IT is interesting that the Russian Consul General for Scotland Andrey Pritsepov should reply (Letters, July 13)to your article about Russian submarines monitoring Trident submarine's sonar profile. Methinks he protests too much.
He states that 145 million Russians would not vote for a politician who wastes his time following a "lonely" British submarine. Leaving aside any questions about Russian elections in the past, this "lonely" submarine does have the capacity to turn Moscow into a twin of Chernobyl and consequently the 145 million Russians would probably prefer a leader who did keep a watch on it and its three siblings.
Spying on other countries whether friend or foe has been going on for hundreds of years. Intelligence gathering is the most important part of defence.
Whether it be monitoring communications and breaking codes or watching the movements of other countries' forces, knowing what everyone else is doing is essential strategically. With modern electronic digital processing technology no submarine can hide any more making them, like the battleship, a superseded technology.
When it comes to criticising other country's equipment it is true that the type-45 destroyers are competing with the Austin Allegro in the reliability stakes, however Russia's only carrier cannot go anywhere without a tug and is readily visible by its Trabant-like smoke trail. Perhaps he can translate "pots and kettles" into Russian.
In Wester Ross we feel a special affinity for Russia. All around my house there is still plenty of evidence of the base for the Arctic Convoys which supplied Russia with equipment in 1939-45 war. He is most welcome to visit the various sites and the museum and see a time when Russia and Scotland co-operated to their mutual benefit.
Bruce D Skivington,
8 Pairc a Ghliob, Strath, Gairloch, Wester Ross.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here