Little wonder our PM left the D-Day commemorations early given the happy display of the EU club there - Yorkshire Post Letters

I had an uncle who fought in Normandy. He once described the battle of Goose Green as a "skirmish" in comparison. D-Day was a dreadful and bloody event, as were the months before and after.

The 80th anniversary of D-Day was a poignant moment for the survivors and the relatives of the dead, but unfortunately it was also hi-jacked as a jolly by some of Europe's leaders.

I'm not surprised that our Prime Minister left early. Macron and his very-made-up wife looked so happy as they hugged and kissed other members of the EU club. Why should they? For the French citizens D-Day was another day of death by the RAF and the USAAF.

During the war 400,000 were killed and many more maimed by allied bombing. In the few days after D-Day Caen, Avranches, Caen, Alencon and scores of other towns were reduced to rubble.

Joe Biden lavished praise on the President of Ukraine although his term has expired and he has cancelled all elections. Biden compared the D-Day landings with Ukraine's futile attempt to drive the Russians out of the Russian speaking provinces of eastern Ukraine, and Crimea.

The Russians were persona non grata at the event, of course, despite their enormous contribution to winning the war. For the Russians the Second World War was the most existential crisis, with 20 million killed, and the infrastructure west of the Urals destroyed.

On their long retreat back to Berlin the Germans destroyed everything. And Russians, even today, remember that many Ukrainians fought on the German side, not least Stefan Bandera, SS officer, and founder of the fascist OUN, and to whom the post-Ukrainian regime after the Maidan coup erected statues.

I don't know if Boris Johnson was at the D-Day 80th anniversary events. Perhaps he should have been so he could have met Zelensky and talked about the ‘heroes’ of the neo-Nazi Azov brigade Johnson met in the Houses of Parliament in front of their flag which displays the SS lightning flash. Instead of talking up more war in Ukraine, politicians should be working out how to end it. That is the real lesson of D-Day.