THE failure by the Atlee government to invite our Polish allies to the World War II victory celebrations (Echo letter 5/7/19) reminds me of the pettiness and lack of respect displayed by the UK Government in not inviting Russian representatives to the 75th Anniversary commemoration of D-Day at Portsmouth this year.

The Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy would simply not have been possible without Russia because the USSR had the bulk of the Wehrmacht tied up on the Eastern front.

In June 1944 the Germans had 150 army divisions on the Eastern Front and 66 on the Western front.

The Red Army and Russian partisans killed four out of five of all German troops killed in War II.

British WWII military casualties were some 114,000.

More than 60,000 British civilians perished in World War II (UK National Archives) not counting the loss of life of Commonwealth and American servicemen and civilians.

It is worth remembering that one in every four Soviet citizens was either killed or wounded in World War II, a total of between 20 and 27 million people.

Poland suffered between 5.6 and 5.8 million people dead. Germany lost 5.5 million military dead and between one million and three million civilian dead. China lost between 15 to 20 million people fighting the Japanese.

Princess Anne is the member of the Royal Family who has visited Russia the most. in 2014 Princess Anne visited the main St Petersburg Cemetery.

Between one and one and a half million civilians and military personnel died as a result of starvation, bombardment and defence operations of the Nazi Siege of Leningrad.

The Princess also attended the commemoration of the World War II Allied convoys to Russia at Archangel in 2016 in northern Russia. 30,000 British sailors

lost their lives in the Arctic Convoys.

ROBERT THEOBALD

Portland Road, Weymouth