Sir, – Vladimir Putin issues veiled, and unveiled, threats against Ukraine because of what is a non-existent planned aggression by Nato ("The Irish Times view on tensions over Ukraine: the price of an invasion", January 3rd).
Mr Putin’s sabre-rattling takes on the image of a stunt for a domestic audience in the hope of deflecting attention from Russia’s internal problems.
Throughout Mr Putin’s latest propaganda spiel, he chooses to forget the history of the Partnership for Peace programme between Russia and Nato, which was established in 1994. This led to Nato and Russia signing several important agreements on cooperation. A Russia-Nato Council was established in 2002 for handling security and related joint issues. But all of this was undone in 2014 because of Russia’s hostile actions against Ukraine. Any threat that Mr Putin claims to perceive from Nato is a cynical fog of disinformation to obscure the Russian people from concentrating on the real threats of Covid-19 and a faltering economy. – Yours, etc,
DAN DONOVAN,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.