Dear Sir,
Russian’s GDP per capita that is only around one quarter of most European countries at around $10 000 and, as you know, most Russian people live in rather poor conditions with poorly maintained roads, schools, hospitals and homes.
You have huge environmental problems – oil and gas fields pollute groundwater, thousand landfills are pilled high with rubbish, heavy industries and power plants relentlessly spew out pollution, and life expectancy is lower than all European countries. Women die on average at 77 years while men die on average at 65 years because of alcohol, stress, smoking, traffic accidents, and violent crimes.
Now we see that Russia is threatening Ukraine with huge troop movements along Ukraine’s borders. Surely there can no great prize to be secured from invading them – there are no obvious good reasons from a military or strategic viewpoint.
We know that Ukraine is not going to invade Russia, and no European country is interested in attacking Russia.
For some strange reason you only want to discuss solutions about Ukraine with the USA. They have no border with your fine country, and they certainly have no interest in invading Russia. Why does Russia want to be a bad neighbour to us in Europe? We are one of your biggest trading partners and have had well over half a century of peaceful co-existence with you…
With the greatest respect, why does Mother Russia want to create problems for Europe – why do you want to soil your hands with such a poor country like Ukraine? Your behaviour is difficult to understand…
Everyone would be better off helping Ukraine to get out of its own poverty trap… not sending in soldiers…
… and Mother Russia would be better off using your great military power to clean up your own country and to get better organised! No amount of wasteful fighting will make you any richer – quite the opposite. No war will warm the homes of the Russian farmers. Money spent on rockets, grenades, guns and drones could be used for education and healthcare. All of this will increase Russian morale and your popularity!
BTW – we have all seen how the USA also wasted trillions in Afghanistan and in a few other useless campaigns that led nowhere except for death, injuries and more poverty and unstable government.
Instead of wasting money on showing off your military prowess like some North Korean Prince, would not it be better to think about how it can be used to combat Climate Change and improve the lot of the great majority of your ordinary Russian folk?
There is no reason to be ashamed of anything above. You are not to blame for the state of the country when you took over at the reigns. Quite the opposite, history shows us time and time again that it’s much better to try to improve things rather than going off to war.
Br
N.A., The Editor in Chief…
Photo from the kremlin.ru – sourced from Wikipedia Commons CC BY 4.0
