Georgia, Ukraine and the spirit of Helsinki

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/27/georgia-ukraine-spirit-of-helsinki

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Your editorial (26 February) states that “the Kremlin’s war over Georgia’s separatist region of South Ossetia” used “defence of Russian minorities as a pretext to negate the sovereignty and the integrity of an independent state”.Not so. The Russian military came to the help of South Ossetia, a small and otherwise defenceless nation (that never wanted to be part of post-Soviet Georgia) when its capital was bombarded by Georgia in a surprise nocturnal attack. “Russian minorities” didn’t come into it, nor was this any sort of “pretext”.Robin Milner-GullandProfessor emeritus, University of Sussex

• This year marks the 40th anniversary of the signature of the Helsinki accords, signed by most European states as well the US and Canada. The two-year negotiations leading up to the signature were hard-fought, with east and west anxious to incorporate their priorities. Although the 1975 Final Act of the conference did not have the status of an international treaty, it played a significant role in furthering detente.

The Soviet Union was insistent on incorporating the principle of the territorial integrity of states, which it felt underwrote its wartime territorial acquisitions. Other principles involved refraining from the threat or use of force, the peaceful settlement of disputes and non-intervention in internal affairs. It is a sign of our troubled times that a self-declared admirer of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin, has driven a coach and horses through the Final Act with his encouragement of and involvement in violent separatism in Ukraine and elsewhere. He is endangering detente in Europe. And if borders are no longer to be respected, Russia might one day find herself with problems ranging from the far east (Kuril Islands) to the west (Kaliningrad).Peter RolandBognor Regis, West Sussex