I find myself increasingly puzzled at the use of the term “weaponisation” to describe Russia’s approach to EU gas supplies.

The inference seems to be that this is something entirely different in nature to the sanctions strategy deployed by the US and EU (Report, Special Reports, September 20).

Chambers Dictionary defines a weapon as something that kills someone, and as “something one can use to get the better of others”.

President Joe Biden seems to appreciate that global sanctions against Russia have, as he put it in a speech in Warsaw in March, the “power to inflict damage that rivals military might”.

So why is it so surprising that Russia adopts a “weaponised” strategy by way of response?

As John F Kennedy said: “New weapons beget counter-weapons.”

Craig Pouncey
Tervuren, Belgium