[Livia]

I'd like to post this article from last September in case anyone was wondering why Jeremy Corbyn has been so quiet...

In 2015 he (rightly) attacked Saudi Arabia's human rights record. He praised the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. He attacked "the foul and despicable crimes committed by Isil and by the Assad government, including barrel bombs being dropped on civilian targets", but without mentioning Assad's backer, the supplier of those barrel bombs: Vladimir Putin.

In 2016, he attacked Saudi Arabia's war in the Yemen and promised to suspend arms sales to the Saudis and other countries which commit human rights abuses or war crimes. No other international issue was mentioned at all, apart from Brexit, but this was discussed only in domestic terms.
In 2017, he attacked President Trump on climate change. He again attacked the cruel Saudi war in the Yemen, the crushing of democracy in Egypt and Bahrain, and, without blaming anyone in particular, "the tragic loss of life in Congo". He called on Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi to end the violence against Muslims in her country. He called for the UN secretary general to create dialogue between the United States and North Korea to "wind down the deeply dangerous confrontation over the Korean peninsula", although even here he carefully avoided any criticism of the North Korean dynastic dictator, who has starved and brutalised his own people while creating a long-range nuclear capability. He supported Palestine. He went back to Trump, calling for Britain to be a "candid friend" and publicly attack his policies on immigration, race, religion and pollution.

But there was no such suggestion of candour towards Putin. The speech set out a foreign policy of preaching and even insults for the leader of our biggest ally, and silence towards the leader of our biggest threat.

None of the three speeches gave any endorsement to Nato or confirmed that Britain, under his premiership, would fulfil its obligations towards each member of that alliance. I could not find any such endorsement online either, just a long history of his calls for Nato to be dissolved and for some kind of neutral or demilitarised zone on Russia's long borders. If that policy means anything, it means conceding to Putin a veto over the right of any adjacent country to invite allies to help defend its frontiers.

Since Corbyn has not talked about Putin and Russia in parliament, or to party conference, or during this year's general election, one has to search online for his views on them. I simply could not find a spontaneous, unprompted criticism of Putin.

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-an...lence-on-putin