LETTER: Appeasing Putin is a recipe for disaster

‘In his Saturday letter to the editor, Bob Valentine writes what appears to be a repeat of the letter that Neville Chamberlain wrote to Winston Churchill on the eve of World War II suggesting that Great Britain should work to appease Adolf Hitler by allowing him to annex the Sudetenland. In this case, Mr. Valentine suggests that Vladimir Putin is in the process of rescuing thousands of ethnic Russians from Ukraine.

The facts are, however, that when the Soviet Union dissolved, all of the countries therein had the choice of becoming part of the Russian Federation or becoming an independent sovereign nation. Countries made their choice, and that was that.

Putin, though, felt the Soviet bloc should have stayed together and indicated that he would strive to make that happen again. “Rescuing” Russians from Ukraine is a lame excuse for war. Any of those people in Ukraine could move to Russia where they would be greeted with open arms. Putin needs to be stopped here or it will be World War III.