I appreciate Lou Kimball’s desire for peace (“Letter to the editor: The U.S. does not want negotiated peace,” April 18), but there has to be some sort of line between loving peace and being an unwitting tool of a dictator.

Russia openly invaded the sovereign state of Georgia in 2008. Russia sent thousands of troops and mercenaries to prop up the Assad dictatorship in Syria in 2015 and these have never left. Russian mercenaries have meddled in various African countries for years. Russia continues to meddle in Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijan. Russia illegally seized parts of Ukraine in 2014 in violation of international law.

I understand that the United States has a very checkered record of invading states and has an arguably unnecessarily large military footprint around the world. But playing the game of “whatabout-ism” isn’t going to save the sovereign, independent, state of Ukraine from being absorbed unwillingly into the Russian Federation.

What has been happening for nearly a decade is systematic Russian aggression. Allowing Vladimir Putin to brutalize Ukraine while we stand by whistling “Give Peace a Chance” is depraved. It’s depraved indifference to the Ukrainians, who went to bed one night at peace and woke up the next under fire from Russian bombs and missiles. It is also a denial of reality. Putin will not stop until he is stopped.

Jeremy Smith
Old Orchard Beach