Unfortunately Putin is a giant, compared to the likes of Cameron, Miliband , and Clegg.

"WHAT DO SILVIO BERLUSCONI, Gerhard Schroeder, Nigel Farage and Alex Salmond have in common?" Asks Alex Spillius, the Daily Telegraph's diplomatic correspondent, in today's edition.

            

             Well they are all part of the Vladimir Putin fan club; and they are not the only ones. Many ordinary British people who do not walk within and entertain in diplomatic circles, also admire him. I, on other hand do not admire him for all the reasons Mr Spillius lists in his article. But I do admire him for defending his nation's interests; which is something British politicians have failed to do for decades when it came to the EU - on the contrary, they have signed away almost all of our national sovereignty; as well as our ability to enact our own laws if they come in conflict with those of the EU - which takes precedence over those implemented by a parliament of democratically elected politicians.

            

              Indeed many British citizens would side with Satan himself if he got into an argument with the EU. This is why so many ordinary people admire Putin. People are making this link, because it was the EU that sought to entice the Ukraine into the EU fold, and by doing so immediately enraged Putin, who has as much of an interest in the Ukraine as the EU (did I just write "as much?" I meant more). Far more in fact. For the Crimea was "gifted" to the Ukraine by a Soviet generation dictator with a perfunctory wave of his hand - as if rewarding the loyalty of the thousands of place-men the Soviet Union put into the Ukraine to keep its citizens quiet (a group in fact that NATO and the West once despised): and if the Ukraine's Russian citizens had protested against  Khrushchev's little "gift" at the time. They would have found themselves on the way to some Gulag in Siberia never to be seen again - so is this the way land is to be distributed?

            

             So Putin has every right to recover the Crimea from the Ukraine; as did Margaret Thatcher help keep the Falklands. As for the eastern parts of the country with its heavily populated Russian speaking peoples. They are calling for the same kind of referendum that David Cameron rightly gave the Falkland islanders.

            

             We know about the way homosexuals are treated by Putin, and all the other ironhanded acts he has been responsible for. There is a saying that Russia's one purpose is to   show the rest of the world how not to go about things - and no better example of this was the October revolution; following the 70 years of a socialist dystopia, under which millions were sacrificed for a political ideology.

THE WEST FEARS THAT Putin is trying to recreate the old Soviet empire - in Europe at least. But it is the EU that seeks to turn the whole of the European continent, extending eastward, at least as far as the Ukraine, into a Federal Europe, or, to use common European  parlance; a United States of Europe; beginning from where Napoleon was driven back by  Mikhail Kutuzov, commander of the Russian army in 1912.

            

              If there is a comparison, admittedly not a thorough one, it is between Kutuzov and Putin; not some communist Neanderthal, like Khrushchev. As for the EU, on the other hand, their progress reminds one of the Napoleonisation of Europe which the emperor sought to, but failed to bring about.

            

              Alex Spillius underestimates the common sense of the ordinary British citizen who have been led, through deference, by a parliament of political donkeys into the various adventures into Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. In Afghanistan we are leaving with our tail between our legs, after a bunch of medieval peasants, obsessed by superstition and encouraged by Western feebleness and irresolution; have managed to claim victory over the most technologically sophisticated and professional armies the world has ever seen.

            

               So why should Putin care about what NATO or an American President, who has openly decreed that there will be no NATO military involvement in the Ukraine, thinks. Putin knows that his opponents are weak, and such people hold no fear for him.

            

               So Mr Spillius. Why are you surprised at such an abundance of Putin's many admirers? Not since Margaret Thatcher, has a European country had such a strong and demanding presence as Putin.

            

               In Afghanistan our soldiers were reined in by their political, and I am sorry to say, military masters in Afghanistan, where a sniper, in one instance, had to seek out permission from an officer to kill some unarmed Taliban deploying an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

IN CHECHEN Putin did what was necessary to destroy his Islamist enemies free of our Western spinelessness. He was brutal. Many Western liberals would have described his acts as barbaric, or even war crimes. But in 2004 Chechen terrorists occupied the Beslan school, and killed 334 pupils while another 783 pupils suffered non-fatal injuries.

            

             Putin did what was needed to destroy his enemies; just as Churchill did when this country was under the threat from Nazism. What Putin did in Chechen was to defend his country at all cost…something which we in the West have lost the ability to do because of the parsimonious limits placed upon our abilities to destroy our enemies, by liberal politicians.

            

             Is it no wonder that Putin has many supporters within Europe. When did Italy or Greece stand up against the appointment of technocrats by Brussels to replace their own elected leaders, to govern their nations?

            

             Yet the West has the audacity to condemn Putin. If they must judge him, then do it by your own standards; especially within the EU.