War damage in Mariupol [Mvs.gov.ua Wikimedia Commons]

• I READ Ann Connolly’s letter (How to fund the rebuilding in Ukraine, May 19) about seizing the Russian oligarchs’ wealth in the UK and using it to rebuild in Ukraine.

I would also mention that “holier than thou British banks” also accepted Ukrainian oligarchs’ questionable wealth stolen from the public through corrupt methods from such things as the gas and oil piped through Ukraine from Russia and for which the Russians paid the Ukrainian government vast sums to keep them sweet.

That region has always had this problem of political and social maladministration ever since Nikita Khrushchev gave it self-administration as part of the Soviet system of autonomy. When I visited Kyiv during the Glasnost era, the dislike of the Soviet Russians was palpable.

I suggest researching the history and maybe taking Chicago’s Professor John Mearsheimer’s realpolitik ideas into account to help understand what has caused this conflict in that region.

You know how difficult it is to get to the truth especially when you have the mainstream media and especially the not-so-impartial reporting BBC cheerleading for Ukraine.

CLEM ALFORD
Tavistock Mansion, WC1