HISTORY demonstrates major military conflicts are won by denying the enemy its means of waging war. For Ukraine to prevail Russia’s economy must suffer a deep, long-lasting recession, one that will demonstrate to its people the futility of its de facto war with the West.

It’s immoral that western economies are encouraging Ukrainians to die on the battlefield in its strategic desire to keep the Russian Bear at bay. At the same time major companies like Mondelez, Philip Morris, Unilever and Japan International Tobacco reap the benefits of continuing to operate in Russia. At the state level, the Nordic countries, Ireland and Australia are leading the way by exiting Russia. Those with the highest proportion of companies remaining in situ are Israel, India, China and Turkey, bolstering the Russian economy.

The West needs to step up its efforts to bring Russia to the negotiating table. The only way this will happen is by destroying its ability to deploy battlefield ammunition and the Russian people to feel the economic pain created by its misdirected leadership. If the West and its proxy Ukraine are to prevail we must punish those who bolster the Russian economy.

Robert Gemmell, Port Glasgow.

What happened to Glasgow Airport?

ONCE again, the decline of Glasgow Airport is a topic on your pages (Letters, August 30), and why it occurred is something never explained.

I receive regular emails from the airport which started when it was once constantly expanding with new routes and frequencies.

I still receive these; two recent ones perhaps now describe its current operation. Some months ago, with quite a fanfare, Glasgow's international airport had a Greggs at the international arrivals area. No new route or service there, but a Greggs sandwich bar. I have been invited to visit their great restaurants (couldn't afford the parking charge) and recently the offer was duty-free whiskies, again no new flights.

As your correspondent Rob Kelly states, it has almost half of Scotland's population in the area and excellent road links for more. It used to have well-established operators in place, yet they have nearly all left.

I understand that taxi drivers now describe it as a "bucket and spade" airport: that is mainly European holiday charter routes.

John A Taylor, Dunlop.

Read more: The Scots language is not something you make up as you go along

The glory days of ABC cinema

I WAS fascinated to be reminded of the long and varied history of the Hengler’s/Waldorf/Regal/ABC/O2 building in Sauchiehall Street in Russell Leadbetter’s article (“Intriguing History of ABC Cinema”, The Herald, August 31). It’s probably worth adding that the building was one of the first in Glasgow to have electricity installed, leading to an easy transformation into a cinema with projectors using electric lamps. The oil or gas lamps of the Diorama/Panorama projectors of the 19th century must have been very dim by comparison.

Readers who would like a glimpse into the interior of the Regal Cinema in its heyday might be interested in the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=envdRwUKhJw.

The Regal also had a Compton Cinema Organ. This had three manuals (keyboards) and a pedal board and 12 ranks of organ pipes. It was an electric organ which used wind to make the pipes sound, activated by electromagnets from the keys and stops on the console. As well as the organ pipes hidden at the back of the stage, it had the full “bells and whistles” complement with a range of actual bells of various sizes, whistles, cymbals, dog barks and much more also operated from the console by electromagnets.

To see and hear organist Bobby Pagan putting it through its paces in 1931, there is a video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRTreZBSFKM.

A blast of the cinema organ, five minutes of Pearl and Dean adverts and a choc ice from the usherette at the front of the cinema during the interval – that was a real night at the cinema – and they showed a film as well!

George Kirkland, Bearsden.

Joe 90 comes to life

IN a previous letter I encouraged our leaders to review the Terminator movies as they deliberate on how to regulate the burgeoning world of Artificial Intelligence. By way of further guidance, I would direct same leaders to the 30 episodes of Joe 90 broadcast between 1968 and 1969.

For younger readers Joe 90 followed the exploits of nine-year-old Joe MacLaine, who becomes a spy after his widowed adoptive father invents a device capable of recording expert knowledge and experience then transferring it to another human brain. The device is the Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record And Transfer (“BIG RAT”). The BIGRAT is centred round the “Rat Trap”: a spinning spherical cage in which the pre recorded “brain patterns” are uploaded to the recipient.

Joe is recruited by the World Intelligence Agency as a super-spy. So long as he wears a pair of special glasses containing electrodes that store the transferred brain patterns, he can carry out all manner of tasks from flying fighter aircraft to neurosurgery and playing the piano and of course spying on behalf of the government. He is never uncovered or caught because he has the perfect cover of being “just a wee boy” whom unsuspecting adults just ignore.

This was great fun but thought too far-fetched when it first came out yet here, we are 50 years later about to immerse (lose?) ourselves in the world of virtual reality supported and perhaps eventually led by AI.

Careful what you wish for?

Keith Swinley, Ayr.

Bring back the lone piper

JOHN V Lloyd (Letters, August 31) quite rightly laments the change of commentators on the BBC's broadcast of its selection from the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. His comment about repairing something that isn't broken could be applied to an increasing number of BBC decisions.

Another dreadful example was introduced a few years ago when the breathtaking image of the lone piper - a tiny figure against the massive frontage of the Castle - was replaced by a close-up view with a nondescript background. The piper could be in your sitting room or a studio and the whole emotional impact of the live performance has been denied to television viewers. To deliberately omit this powerful image is not a case of repairing the unbroken but of deliberately breaking it.

Peter Dryburgh, Edinburgh.

Boaty and the beast

I AM very disappointed by the name of the new ferry for Arran ("Over budget and beset by delays, but new ferry has a name at last, as Hull 802 becomes Glen Rosa after vote", The Herald, August 31). I wanted Boaty McBoatface. I am sure the tourists would have loved it.

Scott Simpson, Glasgow.