Moscow began restricting exports of inert, or "noble" gases, including neon, argon and helium to "unfriendly" countries at the end of May, according to a report by Russian state news agency TASS. All three gases are used to produce the tiny electronic chips found in a raft of consumer products, from smartphones to washing machines to cars, and which have been in critically short supply for months.

What history teaches us about how autocrats lose power — and how Putin might hang on.

How Vladimir Putin’s childhood is affecting us all

EU officials on Tuesday outlined a plan to achieve energy independence from Moscow "well before 2030." The European Union would start by reducing demand for Russian natural gas by two thirds this year

i 00:05:49 will tell you i mean you've got eighty percent german approval right now for spending two percent of gdp on defense that's astonishing i mean the anger of the german people at what the russians 00:06:01 have done is so far beyond the imagination of where you could have been a couple weeks ago five months ago two years ago and i do think there's a greater willingness to take hardship

Russia has said it may close its main gas pipeline to Germany if the West goes ahead with a ban on Russian oil.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said a "rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market", causing prices to more than double to $300 a barrel.

Germany and the Netherlands

Because of the invasion in Ukraine, “people are reminded of the problem, but then they resort to sort of quick fixes, which are not really for the long term,” says Rolf Wüestenhagen, director of the Institute for Economy and the Environment at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

At a global climate meeting Monday, Ukraine’s representative, Svitlana Krakovska, pointed out the connection: “Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots—fossil fuels—and our dependence on them,”

quarter of the key nutrients used in European food production come from Russia.

Russia also produces enormous amounts of nutrients, like potash and phosphate - key ingredients in fertilisers, which enable plants and crops to grow. "Half the world's population gets food as a result of fertilisers... and if that's removed from the field for some crops, [the yield] will drop by 50%," Mr Holsether said.

Actually asking people to do this would be something of a last resort, said Ben McWilliams, a climate and energy analyst at Bruegel.<img alt="These US cities tried to cut natural gas from new homes. Republicans and the gas lobby stepped in" class="media__image" src="//viahtml.hypothes.is/proxy/im_///cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220217094013-01-cities-fossil-fuel-emissions-large-169.jpg">These US cities tried to cut natural gas from new homes. Republicans and the gas lobby stepped in"But who knows? It's an unprecedented situation. I could imagine a kind of political campaign, a real push by European leaders saying, look, if you can help us by turning down 1 degree on your thermostat, it's going to help. And you can see people uniting behind this, against Russian gas," he told CNN. "But ultimately, you'll need much more than this in response."One approach would be to replace around half the gas from other sources, McWilliams said. The United States is already shipping Iiquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe, and EU officials are also looking to countries like Azerbaijan and Qatar. The other half will need to come from cutting demand, McWilliams said, especially as Europe prepares for next winter.Heavy industries, like steelmaking and chemical production, will need to reduce their operations. Homeowners investing in solar panels and heat pumps could help take some pressure off heating systems.Tara Connolly, a campaigner with the international NGO Global Witness who specializes in gas, says that Europe must launch an emergency program to insulate homes, replace gas boilers with heat pumps and accelerate the transition to renewable energy."It is abundantly clear that Europe's gas dependence has provided Putin with the resources to engage in his bloody venture in Ukraine, whilst hampering Europe's response,"

You wrote another essay last week in “The Economist”, and you argue that what's at stake in Ukraine is, and I quote you, "the direction of human history" because it puts at risk what you call the greatest political and moral achievement of modern civilization, 00:18:31 which is the decline of war. So now we are back in a war and potentially afterwards into a new form of cold war or hot war, but hopefully not.

For centuries, Kyiv was looking westwards and was a part of a union with Lithuania and Poland until it was eventually conquered and absorbed by the Russian Empire, by the czarist empire. But even after that, Ukrainians remained a separate people to a large extent, and it's important to know that because this is really what is at stake in this war.

This is a moment that we should seize, in all seriousness, in order to take on the two huge existential plagues that face us this morning: the climate crisis, outlined in this new IPCC report, and the fact that we have a madman with nuclear weapons who’s used the revenues from oil and gas to intimidate and terrify the entire world.

“every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communiqués. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in the face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit.”

The share of state-owned and state-controlled companies contributing to gross national product increased from 35 percent in the early 2000s to 70 percent now.

Sergei Y. Naryshkin