IT’S perfectly understandable that the Ukrainians wish to escalate the war. If I were a Ukrainian that’s what I would want to do. Indeed I feel no animus against them for trying to do that.

However I am not a Ukrainian and its national security context is not the same as that of the state of which I am a citizen. Arguments that Ukrainian and British national security interests are the same are literally nonsense.

However, military and geopolitically absurdity is a common feature of the history of international relations, as a series of forever wars in the Middle East in recent years testify.

READ MORE: David Pratt: The West plays a perilous game by calling Vladimir Putin’s bluff

Politicians of all stripes lazily say the the world is a dangerous place. The truth is more nuanced: some parts of the world are more geopolitically unstable than others. God help anyone who, for instance, shares a border with Russia or Israel. For such countries, death and destruction, semi- or full-blown warfare are sadly all too familiar.

Situated on the fringes of Western Europe, we are in all regards much more fortunate.

However I am, unfortunately, British. Prime Minter Starmer is, like most of his predecessors, cloaked in great power pretensions. Even the Germans are balking at the latest iteration of the mission creep, though that may have more to do with the worrying electoral threat of the far right.

So Starmer, and therefore we, find ourselves in almost the same position as King Max of Bavaria was in 1812 when his army invaded Russia.

READ MORE: Labour's instinct is still to 'get the Union flag' on nuclear weapons

He found himself in that militarily absurd position because of the close alliance he had with Napoleonic France. It guaranteed that his kingdom would not be gobbled up the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It could be argued, I suppose, that he had a “special relationship” with a modicum of purpose. Quite what the “special relationship” we have with the USA gives Britain today is rather less clear.

Anyway, Max sent more than 20,000 troops into Russia in 1812. He was given assurances by Napoleon that the war would be over before his Grande Armee, of which a Bavarian corps was part, reached Smolensk, the capital of present-day Belarus.

Not for the first time, and sure as hell not for the last, mission creep set in and the rest is history.

One wonders what the 2000 or so Bavarian survivors had to say about their Russian adventure as they sat around sundry campfires in Eastern Poland as they celebrated the new year of 1813. I know not if they toasted the health of their monarch.

READ MORE: Jewish Chronicle in crisis as columnists resign over fake Gaza stories

While it’s true that 2024 is not 1813 or indeed 1945, the basic determinants of warfare have not changed. On the other hand, the means to prosecute war most assuredly has.

Tsar Alexander had, in 1813, the largest mobilised army in Europe. President Putin does not have that, as the attritional grind of the war coupled to the resourceful conduct of Ukraine’s armed forces testify.

Some may find my next assertion shocking but phrases like “Putin is bluffing” are actually not the chant of an elvish magic spell that will make Russia’s nuclear arsenal disappear.

Poking the Russian bear is an age-old pastime. That it’s currently angry and therefore aggressive, a breaker of international law (like from time to time the bald eagle), is neither here nor their.

Rolling the iron dice of warfare is one thing; when those dice are irradiated its quite another.

Bill Ramsay
via email

WHILST I am totally in favour of supplying aid to Ukraine in fighting its war against the Russian aggressor, I am somewhat surprised to hear that the Labour government has been able to commit £600 million in aid at a moment’s notice. Where has this money come from?

We are in the invidious position of having a Chancellor schooled in the banking mentality of economics. We need someone with a much wider understanding of economics in this post. As has been pointed out many times in articles and letters to this paper, £1 in the hands of poor-to-average people is £1 spent, returning it to the economy, and boosting production – particularly as saving is impossible if you cannot afford heating and food. £1 in the hands of someone rich is diverted into savings or investment (and frequently abroad in a tax haven) and so it is money removed from the economy.

READ MORE: Inside the left-wing Scottish independence referendum conference

I would also like to know where all these “wealthy” pensioners are. How do you define a “wealthy” pensioner? Perhaps a better system would be to base assessment of need on income-tax bands. I know there are ways to avoid paying tax, but “wealthy” pensioners will probably be on one of the higher tax bands, and such a system would be much more easily understood, rather than having to fill out a 250-item form, which the present system requires.

The previous government (vile and despicable in nature) seems to have been able to splash the cash if they wanted, by the application of “quantitative easing” (printing money) without causing rampant inflation, although Liz Truss broke that mould in a matter of hours.

Let’s get real. Wake up, Scotland – INDEPENDENCE NOW.

John Johnstone (75, comfortable but not wealthy)
Pitlochry