To Appease or Not to Appease

Pearls are being clutched among the glorious victors of the Second World War over the delicate question of whether to attend a ceremony of commemoration in Russia. While recognising the USSR's minor contribution to victory (among other shared sacrifices, its defeat of up to three-quarters of the Wehrmacht's total strength may possibly have helped matters), western governments are anxious not to be perceived as accepting either Russia's present bad behaviour or its rewriting of history to suppress the pre-war Nazi-Soviet pact. For his own part, the fiend Putin has been tactful enough to leave Norway, scene of one of Mr Churchill's more farcical bungles, off the guest list. Despite its coarse and barbaric sensibilities, Russia has also omitted mention of the British initiation of city bombing, Mr Churchill's little Holodomor in Bengal, or the deliberate prolonging of the war against Japan for the purpose of using nuclear weapons against human beings. On the subject of present-day Russian morality, Western attendance at the ceremony could easily be used to imply acceptance by Moscow of western support for al-Qaeda in the Middle East, or even of its enthusiastic and profitable participation in the destruction of Yemen by the head-chopping House of Saud. Nevertheless, the perfidious French have already accepted Putin's invitation, leaving the mainland and its American ally to ponder the dreadful possibilities of a diplomatic faux pas.