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Ukrainians need hope

Sir, — There are 44 million Ukrainian citizens living in 27 different regions, similar to our UK counties.

It is an independent nation with its own language and culture.

Ukraine is recognised by the United Nations and the Council of Europe. It is a thousand years older than modern Russia.

For a KGB spy to say that Ukraine does not exist is outrageous.

Putin is finally experiencing the collective powers of global democracy. He has even lost some support from China.

He ignores his military advisors. Putin does not understand global banking. He has caused commercial disaster to his closest wealthy friends and caused the deaths of thousands of Russian soldiers.

His messianic 8th century vision of himself recreating new Mother Russia will fail.

We can help bring about his demise by giving hope to Ukrainians via social media using our existing affinity groups to make contact in practical ways.

Why should we do this? To preserve democracy. Ukraine today, three Baltic republics tomorrow and then?

Henley is a wealthy town with many elderly people who, like me, remember the Second World War. I was born during a Nazi bombing raid on Manchester.

As an INSEAD student, I watched a Soviet military parade in Soviet East Berlin on May Day 1963. It left an indelible impression. I vowed to try to assist east European countries regain their independence if ever this became possible.

I’ve honoured that vow for more than 30 years by assisting Estonia and, more recently, by teaching students in Ukraine and funding start-ups.

Three years ago, Ukrainian doctors and scientists helped me recover from a life-threatening virus, Guillain-Barré syndrome, using a unique triple laser system they developed to help victims of Chernobyl’s radiation.

With Ukrainian assistance, I made a full recovery in nine months. I feel I owe them.

Please consider how you can make friends with English-speaking Ukrainians who share your interests.

Use the internet to look for student organisations, global affinity clubs, such as Lions and Rotary, and any other of your activities to enable you to find Ukrainian people keen to establish an ongoing source of truth about normal life outside Ukraine.

New friendships will evolve, based on a growing appreciation of each other’s interests and concerns.

You can use free translation services, such as Google translate, to enable you to write in English with a translation into Ukrainian.

Many Ukrainian people speak and read English well. They will be even more interested to study English and make friends with like-minded people in Oxfordshire.

Ukraine spends six per cent on education, despite being a poor country. It is a partly rural country, the second largest country in Europe after Russia.

Ukrainians want to study in England. Many will be keen to come to the UK if and when this is possible.

Putin will be replaced as Russian soldiers are killed and army conscripts desert and their mothers will be motivated to start a revolution.

The nuclear threat requires other people to assist Putin and, in the final moments before Putin tries to do this, he will be stopped.

At some point Ukraine will need help to restore its communities.

We can arrange exchanges of their experts, in the same way that Polish people came to the UK when Poland became a member of the European Union.

There are already about 70,000 Ukrainian people living in the UK. We should make it easier for qualified Ukrainians to come to the UK during the conflict, as long as they are able to leave their country.

The UK’s independence from the EU enables us to deal directly with Ukrainian communities on a simple one-to-one basis.

Ukrainians are some of the most inventive people in Europe. Helicopters and Sikorsky, the compact disc was invented by a student in Kyiv, vaccines and many others (www.welcometoukraine.info/15-ukrainian-inventions-that-changed-the-world).

In the aftermath of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, world opinion will increasingly realise it is essential to defeat Putin as an individual, an unelected president who seized power illegally.

His actions will cost his friends their fortunes, his soldiers their lives, his citizens their future.

Unless and until Russia realises the disastrous consequences of Putin’s actions, NATO and all other democratic nations need to deny freedom of movement to all Russian business people and their exports.

This will be hard but a lot less expensive than having to defend Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and all other former soviet satellites that Putin appears to be determined to reconquer.

Each of us needs to appreciate our democratic freedom by giving hope and practical help to some of the 44 million Ukrainians who desperately need our moral and other support. — Yours faithfully,

Peter Woolsey

Binfield Heath

Propaganda by professors

Sir, — I am appalled that you should have published, with no counterview, the article by Professors Kakabadse on the Ukraine tragedy, largely peddling Putin’s distorted views, and that the Henley Business School should be willing to have its name attached to it (Standard, March 4).

We have free speech here, unlike the criminal regime they were justifying, but if published, the appropriate place for is this is in reduced form in the letters page following which I would have expected to see large-scale disagreement.

They cite justification as Russian fear for its border security but just because Putin is paranoid does not mean they are out to get him.

There has been zero evidence of armed Ukrainian aggression against Russia or indeed against Russia by NATO, which has a defensive brief.

Professors Kakabadse cite Russian concern that former parts of the repressive Soviet empire are pulling towards the West as justification for its action.

Do they not consider that, as democracies now, they would reasonably cleave to a group of countries who allow democratic elections, and do not throw their political opponents in jail, away from a regime which brutally represses any trace of democratic protest in its own country and in its satellite Belarus, which murders its opponents on the streets of peaceful foreign cities and which virtually single-handedly propped up the brutal Syrian regime with mass shelling of cities full of civilians and is now repeating this in Ukraine?

The professors cite past evils of Ukraine dating back to the Second World War as part of their justification but Ukraine had developed into a liberal democracy and if one is looking at the past, what of Russia? Millions of its own people murdered by Stalin. What of their actions in Chechnya, Georgia etc?

And I won’t start on their brutal dangerous actions in Ukraine.

We are well enough aware of them thanks to a free press and brave reporters on the ground, unlike the dictatorship they seek to justify.

I don’t doubt they give a reasonably accurate view of Putin’s outlook but an objective view? I don’t think so. — Your faithfully,

Robert Aitken

Lower Assendon

Rambling polemic

Sir, — I am completely at a loss why you would print the article on Ukraine by Professors Kakabadse.

If they are positioning themselves as “serious scholars of geopolitics” I for one cannot take them seriously.

In a long and rambling article, which was neither a balanced history nor convincing polemic, the professors essentially blame the West and, in particular, America for what is happening in Ukraine. Furthermore, in reaching this conclusion, the writers claim that Putin (and by implication Zelensky) are only bit players in this horrible drama.

How can they claim Putin is a bit player? It is Putin who is trying to rewrite history. It is Putin that cannot understand the difference between Russians and Russian speakers. It is Putin who is the rabid nationalist. It is Putin who is trying to recreate imperial Russia. It was Putin who in 2008 occupied Georgian territories South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It was Putin who in 2014 annexed Crimea and in so doing broke the Budapest Memorandum (1994) on guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

It was Putin who surrounded Ukraine with more than 100,000 troops and said he had no intention of invading Ukraine.

It is Putin who is flattening towns and cities in Ukraine. It is Putin that has created one million refugees. It is Putin that is threatening nuclear war. It is Putin that is in the dock for genocide. It is Putin that is behaving like a Nazi.

Ultimately, what we are witnessing is a battle of values. The Ukrainians want to live in a modern, open, democratic society and why shouldn’t they?

This is the very opposite of the country Putin has created for the Russian people. Today’s Russia has become an autocratic police state where all opposition has been squashed, the media controlled and the economy run for the benefit of his cronies.

Putin spends 12 per cent of Russian’s GDP on the military at the expense of the welfare of his people. If Putin wanted peace he could end this war with a single phone call. Be in no doubt, this is Putin’s war.

But why, oh why, is our community newspaper so prominently displaying such pseudo-intellectual rubbish without any balancing view? I look forward to this week’s article on “Why the earth is flat”. — Yours faithfully,

Jamie Cassidy

Thames Side, Henley

Irony of their words

Sir, — Professors Kakabadse must be incredibly grateful that they can use our free press in the form of the Henley Standard to give their apologies for the Putin regime.

This week in Russia the “free” press in the form of TV, radio and newsprint cannot report or say anything except the Putin line.

Are the professors going to ask Putin to allow free speech in Russia?

They state that China has encroached on Russian territory by 2.5km but they do not see the irony of this when Putin has encroached on the democratic state of Ukraine by many kilometres.

Putin has killed many women and children, has bombed whole neighbourhoods and laid siege to towns and cities in an attempt to starve the population into submission.

The population of Russia does not know what is going on precisely because there is no free press to tell them.

According to Putin, “there is no war” and his troops are carrying out “peace-keeping duties”.

The professors state that Ukraine is “integral” to the very fabric of Russian society. Have they asked the Ukrainians what they want or think?

I would like to know if the Henley Business School endorses their views.

I would ask the professors if they feel that a free Ukraine should be allowed to live in peace without interference from Russia.

May I ask that they come up with a plan that will enable Russia to pay reparation for every hospital and school bombed, every home bombed, every Ukrainian civilian killed, every man, woman and child killed and all the trauma suffered.

Now that would be a project worthy of the Henley Business School. — Yours faithfully,

Stefan Gawrysiak

Elizabeth Road, Henley

Different kind of don

Sir — The article written by Professors Kakabadse was pro-Putin propaganda that did not deserve a full page in the Henley Standard.

The invasion of Ukraine was not caused by inevitable geo-political pressures, a desire of the Ukrainian people to be absorbed by Russia and have their democratically elected government removed, Ukrainian ultranationalists, or the global hegemonic ambitions of America.

It was simply caused by a criminal who is running a country as if he were a Mafia don.

He has previously illegally occupied parts of Ukraine and as part of one of these operations, his forces shot down a civilian aircraft and murdered the 298 passengers and crew on board.

To imply that Vladimir Putin has any thought about the care and protection of civilians is laughable based on the historical actions of his forces in Georgia, Chechnya and Syria and, of course, the indiscriminate use of nerve agents in the UK which led to the death of a British citizen.

His current actions in Ukraine show how any promise or statement made by Putin regarding civilian safety should be taken. — Yours faithfully,

Ian Burgess

Baskerville Road, Sonning Common

Apologist nonsense

Sir, — I was distressed and astounded to read Professors Andrew and Nada Kakabadse’s article.

Coming from highly qualified academics, it is doubly astonishing.

It may have been an attempt to explain why Putin has undertaken his murderous intervention into Ukraine but, to me, it seeks to justify it.

Since publication we have heard of even more atrocities conducted by the Russian forces, including breaking a ceasefire and shelling fleeing civilians.

The writers claim that Putin’s requirements were made clear at the start of the conflict, viz, no further NATO expansion, Ukrainians must not become a security threat and there should be no civilian casualties and, presumably, that these requirements justified the conflict. What nonsense.

Russia was not threatened. Why should not a sovereign state join a defensive organisation like NATO? The authors give no reason for this other than it takes the NATO boundary closer to the Russian border. So what — NATO is defensive, not aggressive.

Where is the evidence that the Ukrainians are a security threat? The authors fail again to produce any evidence that this is the case.

As for no civilian casualties, that is clearly a completely hollow statement. To claim that Ukraine and Russia are closely linked in history and religion and then for Russia to undertake this appalling murder and devastation has no logic.

Nowhere in the article do the authors blame Putin for a wholly unjustified and violent attack, not just on the Ukrainians but now in the incarceration of the Russian people who protest against the invasion.

Neither do they criticise an administration that bans outside media from operating in Russia on the spurious grounds that they are reporting fake news, when those of us able to see the carnage wreaked on Ukraine know it is all too real. Putin is an evil man supported by evil cronies.

How the conflict in Ukraine can be ended, I don’t know, but the tone of the article is apologist for Putin and certainly I hope that Reading University, owners of Henley Business School, rapidly disassociate the university from the abhorrent views expressed. — Yours faithfully,

Geoffrey Adams

Woodlands Road, Sonning Common

It’s Putin who’s a Nazi

Sir, — In light of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, we were somewhat dismayed to read the article by Professors Kakabadse purporting to support him.

The photographic evidence of the destruction of civilian housing in key cities does not chime with Putin’s so-called denazification actions. — Yours faithfully,

Barbara Anderson

Highmoor Road, Caversham Heights

Jennifer James

Cranbury Road, Reading

Stick to local news

Editor, — It’s cold comfort for the people of Ukraine to know Russia considers them “part of the family” when Russia apparently follows the honour-killing model of parenthood with independent-minded family members.

For decades, I have enjoyed the Henley Standard for your coverage of local issues, community groups and events.

I’ve never turned to you for illuminating commentary on grave international events. Now I know why. What on earth possessed you? — Yours faithfully,

Caroline Newton

Britwell Salome

Deterrent not working

Editor, — In recent years we have heard the phrase “existential threat” used about all manner of things.

It is surely not alarmist to say that we are now truly in the midst of one.

If and when this threat passes, the UK should surely re-evaluate our defence strategy.

Leaving aside the immorality of menacing people of other nations with nuclear weapons, surely Putin’s wicked and reckless actions have shown that, as with Saddam Hussein, they do not deter cruel and paranoid dictators?

Rather, Western leaders are, thank goodness, frightened to use these deadly boomerangs.

What could more starkly demonstrate that the many billions spent annually on in-service costs has been, and always will be, a foolish waste of money? — Yours faithfully,

Andy Robertson

Folly Green, Woodcote

Leaving EU was unwise

Sir, — Just before the EU referendum I wrote a letter to these pages, expressing the opinion that if we voted to leave, Putin would be delighted, as it was exactly what he wanted.

The very next day after the Henley Standard was published, I received at my home address a personalised letter from a complete stranger, giving me a long lecture on democracy.

I felt that my privacy had been abused and that she should have challenged my views on the open letter pages.

But I took advice and in the end treated her letter with the contempt it deserved and ignored it.

Now, however, in hindsight it was not to me she should have written but directly to Vladimir Putin himself. — Yours faithfully,

Enid Light

Wargrave Road, Henley

I really want to help

I want to drum up some local support for the Ukrainian people during these unprecedented times.

As a baby brand, Bullabaloo has access to lots of “seconds” stock which we would like to send to Ukraine in an effort to help.

We read that thousands of children have had their cancer treatment stopped as a result of the war and about the makeshift baby wards in the undergrounds for mothers who have just given birth.

As a mother myself, I simply cannot fathom this frightening feeling and reality and thank God, I don’t have to (hopefully).

But what I can do is help and I would really like to spread the word that Bullabaloo will be holding a sample sale whereby 100 per cent of proceeds will go towards a charity in Ukraine (yet to be decided while I research what is about).

I am conscious of these larger charities and their six-figure chief executive salaries so I am looking for one that is on a smaller scale which really needs our help. — Yours faithfully,

Susanna Morrison

Founder, Bullabaloo, Peppard

Don’t forget the animals

Humans and animals are suffering in Ukraine’s horrid devastation and urgently need help.

Huge amounts have been raised around the world and after donating last week to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal (www.dec.org.uk), we went looking to see how we can help the terrified animals caught up in this war.

We are fundraising members of Stokenchurch Dog Rescue, which for more than 50 years has saved many thousands of dogs.

Our research found charities rescuing and feeding dogs and cats in Ukraine and those being brought to safety in neighbouring countries. We hope your readers will send donations to help.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare is making evacuations and donating food to animal shelters while www.eurogroupforanimals.org has helped countries quickly lift restrictions on movement of pets to help refugees bring pets out.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals last week bravely delivered hundreds of tons of food to Ukraine’s animal shelters and greeted refugees with pets as they arrived in Poland and other countries.

All of these have easy-to-find websites where it takes less than a minute to make a donation to help humans — or lots of animals.

And don’t forget there are needy families in Oxfordshire who have pets and are hard-pressed to have enough money to buy them food.

When you leave tins etc. at a food bank please include some pet food too. There have been reports of pet owners even having their furry friends put to sleep or given away because they just can’t afford to feed them. — Yours faithfully,

Geoff and Hazel Perfitt

High Wycombe

Please give generously

Editor, — The Henley Constituency Labour Party has made an immediate donation of £1,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Appeal.

We anticipate donating more as we receive more contributions from our members. We resolved that the Ukrainian people need our urgent support and we hope our contribution will help to save lives. We encourage as much support as possible for the Ukrainian people at this critical time. — Yours faithfully,

Paul Swan

Chair, Henley Constituency Labour Party

Honoured for what?

Sir, — Politics. Gavin Williamson. May 2019, sacked as defence secretary by Theresa May.

September 2021, sacked as education secretary by Boris Johnson. March 2022, he is given a knighthood. I wonder if better informed readers than me can explain how this has happened? — Yours faithfully,

Damien D’Souza

Henley

Alternative traffic idea

Sir, — Reading the recent executive briefing from the Henley Society, I note that the Mayor has only withdrawn her proposal for closing Market Place to traffic to a “more convenient time”.

In anticipation of “that time”, can I ask for help in understanding why a short section of Friday Street at the Reading Road end is one way towards the river?

Has anyone considered what would happen if this was reversed?

There would be no need for traffic from over the bridge and aiming for Greys Road and Highlands Farm to go through the car park or up Station Road and turning right into Reading Road.

As fewer cars would go up Station Road the back-up queues along Riverside would be reduced and, heaven forbid, a roundabout at the Reading Road/Station Road junction might be employed.

As many can testify when a roundabout was in place in the past, the traffic did tend to flow. There may well be obvious disadvantages but it’s a low-cost option to try and could well be beneficial both regarding traffic flow and pollution by reducing traffic idling times. — Yours faithfully,

Hugh Crook

Rotherfield Road, Henley

Here’s even shorter way

I read with interest your article about Henley Town Council switching its waste disposal contract (Standard, March 4).

I note the council is switching the contract from Grundon, a long established, local company with its head office in Ewelme, to an Oxford City Council company.

Mention is made by town clerk Sheridan Jacklin-Edward of “reduced mileage of the waste compactor lorries”.

I don’t think that is correct. Henley to the Ardley waste facility is 46 miles.

They could send it to the energy from waste facility at Colnbrook, which is only 19 miles away from Henley, saving 27 miles per trip. So how can it possibly be a reduced mileage?

The site at Colnbrook is very efficient and environmentally friendly and produces enough electricity from the waste to power the whole of Slough.

Like Ardley, the Colnbrook site also has the backing of Viridor and I believe Grundon are also involved. Would the council please clarify its position on this? — Yours faithfully,

Mark Evans

Sonning Common

Extortionate fuel prices

Sir, — In response to Jenny Hadley’s letter (Standard, March 4), the Shell garage in Reading Road, Henley, deserved to have been called out long ago for its extortionate pricing.

While it is true that petrol prices are currently fluctuating enormously, since the closure of the Jet garage its prices have been consistently higher than others in the area.

A quick search of local petrol prices on Monday showed the Shell garage in Henley was charging an eye- watering 179.0p per litre of diesel and 167.9p for unleaded.

This was compared to the Shell garage on White Hill charging 156.9p for diesel and 151.9p for unleaded.

Meanwhile, petrol stations in Reading are charging lower prices than both of these.

To fill a typical 40-litre car tank with diesel at the Reading garage today would cost more than £10 more than the garage on White Hill — a staggering mark-up.

With such a huge disparity in pricing, these decisions are clearly made at local rather than head office level.

The management of the Reading Road Shell garage deserve to lose their business for ripping off Henley residents. Maybe then they will finally be shamed into lowering their prices.

Or is that too much to hope for? — Yours faithfully,

Nicola France

Lower Shiplake

Very brave photographer

Sir, — I noticed the photographs from Robert Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition that you published last week.

I would suggest that anyone interested in Herbert Ponting’s work should check out With Scott to the Pole, which has a fascinating selection of photographs from the archives of the Royal Geographic Society and the Scott Polar Research Institute, including the three you published. It costs £14.99.

I would like to point out that Herbert Ponting did not die of hypothermia on the expedition.

He died some 23 years later in London, presumably not from hypothermia.

Indeed, apart from the five members of the polar party, there were no other deaths among members of the expedition.

The greatest danger to Mr Ponting appears to have been when a number of hungry killer whales attacked the iceflow he was photographing from in an attempt to tip him into the sea. A dramatic rendition shows him bravely clutching camera and tripod while under mortal attack. — Yours faithfully,

Rosemary Ruane

Henley Road, Caversham