Britain’s security depends on more than soft power

‘Sometimes the message “We disagree with your actions and want you to stop” falls on deaf ears’: Vladimir Putin at a military exercise near Vladivostok in 2022. Photograph: Mikhail Klimentyev/AP

I am very surprised by Simon Jenkins lamenting the lack of soft power shown to Russia (Note to Starmer and the other sabre-rattlers. Why spend billions on weapons – soft power would keep us safe, 26 June). He writes: “Every conceivable tool should have been deployed to introduce Russia into the European community of nations.”

Russia was incorporated into the G7, received a state visit from the Queen, and was added to Eurovision. Tony Blair gave Vladimir Putin silver cufflinks for his birthday, and supported Russia’s war in Chechnya. None of this, not the facilitating of Russian oligarchic investment in the UK, not BP investing billions in Russia, not Russia hosting the Winter Olympics and World Cup, has worked.