Letter: Nigel Farage is right about Russia and right about who to back in Northern Ireland election

The historic Reagan-Gorbachev agreement of 1990 effectively ended the Soviet Union and granted autonomy to former Soviet Republics like Ukraine, but that independence was strictly predicated on those satellites refraining from entering alliances that threatened the national security of mother Russia. The movement of Ukraine towards joining the EU and NATO as championed by President Zelensky and supported by transient western leaders was a breach of Reagan-Gorbachev and required President Putin to respond robustly.

Putin’s actions were no different to President Kennedy's actions to protect the national security of the United States in 1962 when the Soviet Union moved to place strategic missiles on Cuba that had the capacity to strike targets across America. Kennedy responded with strong diplomatic missives to Kruschev but when diplomacy failed and missiles were en route to Cuba he threatened, and prepared for, a full US invasion of Cuba. When Kruschev realised Kennedy was deadly serious he backed down. Russia spent two years warning Zelensky of the folly of his actions in threatening Russian national security and eventually massed troops on the borders of Ukraine but Ukraine continued to ignore him and called his bluff. Like the USA in 1962 there was no bluff.

The subsequent war, for which we are all paying, has wreaked havoc on the ordinary people of Ukraine and it needs to stop but I was appalled by President Biden's speech at the D Day commemorations last week. He ignored the fact that the success of D Day was dependent on the Russian armies maintaining their costly pressure against the Nazis on the eastern front. While Russian soldiers died in their millions to help us Ukrainian SS units were murdering thousands of Jews and minority groups in the death camps. I sincerely hope that a change of government in the UK will enable a settlement to the Ukraine war and restore the balance achieved by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev over thirty years ago.

Farage has introduced a refreshing realism to the general election campaign including his recent pronouncements in respect of the elections in Northern Ireland. In this most critical of elections for unionism it is vital that we return a maximum number of unionist MPs. In a PR election we can all afford to vote for our unionist of choice, but in a Westminster election we cannot split the vote and allow anti-unionists to be elected. If this means lending one's vote to the candidate most likely to win the seat for unionism then I would argue that is our patriotic duty to do so. Like Nigel Farage, I am not in the DUP but as a unionist voter in East Antrim I will be voting for Sammy Wilson; and if I were in North Antrim I would be voting for Ian Paisley.

The age old unionist adage of 'United we Stand, Divided we Fall' has never had more relevance.

David Campbell, Ex Ulster Unionist chair