Alison Bennett's Monday Mail - Russia, Ukraine and Navalny’s moral courage

Welcome to my Monday Mail. As Mid Sussex’s Lib Dem general election candidate, every Monday, I send a short email sharing a few of the things that I have been doing and thinking about in the last week.

Russia

I was away with my family at half term, and some of our time was spent encouraging our eldest to revise for mock exams this week. Whilst I bowed to other greater parental talents in the field of Science, I led the Twentieth Century history discussion, which I studied at university specialising in the USSR and post Soviet Russia.

Since the time of Peter the Great, Russia has vacillated between embracing and pushing Western Europe away. Throughout this, it has never managed to establish and sustain a meaningful liberal democracy. This was true in Tsarist Russia in the run up to the 1917 Revolution, did not happen in the Soviet era, and despite the hope and optimism that things would change in the 1990s, Putin has returned Russia to the authoritarianism that many Russians don’t want, but the country seems to be unable to escape.

If you would like to read one chapter on Russia and why it is different in mindset to us Western Europeans, a good place to start is the first chapter of Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography. If you like maps, this little thread, full of Polish maps will delight the geographers amongst you.

Navalny and moral courage

The death of Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison was shocking but entirely predictable. It was also a timely reminder that Putin is unwavering in his determination to crush internal opposition to his regime. How should we in the West respond? The UK Government still hasn't sanctioned all those named on the Navalny List, three years on from him being sentenced to prison. Nearly 1 in 5 of those named on the list remain unsanctioned. The Liberal Democrats are calling for this to happen immediately. 

Navalny’s moral courage was incredible. He went back to Russia knowing that he was putting himself in grave danger. I thought that Matthew Syed’s column in the Times had much to ponder. This passage towards the end has stuck with me:

“Navalny’s life doesn’t just highlight what has gone wrong with Russia but offers a rebuke to the West, too. I am not saying that leaders today must have taken personal risks, whether in the military or anywhere else, but I do suggest we need a re-evaluation of the rules and norms that govern public life; perhaps above all a recognition that politics should be about public service, a vocation, an act of self-sacrifice rather than self-enrichment. For too long we have foolishly put our trust in the superficial, the smooth, the groomed, the honeyed, the dubiously plausible, forgetting that in politics, as in life, it is the integrity expressed through courage that matters most.”

Ukraine

It wouldn’t be right to talk about Russia without also reflecting on Ukraine as it is now two years since the Russian invasion. Going back to my days as a student of history, I remember thinking that the First World War lasting four years, and the Second World War lasting six, seemed unimaginably long, and yet in a blink of an eye Ukraine has been at war for two long bloody years with 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead. War weariness has set in in the West, sanctions are ineffective and NATO allies on Russia’s doorstep are imploring us to find the will to stand up to Putin. Take for example the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis who wrote in this Twitter thread after the Security Conference in Munich: 

“We don't lack capacity, we lack the political will and urgency necessary to support Ukraine and maintain our collective security. Russia, on the other hand, has the will to destroy Ukraine and reestablish the Russian Empire.”

The GCSE history that we were revising on holiday was all about appeasing 1930s Germany. Ninety years later, I fear we risk making the same mistakes with Putin.

Finally, let me know your important issues for our campaign

Here is a super short survey to give you the opportunity to tell me what the most important issues are to you for my campaign. I welcome your input.  You can complete it here.

Best wishes,

Cllr Alison Bennett
Prospective Parliamentary Candidate
Mid Sussex Liberal Democrats

P.S. Get updates

If you’ve enjoyed this and want to receive Monday Mail in your inbox, sign up here.