I NOTE a rather questionable article by Mark McLaughlin (“Russians lurking near Faslane to eavesdrop on nuclear submarines", The Herald, July 11).

Do you really believe that 145 million Russians would elect a leader who would command his nuclear submarines to chase someone's sole and lonely operative U-boat which is firing missiles in the opposite direction or Type 45 destroyers with faulty engines or an aircraft carrier without aircraft on it, all of them being located in Scottish waters?

I shall take the liberty of recalling a piece of “breaking news” from April, 2015 when allegedly a hostile Russian submarine nearly destroyed a Northern Irish fishing vessel. Back then the majority of the media outlets were ablaze with all kinds of speculation and theories. However, in September, 2015 when the dust had settled, it emerged in a statement from the then British Minister of State for the Armed Forces Penny Mordaunt that the perpetrator was a British submarine. It took almost six months for this extraordinary discovery to be made, yet for some odd reason the British press was not so keen on covering such an unfathomable development.

The above is a telling instance of journalists on a hunt for news of the “Russian subs lurking near Faslane”. We have come full circle in order to see a media article based on a report that in its turn is primarily based on other media articles.

We usually refrain from commenting on such articles as this one. Please, do not try to digest it without a smile or at least a grain of salt.

Andrey Pritsepov,

Consul General of the Russian Federation in Edinburgh,

58 Melville Street, Edinburgh.

SHOULD we be worried about Russian submarines “lurking” off Faslane naval base? According to the Henry Jackson Society we should be, but isn’t it just possible that this right-wing think tank is crying wolf again? For example, they say these submarines are lurking in the approaches to Faslane, but nowhere do they define what they mean by either “lurking” or “approaches”. Do they mean that these submarines are under water (lurking?) inside British maritime limits and thus an obvious threat or do they mean that the submarines are in international waters and, if so, where exactly?

A glance at the map of western Scotland shows that there are two alternative approaches to Faslane from the open Atlantic; the first (and shorter) route via the North Channel and the second via the Irish Sea. This, of course, means that in order to track UK Trident subs the Russians would have to have at least three submarines on station at all times – one for the North Channel and at least two for the much wider Irish Sea, yet in their report they say that in the four years from 2013 to 2016 there were only 12 Russian naval approaches in UK seas - and that includes surface ships.

What is the purpose of this surveillance? Well, according to the Henry Jackson Society, it is so that the Russian attack submarines can destroy our Trident subs before they can launch their nuclear missiles. How dare they try to stop us from committing genocide? How dare they try to prevent the incineration of their families and their country?

Iain Gartshore,

16 Barloan Place, Dumbarton.

REFERRING to my letter of July 8, Russell Vallance (Letters, July 11) accuses supporters of nuclear disarmament of “misleading with false information”, but nothing he says backs up his accusation.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will indeed apply to all the countries who sign and ratify it. The treaty was mandated by the General Assembly of the United Nations, who describe it as “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”.

Delegates from 122 states – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and including South Africa and Kazakhstan (the only states so far to relinquish their nuclear arsenal) as well as Iran and Saudi Arabia – have now agreed on the wording of the treaty. It will be open for signature and ratification by any member state at the UN General Assembly in September.

Mr Vallance says that I stated that attempts to limit nuclear weapons have had no effect. I made no such statement. However, an increase in the number of nuclear armed states from five in 1968 when the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was agreed to eight or nine today doesn’t strike me as an unqualified success.

Mr Vallance says that submarines leaving for patrol from Faslane carry eight missiles. Each US-owned Trident missile can be armed with up to eight nuclear warheads. Every warhead is transported on the public roads of Scotland to the store at Coulport before being loaded on to the submarines based at Faslane. And a single warhead can be at least six times more powerful than the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing around 100,000 defenceless men, women and children and leaving thousands more to suffer a lingering and often painful death.

Along with those who have drafted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, I hope to live to see the day when the use, or threat of use, of these weapons is universally agreed to be a crime against humanity.

Michael Rigg,

21 Southbrae Drive, Glasgow.