Letter: West taken to task

Sir: In his article about Russian carpetbaggers, Darius Sanai refers to the $120-200bn of Russia's wealth spirited out of that country and quotes a British police official as saying, "Capital flight is a matter for the country whose capital is flying" ("Carpetbaggers who take their wealth to the West", 29 August).

The current crisis suggests that it is, and always was, very much a matter for the West too. It was obvious that the Russian economy would become a hotbed of corruption with easy pickings for the Mafia and with massive illegal currency exports a natural result. Why did we not offer to help the Russian government instead of egging it on dogmatically towards full convertibility of the rouble? After all, we would have been quick enough to stop any export of, say, drugs or people: why not currency?

Thus it is the greed of Western governments and banks whose short-termism we have to thank for exacerbating, if not actually causing, the current crisis. Perhaps it is not too late, even now, to include an offer to co- operate with Russia in staunching the drain of foreign currency across our borders as part of any new financial deal.

COLIN MURISON SMALL

London SE27