Timothy Garton Ash suggests it is time to arm Ukraine against the insurgency in the Donbass and to counter Russian propaganda (Sometimes only guns will stop guns. And Putin must be stopped, 2 February). This is as ill-conceived as it is dangerous and represents a fundamental misreading of the situation. It will only pile logs onto a burning fire, which will only exacerbate the situation. First, it assumes that the insurgency is simply a creature of Moscow’s will, whereas in fact the local leaders have consistently pursued their own interests and agendas, often against Moscow’s wishes. This is a classic case of the client tail wagging the sponsor dog. It was Moscow that stopped the advance on Mariupol in September (much to the chagrin of the insurgents), which could easily have been taken at that time and instead sponsored the Minsk peace process.

Second, despite repeated claims that Russia has engaged in a full-scale invasion, even Ukrainian Colonel-General Viktor Muzhenko, chief of the general staff, recently admitted that there is no Russian invasion of Ukraine. Material and technical support yes, but invasion, no. Third, misplaced analogies of Putin with Hitler, and now with Milosevic, not only add little to our understanding but provide easy explanations for a complex conflict. Fourth, while the shelling of Mariupol was monstrous, the whole war has been accompanied by an endless series of atrocities by both sides. It is time for us to do all that we can to put an end to the suffering. This is effectively a civil war, with the great powers once again lining up on different sides. We should give diplomacy a chance, before the fire consumes us all.

Professor Richard Sakwa

University of Kent

• Filling Ukraine with US arms is an escalation too far when non-weaponised pressure on Putin remains so limited. The history of northern or western armed interventions in recent decades has turned sour. The argument that “guns can only stop guns” is wrong. Soldiers defeat soldiers, not lumps of metal, and a step towards Nato soldiers in Ukraine is not on. Instead we should publish the names of Russian soldiers sent back in body bags, massively step up broadcasts, internet and social media in Russian to offset Putin’s propaganda machine. Ukraine needs economic and administrative support to overcome corruption and disband the Asov battalion with its Swastika insignia. Britain and other EU nations should implement Magnitsky Acts instead of protecting Putin crooks and killers. Some hi-tech kit can indeed be sent to Ukraine but for the democracies to revert to 20th-century arms build-ups will show that we have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

Dr Denis MacShane

London