Coventry is wrong to cut ties with Volgograd

A faded mural on the streets of Coventry is meant to represent an unbreakable bond between itself and Russia. Volgograd twinned with Coventry in 1944, becoming the first city in the world to pair with a foreign counterpart. The mural was called ‘Volgograd Place’ and encapsulated the enduring friendship between East and West which had survived the distant Cold War and the more recent ‘Salisbury Poisonings’. But last week Coventry City Council voted unanimously to suspend relations ‘until such a time they can resume’ due to the ongoing war in the Ukraine. The voices of the local Ukrainian population, the national revulsion of Vladimir Putin’s destructive campaign, and pressure from MPs seemingly forced their hand to take this action. 

The mural has remained in place during Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, throughout the Cold War years when the Soviets brutally suppressed Hungary’s bid for democracy in 1956 and when Russia occupied Afghanistan in 1979.