Anne Maclennan thinks western rhetoric will not deter the Russian president, while Stephen Smith is terrified by the apparent lack of concern over the risks of this crisis. Plus letters from Andrew Seber, Darra McFadyen and Margaret Owen
The problem with Russia suffering “colossal losses” (Moscow confirms attack on Kyiv during UN chief’s visit, 29 April) is that this really does not matter to its leaders. You only have to look back at historic campaigns involving Russia and its satellites to see that one of its major tactics is to keep throwing men (and women) into battle until the other side runs out of steam.
A comparison of the allied (British, American and French) cemeteries from the second world war in what was West Berlin and the Soviet war memorial in Treptow Park in the erstwhile East Berlin shows the difference in attitude to the value of human life: on the one hand individual graves lovingly cared for, each with its cross; on the other a vast arena where a statue of a Russian soldier holds aloft a child and stamps on the symbol of Nazism, while looking across to the statue of Mother Russia. Between them lie anonymous sarcophagi, each containing an unnumbered quantity of unnamed bodies.
