VLADIMIR Putin has organised the Russian economy as such that financial sanctions won’t hurt it.

He has alliances with large neighbours where his country can export its goods. He has, with those countries, put in place a trading and banking system that means he doesn’t have to deal in dollars and sterling. But above all, at a time when Europe is already struggling with its economy after Covid-19, and the current price shock for energy, he can simply turn off the gas supply and export to his neighbours.

What do we have? Well, we have a nuclear arsenal that we cannot use because if we do, we will destroy the planet and everything on it – that would be called shooting ourselves in the foot. Oh, and we have monthly debt repayments that would wipe out the debts of many economies around the world.

Perhaps now our governmental masters will finally come to the conclusion that many of us reached decades ago – nuclear weapons are a futile waste of resources. Anyone who points to 75 years of world peace is delusional – Putin is proving the point that he can invade a country in spite of a nuclear threat.

Finally, this is not about Nato membership, it’s about power, and Russia’s ability to flex its muscles. In 2014 he invaded the Donbas region and annexed Crimea and in the interim Ukraine still is not a member of Nato.

Francis Deigman, Erskine.

* UKRAINE voted 90 per cent in 1991 in favour of independence and, using its new-found democracy unilaterally disarmed. This was one-third of the former USSR's nuclear arms arsenal. There were 130 intercontinental ballistic missiles with six warheads each, 46 RT-23 Molodets ICBMs with 10 warheads each and 33 heavy bombers; 1,700 warheads were removed from Ukrainian soil. Had they retained them does anyone really believe Vladimir Putin would be invading right now?

Peter Wright, West Kilbride.

PUTIN SHOULD BE A TARGET

I BELIEVE the excellent Jim Sillars (Letters, February 26) has read Vladimir Putin quite wrong.

Russian fears about Nato are manufactured. The Russian people know nothing of those fears. Putin has become the froth on a tidal wave of his own lies.

Manufactured crisis is not new among dictators gearing up for a war of aggression. Read 1939 and Poland's borders.

The Russian people are not interested in imperial glory. Despite thousands of arrests they are protesting at fratricidal war. They are interested in freedom, peace and family.

Putin is the commander in chief in a war which he started. He is therefore a legitimate target in the conduct of war, and whoever slays him shall render Russia and the world a service.

Tim Cox, Bern, Switzerland.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

IN the present fog of war, photographic evidence has emerged of tanks close to the Chernobyl protective sarcophagus. This project, completed a few years ago, is the result of international co-operation and engineering brilliance, resulting in an enclosing structure which seals the damaged reactor, and allows its safe decommission over a number of years.

It is easy to destroy structures, especially in the heat of war; it is a much longer process to tidy up and make them safe, whether residential buildings or power stations. Serhii Plokhy has written about the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, linking it directly to the downfall of the USSR: the news blackout, the lies, and the lack of advice on how to protect nearby residents, other than by mass evacuation. Once a nuclear station suffers irreparable damage, there's no reset possible.

Chernobyl Children's Lifeline is a charity which helps Ukrainian and Belarussian children who grew up near the reactor. Years after the incident, children were still being born with heart defects ("Chernobyl heart") which can be remedied by heart surgery. As with the sarcophagus, international co-operation has helped.

Any fool can start a war: it will take patience, statesmanship and a leavening of empathy on both sides to unravel the present mess. Vladimir Putin comes across as a sad and lonely man; it can be of little comfort to him that his war is (by his definition of Ukraine's status) a civil war. He need only look to America, where Donald Trump and others have raised the spectre of their Civil War of long ago. All we are saying is give peace a chance.

Graeme Orr, Neilston.

* I STILL remember as a young man in 1956 having tears in my eyes while listening to the desperate appeals of the Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy, later executed, as thousands died when Russian tanks rolled in to brutally suppress the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. Nothing changes and 66 years later we have another Russian dictator doing the same thing. The tears have returned.

Alan D Stephen, Glasgow.

ANOTHER ESCAPE FOR JOHNSON

WE have a Prime Minister who has been interrogated by the police under caution (albeit in writing) for violating rules, regulations and even laws designed to limit the spread of Covid-19 that he himself had spelled out to the British public. These, it seems (so his defence now would assert), he didn’t really fully understand.

Just as the outcome of those investigations are about to be made public Vladimir Putin helpfully authorises a Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

Suddenly all talk of the possible removal of the man (something only his own party can do) disappears. "How can we replace a leader in such circumstances?" his acolytes now chime in unison.

No surprise there, that was an argument which had been publicly trailed by some of his more subservient ministers a week or more ago.

Could there have ever been a Prime Minister who would have been hoping for the invasion of another country (with all the death and misery that will entail) to save his own skin?

And then there was the dirty Russian money (his phrase) that was accepted from Russian allegedly pro-Putin oligarchs…such funding of British political parties is, of course, explicitly forbidden by law. But we have also been mistaken about that too. All those Russian oligarchs have, inevitably perhaps, managed to "obtain" (or buy?) British citizenship. That dual citizenship makes it all okay, evidently.

So Boris Johnson will survive for another day… however, how many of us will doubt that he will inevitably err again? But just what kind of crisis will he need to execute his escape the next time?

Ian Graham, Erskine.

PAYING PRICE OF BREXIT FOLLY

WELL said, Paddy Crerar on the real effects the Brexit obsession is having on the Scottish tourist economy in general and the hospitality trade in particular ("Hotelier says ‘xenophobic’ Brexit has created ‘impossible’ situation", The Herald, February 23).

Even more damning was Ian McConnell’s exposé on the previous page of Jacob Rees-Mogg's peddling “the extreme benefits” of the Brexit folly ("Oblivious Rees-Mogg is living in Brexit fantasy land", The Herald, February 23). Clearly the latest Minister for Brexit really does live in Fantasy Land.

On February 9 I wrote to my MP, Alister Jack, pointing out the damage Brexit was doing to our business – two small, long-established shops in our region specialising in quality designer knitwear mainly from producers in Scotland and Ireland. We run with a small staff and my daughter deals with the office side of the business.

Our experience of the hassle and unpredictable costs of deliveries from Ireland in particular are time-consuming and frustrating, not to mention the unreliability of sending online sales to Europe. Nor are we a big enough business to justify additional manpower to deal with the excessive paperwork and uncertainty of procedures that were once straightforward and sensible.

Small individual businesses like ours are the bedrock of Scottish tourism, and it is an insult to our intelligence to keep telling us this situation has “extreme benefits”.

In my letter, my concluding request to Mr Jack, as my MP, was to please consider these comments when we are being fed so much nonsense about the benefits of Brexit. I am still waiting for a response.

Anne Shackleton, Kirkcudbright.

PROBLEM WITH OUR LIST MSPs

DO we have a problem with proportional representation as practised here in Scotland?

In a democracy individuals have the opportunity to influence the laws that govern them by discussing their views with their elected MSPs. My constituency MSP is visible and easy to contact. I have recently tried to engage with four of my six list MSPs via email. So far two emails to each have met with zero response. Are they just going to vote along party lines on everything? What if there is no party line on an issue? How will they acquire knowledge of what the majority of the people in their region think?

Its my understanding that list MSPs take a full MSP salary. Their votes carry equal weight in parliament yet they remain almost invisible to the general public. Can this be improved?

Mrs R Slack, Glasgow.

Read more: West will have to allay Russia's fears