Too long in power has led to paronoia for a now deranged Putin

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Russian president Vladimir Putin (Reuters)

It frequently happens that people who have enjoyed a lot of power for longer than is good for them become deluded, and their delusion is often accompanied by paranoia. Vladimir Putin exemplifies this phenomenon – he is now obviously deranged. Reliable sources tell us that most Russian people do not support the invasion of Ukraine. It’s all about Putin.

But he didn’t arrive on the Russian scene 22 years ago, proclaiming his intention to become a dictator, start a war and stay in power for as long as possible. He persuaded people to support him and did not declare that he would lie, change the rules to suit himself, spend other people’s money for his personal gain and subject himself to different rules to the public.

Civilisation requires that nations have mechanisms for preventing such calamities as Putin. Recent history shows us that this lesson is not always learned.

Susan Alexander

South Gloucestershire

A language Putin understands

If Putin depends on the so-called oligarchs for his position as president, the government should focus on them with ruthless efficiency. Those in the UK should be threatened with deportation and the compulsory purchase of their UK properties. Such draconian measures may be the only way to persuade them to pressure Putin to cease hostilities immediately.

Bill Stevenson

Sudbury, Suffolk

Parallels with 1930s Germany

There are some disturbing parallels between the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the beginning of the Second World War. In each case, the leader of the attacking country used the excuse of “liberating” the areas invaded.

In September 1938, there was a large German population of some 3 million living in what was then called the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia bordering on Germany. To quote from the National Archive website: “Sudeten Germans began protests and provoked violence from the Czech police. Hitler claimed that 300 Sudeten Germans had been killed. This was not actually the case, but Hitler used it as an excuse to place German troops along the Czech border.” Ultimately, this led to an invasion and then total war.

Vladimir Putin has claimed that the two Ukrainian areas currently under dispute, Donetsk and Luhansk, are Russian. Demography studies confirm that the population of the two areas claimed are predominantly Russian-speaking, this being the outcome of a long history of wars between Russia and Ukraine during which the border oscillated backwards and forwards. However, after escaping the control of the Soviet sphere of influence, those Russians now prefer to be Ukrainian and part of a free and democratic country.

In both cases, we have a dictator elected through a dubious democratic process showing serious signs of megalomania, drawing irrational conclusions and manipulating facts.

Richard Grant

Address supplied

No threat from Nato

Mary Dejevsky (“Twenty years of Putin and the west still fails to understand him”, Voices, 15 February) wrote that if Putin decided to invade Ukraine, “it will be because Putin, as Russia’s president, believes that his country’s security is threatened – and threatened, let there be no doubt about it, by us.”

But we, the west, present no threat to Russia – only to kleptocratic dictators like Putin and the other thugs who rule Belarus and Kazakhstan. They can only hold on to their power by ruthlessly suppressing their populations and manipulating the media. Democracy is dangerous to them, but not to the people they rule by force.

David Palmer

Address supplied

Farage shows true colours

Nigel Farage’s comment that the Ukraine invasion is the result of the EU and Nato provoking Russia shows he is as delusional as Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Russia has been testing western reactions in preparation for this moment for a long time. They assassinated Alexander Litvinenko and then conducted what amounts to a chemical warfare attack in the UK. The reaction was weak. He annexed Crimea and has been conducting military operations in eastern Ukraine for many years, and included the shooting down of a Malaysian civil aircraft. The reaction was weak.

The weakening of Europe by Brexit, enabled by blinkered nationalists such as Farage and Boris Johnson, has been a gift to Russia, which openly supported it.

Matt Minshall

Brittany, France

A past some can’t forget

Time spent on reconnaissance is rarely wasted and that includes trying to understand what drives your adversary. If you ask Google for a map showing state borders within Europe and one showing the border between Nato and the Warsaw Pact prior to the collapse of the USSR, it’s very informative. Did any western leaders do this and consider the possible consequences?

I’m not suggesting we should start negotiating with Putin or that the USSR was not a brutal regime built on the oppression of its neighbours and its own people, but it might help us appreciate that we could be wrong in assuming Putin stands alone. Many Russians, while condemning his oppression, could possibly hanker after some old certainties.

John Simpson

Ross on Wye

Measure of stupidity

Any attempt to replace units of measurement from the international system of units by units from the imperial system will fail (‘Government to launch study on economic benefits of reintroducing imperial units’, 23 February).

There are some who were educated before international units were widely used and still find it difficult to accept degrees C, kilograms or metres. However, with a growing proportion of people educated using international units, fewer of us will have difficulty. Schoolchildren will know that reverting to imperial units will be confusing and pointless. Scientists, of course, will ignore any reversion to imperial units.

Jacob Rees-Mogg and Paul Scully should be reviled for wasting taxpayers’ money on civil servants studying the impact of any reversion. The EU will laugh at their stupidity in thinking that bringing back units still used in the US will help in justifying Brexit. It would be more productive to study the impact of changing signposts to kilometres to assist tourism.

John Peacock

Frome

I was hoping to have a letter published that would demonstrate my ability to debate a serious subject given these horribly serious times. Then I read my government will be investigating the return of imperial measurements.

I am left speechless.

Eamonn McCarthy

Mellis, Suffolk

Oh, so there is money?

Every time I read that the government says it can’t afford a new policy, I remind myself of the eye-watering amount that was thrown at a completely useless test and trace system, costing anywhere between £20bn and £35bn.

G Forward

Stirling