Russian invasion highlights our urgent need for alternative energy sources

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

It is a strategic mistake to be over-reliant on dictator-led countries such as Russia and China (Getty)

What would be useful, in light of the war, is a campaign by all democracies to turn down their central heating by 3°C or so. The reduction in usage would then enable supplies to be sent to those countries such as Germany, who are over-reliant on Russian gas. The lesson here is that it is a strategic mistake to be over-reliant on dictator-led countries such as Russia and China. We need alternative supplies to fall back on.

Alan Froy

Essex

Taking up arms

It made me cry this morning to see on the news a Ukrainian opposition MP say that her 61-year-old father, who could barely walk, was going to take up arms to defend Kyiv. She said “Dad, you can barely walk,” He said: “I can crawl!”

What an incredibly brave man he is and all those other citizens who are determined to defend their homeland against a far bigger aggressive power. Yet the privileged west is still prevaricating over whether to step up sanctions and do the right thing.

It seems to me that nationalism and self-interest still reign supreme and we are only really interested in protecting access to Russian gas and ensuring that any inconvenience to the west is limited.

I feel that western governments are prepared to make Ukraine a sacrificial lamb in order to protect themselves. If we do not step up and help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, we empower President Putin and will pay a very heavy price for our lack of intervention now.

Louise Hemmingsley

Swindon

Oil and gas

It is striking how much trouble oil and gas has caused us over the years. Wars allegedly fought for it, millions harmed by the pollution caused by its production and use, and the ultimate horror of unreversible climate change that might see our species disappear. Well, horrible for us that is.

Now, we cannot bring ourselves to cut off a brutal and troublesome dictator, and we talk of doing deals with Middle East regimes in order to allow us to solve a European problem.

Germany appears to have woken up to the fact that its Second World War pacifist approach has not enabled it to avoid the uncomfortable truth that aligning yourself as a friend to a bully is going to go wrong at some point. We too treated Russia on the basis that its size and potential permitted some unacceptable facets to its behaviour.

The unfortunate corollary of all this is that the Russian people must suffer to the point that they realise that electing or permitting a leadership that has a vision of past greatness and size is really a very dangerous thing to do. Like Germany, they perhaps need to implement a regime that is more pacifist and collaborative before they are allowed to return to a place or presence in the democratic world.

Dealing with bullies sometimes involves some pain and punishment. This will not be easy, whichever way it goes. We have the same quandary as Kyiv currently faces – resist, maybe defeat them, or be destroyed. Weakness will guarantee only one thing – effective destruction of all we really value.

Russia must be disconnected from the west. If that means disconnecting China from the west, so be it. We owe it to the brave people of Ukraine and ourselves to admit our errors and face up to putting this right.

It is time to wean ourselves off this oil and gas drug and get clean quickly. Very, very quickly. Prepare for pain – but it will be all for the better if we do it completely.

This appallingly dark and enormous cloud has a silver lining.

Michael Mann

Shrewsbury

Isolate Russia

If nobody believed it until now, President Putin has shown a total disregard for diplomacy, peace, human lives and his repeated lies must put an end to any credibility or trust in the Russian leader for ever. The attack against Ukraine was a carefully conceived plan prepared over several years and could well be just the start of a campaign to move further west unless he can be stopped in his tracks now.

Military conflicts only bring destruction on both sides, as history shows. On an interconnected planet in the 21st century, the greatest motivator is money and wealth, which brings power. Internet technology and satellite communications, economic and financial warfare can perhaps achieve victory at a far lesser human cost. Russia has already built up an extensive cyberwarfare machine that can cause more destruction than missiles.

The European Union nations have perhaps been too naive in allowing foreign states to control strategic resources or through the privatisation and relocation of vital industries overseas, especially in the technological sector, leaving the west exposed to changes in the world order, which have been taking place as China, India and Russia strive to become world powers.

The only way short of war for every western European nation, the USA and possibly Japan, is to bring Putin to his senses through a united and firm commitment to isolate Russia from their markets. This requires stopping all banking, financial dealing and trade and ending the buttering up of oligarchs and those close to Putin, freezing their assets and expelling them from their luxury lifestyle in London, Paris, Marbella or Monaco and ending all travel to and from Russia for the foreseeable future. The aim must be to cause the downfall of the Putin regime from inside, with the support of the Russian people.

Of course, this does not prevent Russia from dealing with other parts of the world, but western markets are the most attractive. It will inevitably bring pain to western corporations, bankers, lawyers, sport and other commercial interests. But there is no other way.

Peter Fieldman

London

A perfect storm

Even I, who was disgusted by Johnson back in the day when he was just buying water cannons to use on the folk of London – who were crazy enough to elect him – find new levels of degradation in being part of a country where a prime minister with a distorted Churchill fantasy heads up a ruling party awash with Russian money.

Despite his idiotic strutting and posturing, Johnson was only interested in partying when his own people were dying in droves during the height of the pandemic.

“How low can we go?” has been an ongoing question for Britain during most of Johnson’s premiership, which began with the illegal proroguing of parliament.

I agree with strong sanctions, but four years of a Trump administration followed by decades of London being a hub of Russian money, topped with this clown prime minister are some of the factors that have emboldened the Russian leader.

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh