You call (“EU needs a tougher response to Belarus”, FT View, September 1) for the EU to be ready to intervene more vigorously on behalf of the Belarus democracy movement, including imposing sanctions if necessary on Belarus and Russia.
Really? The EU seems to have learnt its lesson from the Ukraine disaster – the annexation, the war, the really quite dangerous breakdown in Europe’s relations with its local military superpower – even if you have not.
If the EU barges into Belarus the Russians will feel compelled to push back, probably with less restraint than they showed in Ukraine. For the moment they are almost certainly as cautious as we ought to be about being pulled into another east-west confrontation in the centre of Europe.
We should be talking to them quietly (as the French and Germans very likely are) about finding an agreed way out.
As for the sanctions you (once again) advocate, this is turning into an addiction. Seventy-five years’ experience of sanctions against Russia (ie, since the second world war) shows they never work.
The present lot have simply bolstered Russian inflexibility, reinforced domestic support for Putin, and landed the west with the huge political problem of unwinding them when the time comes (as it surely will) to fix relations with Russia. When you are in a hole, stop digging.
Tony Brenton, Cambridge, UK
British Ambassador to Russia from 2004-2008