven aggressive actions of Russia since Putin came to power. It has already invaded neighbouring countries and promoted insurrection in its favour, including extra-judicial murder outwith its borders. It has even shot down a civil airliner. Why does anyone think an independent country may want to be part of Nato?
READ MORE: PM announces new sanctions the UK will put on Russia
Putin is following the exact same script as Hitler did in the 1930s, and we know where that led. It is not for Russia to dictate who may or may not be in Nato, and also consider that when Ukraine expressed an interest, Nato did not and has not agreed. Yes, there are historic ties between Russia and the ex-Soviet Union states, but that does not mean that those states should not be allowed to choose their own destiny.
I suggest that JC follows his own advice and research all aspects of the recent history and not just those that agree with his current view. There is a significant difference between direct single-state military aggressive action and a group of states getting together for mutual defence.
Nick Cole
Meigle, Perthshire
HEARING that as many as a quarter of Johnson’s cabinet, including Sunak and Raab, have been in receipt of Russian monies – and with apologies to the Bard – there really is only one response: “They are bought and sold for Russian gold, What a parcel of rogues in a Cabinet.” How I wish they were gone from having any control over life in Scotland.
I Easton
Glasgow
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